“Not even if I would marry you?”
“What?” She drew back, looking up at him. “What did you say?” she whispered. She could have sworn she saw moisture in his dark, stormy eyes.
“I said,” he told her so softly she could barely hear him, “would you stay if I married you?”
“You would marry me?” Her head was spinning again. Suddenly her life was full of possibilities. “But why? Why would you marry me? What about Mrs. Sheraton? I know what went on that night so there’s no sense in you denying it.”
“I won’t deny it because I won’t lie to you. But that was a mistake with Grace, Sapphire. It was wrong. I don’t know what I was thinking. I cared so much about you, I…I was afraid.”
She shook her head, trying to understand, needing to understand. This was a part of Blake she had never seen before. He was actually admitting he had been wrong. “You were afraid? Afraid of what?”
“Sapphire, sometimes you are a woman far beyond your years and other times, you—” He pulled off her hat and smoothed her hair with his hand. “I was afraid, my dear, my beloved, because I loved you and I have never loved anyone in my life—” His voice cracked. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how—”
“You love me?” she breathed, not allowing him to finish. “You love me and that’s why you kidnapped me? That’s why you forced me to be a maid in your house, because you loved me?”
He gave a wry grin. “Obviously I wasn’t thinking in quite that manner, but yes. I suppose that is why I did those things. You were just being so obstinate about being Wessex’s daughter and—”
Sapphire’s stomach suddenly tumbled. “Wait,” she said, feeling so light-headed that she could barely think. “Are you saying you still don’t believe me when I say I am Edward Thixton’s daughter?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He caught her hand and drew it to his heart.
If Blake thought people on the docks and on the street were staring at him a moment ago, they were really staring now. A gentleman in a top coat, holding a young boy’s hand to his heart? They would be lucky if they weren’t rushed by an angry mob for indecency.
“Then what are you saying, Blake?” she repeated desperately.
“You left Boston. You lived as a boy—”
“Yes, to earn money for my passage back to England.”
“Exactly. And then when I foiled that, you apparently decided to sell yourself into some sort of child labor to get back.”
“To prove to you.” She lowered her lashes as she rested both hands on his chest. “No. To prove to myself.”
“Which is exactly what I guess I’m trying to say.” He held her hand, kissing her palm. “I cannot be honest with you, Sapphire, and tell you that I believe you were Edward’s daughter, but I can say that I believe you believe it and…”
“And what?” she whispered, praying he understood that everything rested on his next words.
“And so, I’m willing to return to London with you and find out if Edward did indeed marry your mother.” He looked into her eyes, lowering his head over hers. “If you will marry me in exchange.”
“Because you love me,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.
“Because I have loved you, whoever you are, from the day you stood in that parlor waiting to set my arrogant self straight.” He smiled roguishly. “So will you? Will you marry me so that I do not have to continue searching the streets of Boston and New York and heaven knows where else?”
“Yes,” she cried, throwing her arms around him.
Blake wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her into the air. “Yes?”
“Yes!” She held him tightly, lifting her face to his. “Yes, I will marry you, Blake Thixton, Earl of Wessex, and, yes, I love you. I just wanted to hear you say it. It’s all I wanted. I’ve loved you from the very first day you walked your arrogant self into my father’s parlor.”
30
Three weeks later, Sapphire and Blake arrived in London and parted at the docks where they disembarked. Blake took a hired carriage to his town house in Mayfair while Sapphire took another to Lucia’s apartment in Charing Cross. As she alighted from the carriage, tipping the driver well, she adjusted her bonnet. Even after three weeks, she was still happy to be back in women’s clothing again. She didn’t even mind the corset she had once complained about.
After Blake’s epiphany on the docks in New York, they had remained there in the city, booking passage on the next passenger steamer leaving for London. In the week’s time they had to wait, they spent many hours shopping, and the hours they weren’t shopping, they spent in the huge four-poster bed at the Madison-James hotel. They made love more than a dozen times, and ate more than one bowl of strawberries and cream.
