Someone Perfect (Westcott Book 10)
Page 34
He handed his bride into the carriage and followed her in.
“Protect your ears,” he said.
She tipped back her head and closed her eyes briefly as the church bells pealed to announce their marriage. The congregation—their family—was beginning to spill out of the church.
“Oh,” she said, turning shining eyes in his direction. “This is the happiest day of my life, Justin. I know that is not very original, but—”
He did not hear the rest. For the carriage was in motion and so were all the pots and pans and Lord knew what else tied beneath it. It created a ferociously deafening din.
He set an arm about her shoulders and turned her toward him.
“Why waste time trying to talk?” he said, though neither of them heard his words. He kissed her.
Unknown to either of them, a cheer went up from those gathered outside the church gates— and those in the churchyard too.
The entry hall at Everleigh was decorated in autumn colors and would have quite taken her breath away if there had been any more to take, Estelle said, laughing, when they entered it— to find all the household servants lined up in two rows to greet them with applause when they stepped over the threshold.
The state dining room in the north wing was similarly decorated, as was the nearer of the smaller reception rooms on one side of it and the ladies’ withdrawing room on the other. Estelle and Justin moved from room to room trying to greet everyone personally before everyone was seated for the wedding breakfast.
Estelle hugged her stepsiblings— Camille, Abigail with Gil, and Harry with Lydia, who interestingly appeared to have lost some of the slimness of her waist since Estelle last saw her at her own wedding in the spring. She shook hands with Thomas Wickford from Yorkshire, and hugged his wife, Sarah, the youngest of Maria’s aunts. She hugged all of the Westcott sisters, her stepmother’s former sisters-inlaw— Aunt Matilda, Aunt Louise, and Aunt Mildred. She laughed and chattered with various cousins, and kept an arm about Andrew’s shoulders as he hauled out of a bulging pocket his latest stone carving to show her; it was inspired, she believed, by the carvings on the Palladian bridge. His sister Winifred explained that Ricky Mort had found the stone for him. Ricky had sat with the boy while he carved, and the two of them had somehow been able to communicate even though Andrew could neither hear nor talk.
Estelle hugged and thanked the Ormsbury aunts when she saw the state dining room, which was gorgeous in the splendor of its decorations and table settings.
“How would we have managed without you?” she asked them.
“Very easily, Estelle,” Lord Crowther told her. “All you really need for a wedding is a clergyman and a license and a willing bride and groom.”
“If I did not know he was merely trying to provoke me,” Lady Crowther said, tossing a glance at the ceiling, “I would give that idea the answer it deserves. Thank you, Estelle. Felicity and I worked hard. And we enjoyed every moment. I can see a dozen other ladies in this very room who would have been only too happy to take our place if we had been unavailable. At least a dozen.”
The meal was sumptuous. It was followed by speeches and toasts and the cutting of the bottom layer of the four-tier cake. Sidney Sharpe gave the speech the best man would normally have given. Wesley Mort had apparently agreed— very reluctantly— to be Justin’s best man, but only on the condition that he would not also be expected to attend the wedding breakfast. He would, however, be at the ball this evening. His wife would see to that. So would Ricky.
“We have a few hours,” Justin said when the breakfast was over. He had Estelle’s hand clasped in his. “How would you like to use them?”
“I am quite weary,” she said, surprised by the truth of her words. “The summerhouse? The lake? The grotto? The library?”
“We made the bed at the summerhouse work for us once upon a time,” he said. “But for the next time, Estelle, I want something altogether more spacious. I think this afternoon should be the next time. And I have not yet shown you the countess’s bedchamber, have I?”
“It might be considered scandalous if you had,” she said.
“Come and see it now,” he said.
“We will not be missed?” she asked him.
His eyes laughed at her. “I would expect that everyone will miss us,” he said. “But everyone will know where we are, so no one will come looking.”
“I think,” she said, “I am blushing.”
His eyes roamed her face. “You are,” he said. “Blushes become you.”