Blake had offered numerous times to make her his wife in one of the lovely churches in New York or Boston if she preferred, before they set sail. It seemed important to him that he make up for what he had seen as infidelity to her, but she had assured him that the subject of Grace was forgiven and forgotten, so long as he never walked into a room alone with her again.
It was important to Sapphire that Aunt Lucia and Angelique be present at their wedding, so London it would be. Her only regret was that Armand would not be there to celebrate her day, but that was of course impossible. She wasn’t even certain he was still alive.
At the door of Aunt Lucia’s apartments, Sapphire took a moment to smooth her blue and green floral barege gown with its full Marie sleeves tied at intervals with ribbon and a fashionable full pelèrine. She wore gloves dyed to match the blue in the dress and her wide-brimmed high-crowned bonnet was decorated with blue and green flowers. The flowers matched her eyes perfectly, Blake had pointed out as he kissed her goodbye on the docks and readjusted her bonnet for her.
Sapphire smiled to herself as she knocked on the door. Blake told her every day, practically every hour, that he loved her, and still she couldn’t get enough of those words. She couldn’t wait to hear what Angelique would have to say about that.
The door opened and Avena appeared in the doorway. She took one look at Sapphire and squealed in delight, grasped the hem of her white apron and raised it up over her face. “A ghost, God save me,” she swore. “I’ve seen a ghost!”
Sapphire laughed and walked in, removing her gloves. “Not a ghost, Avena—it’s me. See, me in the flesh.” She tapped her chest with her gloves and then hugged the maid.
“Is that Jessup, Avena?” Aunt Lucia called from down the hall. “Tell him I’m coming. We mustn’t be late. They’ll not hold the ship!”
Avena slowly drew the apron off her face, her eyes widening. “Not Mr. Stowe, madame,” she said in excellent English.
“Not Mr. Stowe?” Lucia’s voice grew louder as she came down the hall. “Then who—”
Sapphire turned to the hallway just as her godmother entered the parlor, slipping an earring onto her ear.
“Sapphire!” Aunt Lucia cried.
Sapphire ran into her aunt’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you,” she laughed, hugging the plump woman, resting her cheek on her shoulder to smell her French perfume. “I’ve missed you so much and I have so much to tell you!”
“It’s you! It’s really you!” Aunt Lucia leaned back and pressed her hands to Sapphire’s cheeks, looking up into her face. “I told Angelique you would be fine. That you were safe and that you would come home to—” Her hands flew suddenly to her mouth. “Oh, no. Angelique and Henry! Avena!” Aunt Lucia cried, hurrying toward her, flapping her arms. “Mr. Stowe, you must meet him on the street downstairs. He must get to the ship.”
“What ship?” Sapphire asked in confusion.
“The ship bound for Boston, of course,” Lucia said, as if Sapphire was a foolish child.
Avena ran out of the apartments, leaving Lucia to close the door behind her. “The one with Angelique and Henry on it. They married last week, packed their bags and booked passage to America. They were coming to look for you!”<
br />
Sapphire laughed, her eyes brimming with tears as she walked into Lucia’s arms again. “We can’t have that, Aunt Lucia. She has to be here for my wedding!”
Less than a month later, Sapphire stood in the vestibule of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, trembling inside her new pale blue silk slippers. Because of the title Blake held as the Earl of Wessex, he had been given permission to be married at Westminster Abbey and everyone who was anyone in London society had been invited, despite her protest that nothing more than a small, private ceremony was necessary.
Now, as Sapphire stood waiting for the trumpets to sound that would signal her entrance into the chapel, she found herself shaking all over. Nothing in the past six weeks seemed real to her, but suddenly, standing there, seeing Blake at the altar, it was all too real.
Her hand shaking, Sapphire brought a gloved finger to the jewel at the base of her throat. Blake had insisted he have the sapphire left to her by her mother set in a wedding necklace for her, and as beautiful as the jewel had been lying in the velvet bag in her mother’s keepsake casket, it was even more beautiful framed in diamonds, set in gold.
“Are you ready?” Angelique whispered in her ear.
Sapphire glanced down at the pale blue gown she wore. Avena’s fiancé’s mother had sewn it for her, finishing it just in time for the wedding. Made of satin and lace, it was of the most elegant French fashion with a neckline that bared her shoulders and demi-gigot sleeves that made her feel as if she were a princess.
Trumpets blasted, startling Sapphire out of her reverie, and she stared up at the marble columns that stretched high into the ceiling above her. She looked to Angelique, who smiled.
“This is it, what you’ve always wanted, what you’ve waited for your whole life. True love,” Angelique murmured. “Now, stop looking so frightened. It’s Blake.” She swept her hand in his direction. “He’s waiting for you.”
Sapphire looked down the aisle she would soon walk, and at the very end, standing beside the rector, she saw Blake. He was dressed exquisitely in black and he was waiting for her.
Angelique gave Sapphire a little nudge, and closing her eyes, sending a silent prayer heavenward, Sapphire began the long walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey.
The next hour was a blur of faces, voices, music, the low rumble of the rector’s voice, and the warmth and comfort of Blake’s hand. All of London truly had come out to see Lord Wessex wed a girl who a year ago had been scandalized by rumor. The Dowager Lady Wessex was there with her pinch-faced daughters, Lord and Lady Morrow and the Baron and Baroness Wells and even Lord and Lady Carlisle who, a year before, had put Sapphire out of their house. Somehow, the past was all forgotten and the well-wishers who gathered were all smiling, whispering to one another how beautiful the bride was and what a gentleman the American had turned out to be.
Sapphire felt as if she were floating on a cloud of blue silk when, at last, the rector pronounced them wed and Blake lowered his head over hers to kiss her. Their lips met and he whispered to her, “With this kiss, I thee wed.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and he drew her closer, deepening the kiss.
The trumpets sounded again, echoing off the flying buttresses high overhead.
At last, breathless, Blake lifted his head and offered her his arm. Side by side, they walked back down the aisle of Westminster Abbey, now scattered with white rose petals, their gazes for no one but each other. The wedding party and guests followed behind them and back in the vestibule, everyone gathered around to wish them well.
“Countess Wessex, my love, congratulations,” Aunt Lucia cried, pushing her way through the crowd to throw her arms first around Sapphire, then Blake. “My Jessup has a gift for you.”
“Perhaps once we arrive at Lord Morrow’s,” Blake suggested, putting his arm around Sapphire in an attempt to protect her from everyone crowding around.
“No,” Aunt Lucia insisted. “Here. Now.” She looped her arm through Sapphire’s and dragged her toward a small alcove near a life-size statue of St. Francis.
Blake had no choice but to follow.
I’m sorry, Sapphire mouthed over her shoulder to Blake.
Blake only laughed.
“Our bride, the new Countess Wessex, will meet you at Lord and Lady Morrow’s,” Aunt Lucia called to the guests, waving a handkerchief over her shoulder. “Jessup, love, come at once,” she called.
In the alcove, Sapphire turned to Aunt Lucia. “Please, our guests. The coach waits for us.”
“A coach and eight,” Blake teased, adjusting his silk top hat. “I’m not certain I can afford to pay them to wait much longer.”
“Please, Aunt Lucia.”
“This will take only a moment,” Aunt Lucia insisted. “Here he comes now.”
Sapphire looked up to see Mr. Stowe, hustling toward them, an elderly frail man in tow. “Congratulations,” he declared, red faced and laughing as he kissed Sapphire on both cheeks and pumped Blake’s hand. “My lord.”
“Jessup, please, do get on with it,” Aunt Lucia sang. “They have a coach and eight waiting to take them to the reception.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Jessup grinned. “Well, I would like to introduce you to Father Paul Seton.”
Sapphire dipped a quick curtsy and Blake offered his hand. “Father.”
“Tell them, Jessup,” Aunt Lucia urged, sounding as if she were about to burst with excitement.
“Father Paul was the rector in a small church in Shemingsbury Cross for many years and there he married many couples. Mostly poor couples, but not all.”
The elderly man in a collar bobbed his head, grinning, as pleased with himself as Lucia seemed to be with him.
“Father Paul remembers one marriage in particular, though, more than twenty years ago, a wedding he performed between a distinguished gentleman and a village girl.”
Sapphire gasped and she reached for Blake’s hand.
“The church burned to the ground many years ago,” the old man said, his voice reedy. “Records all burned. Gone.”
“But tell them what a sly fellow you were, Father Paul,” Aunt Lucia urged. “Tell them.”
“I kept copies of all church records,” Father Paul explained. “It’s a practice I’ve followed from my first parish in Whitford Downs. Not so difficult. Shemingsbury Cross was a small shire.” He reached inside his black frock and produced a faded, torn piece of paper. “I have here a letter of marriage signed in April of the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ten by a Miss Sophie Barkley, yeoman’s daughter, and a Lord Edward Thixton, Viscount of Hastings.”
The old man offered the piece of paper, but Sapphire’s hands were trembling so hard that she couldn’t take it from him. Blake took the paper and studied it for a moment, then he turned to Sapphire, looking down at her as if no one else were there. He took her gloved hand in his and went down on one knee.
Sapphire fought tears of happiness.
“Will you forgive me, Lady Wessex, for ever doubting you for a moment?” he asked.
Sapphire threw her arms around Blake, suffocating him in a cloud of blue wedding silk. “Come, Lord Wessex, we have three hundred guests and a coach and eight that we mustn’t keep waiting.”
31
“Armand, are you awake, mon chèr?” Tarasai asked, sitting down on the edge of his bed. When he didn’t answer, she took her son, sleeping in the crook of her arm, and laid him on the bed beside his father. Then she slowly leaned over to turn up the oil lamp beside the bed.
It was the middle of the night and Tarasai had risen to feed the baby. As always, she came to check on Armand before going back to sleep. He had had a day full of excitement between the arrival of the letter announcing Sapphire’s marriage to the American, telling of the church records that had been found verifying his stepdaughter’s legitimacy, and the subsequent arrival of Armand’s barrister, whom he’d demanded be brought to his bedside at once. Tarasai had tried to argue that whatever business he had
with the barrister could wait until the following day when he had rested, but Armand would not hear of it. The barrister had remained locked up in the bedchamber with Armand for hours and later Armand had seemed more tired than usual when she had said good-night.
“Mon amour?”
The baby made little sucking sounds in his sleep.
“Armand?” Tarasai’s heart fluttered inside her chest as she leaned over him, drawing the lamp closer with her hand.
He lay flat on his back, the sheet pulled neatly to his chest, his black hair now peppered with white. His eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly, and even before Tarasai checked for his breath on her cheek, she knew she would not feel it.
“Non,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes as she took his cool hand in hers and brought it to her lips. “Non, Armand. Not yet.”
Tears ran down her cheeks as she rested her head on his chest. Tonight, when she had been helping him prepare for bed, he had seemed so happy. The relief that his Sapphire was safe and loved was plain on his face. He had held their son in his arms and kissed his little fingers, making a fuss about what a strong man he would grow to be and what an excellent planter he would make.
Tarasai had paid little attention to his nonsensical talk, shushing him and insisting he hand over the baby and get into bed. He had seemed so much stronger than in the weeks past. How could he have just lain down and died?
The baby began to fuss and Tarasai sat up, reaching for her son and bringing him to her breast. She pushed aside the thin fabric of her nightgown and the baby nuzzled and latched.
“My Armand,” she murmured, gazing down on his handsome face. “I did not even tell you that I loved you.”
But Tarasai knew he knew. “Au revoir, mon amour,” she whispered, smiling down at him through her tears. “Au revoir and thank you, my Armand. Thank you for my son.”
Epilogue
Sapphire sat on the edge of the bed rereading the letter Aunt Lucia had sent her from London. There was also one for Sapphire to forward to Angelique as soon as she learned where out West she and Henry were.
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