“Ah, Justin.” She sighed. “Take me to see the countess’s room, then. My room.”
They spent three hours there before Justin rang for her maid and his own valet. And for those hours Estelle seemed to forget her weariness except during a few brief intervals while they both dozed. They made vigorous, joyful love on either side of those intervals. And talked love words and nonsense and smiled and laughed.
“It is the laughter and the joy that I remember from my childhood here,” he told her. “My parents were forever talking silliness to each other and tickling me and pretending to eat me up and hugging me while they told me what a little pest I was. That was when Everleigh felt like home.”
“It will feel like that again,” she promised him.
“Oh,” he said, “it already does, Estelle. Will you think me very greedy if I have you one more time before we get ready for the ball?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I am greedy too, you see.”
“Mmm,” he said, covering her mouth with his. Again.
* * *
The wedding and the breakfast had been for family. The ball was for the community too. Justin had signed all the invitations that had been put before him after his return from Wes’s wedding, and they had been sent out to families at the village and in the countryside for miles around. All, almost without exception, had sent back acceptances and came promptly at the appointed hour. Justin stood with his bride just inside the doors of the grand reception hall, the dome soaring above them, tasteful wine and gold decorations all about them, wound about the great stone pillars and in festoons over the balustrade of the gallery. The orchestra platform was surrounded by pots of autumn-hued chrysanthemums. They were greeting their guests.
Estelle was at her most elegant and beautiful in a high-waisted, simply styled gown of dull gold, her dark hair almost severe in a smooth chignon that shone in the light of myriad candles. She was at her most charming too, and she had a word and a smile for everyone. Even setting aside the fact that he loved her, Justin could see that she was going to be the perfect countess. But of course that was a nonsense thought, for he did love her. More than he had ever thought it possible to love. And, wonder of wonders, she seemed to love him just as much, callused hands and broken nose and overblown muscles notwithstanding.
Maria, who came into the room in the midst of a cluster of cousins, most of them not even her blood relations, hugged them both and clung to Justin for a few moments.
“Thank you, Justin,” she said. “Thank you for bringing me home.”
That was all, and she was off to be a part of her group and to join a few other young people. But it almost brought Justin to his knees.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Estelle.
“I did,” she said. “Maria has been sparkling today.”
Lady Maple, Justin could see, was sitting in a group with Mrs. Kingsley and a couple of older ladies from the neighborhood. Leonard Dickson and Irwin Chandler were deep in conversation with the Duke of Netherby. Maria was gathering young Winifred Cunningham into her group. The Earl and Countess of Riverdale were talking with Patricia Chandler and Sarah Wickford, her sister. Estelle’s aunt Jane appeared to be holding her own with Lady Hodgkins. A couple of young girls from the village were flirting with Viscount Watley, who was humoring them good-naturedly without in any way flirting back. Wes seemed to be about as uncomfortable as it was possible for a man to be while Estelle’s father and stepmother chatted ami
ably with Hilda and him. Ricky was smiling brightly as he chattered away to the Westcott sisters, all three of whom were listening with what looked like genuine interest.
“Your friend Hilda Mort is a surprise to me,” Estelle said. “For some reason I expected a woman who was large and managing. Instead she is petite and pretty— and those two very large men clearly adore her.”
“The power of womanhood,” he said, grinning at her.
And then the dancing began with a country set that everyone knew and in which most participated. Justin led it off with Estelle.
“So,” he said. “Were you right? Does this make a good ballroom?”
“Absolutely the best,” she said. “Justin, I am so glad our wedding has been here. It seems so right that we are celebrating this evening in this round room, surrounded by our family and our neighbors.”
“And it is always easier to waltz in a circular room,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows.
“No corner to negotiate,” he explained.
The waltz was next. Justin had been determined that Estelle would be his partner, of course, but he had not given any instructions that they dance it alone. It happened anyway, and Justin suspected his aunts had indeed considered every fine detail of this wedding. When the dance was announced and he led Estelle onto the floor, no one else joined them there. Everyone stood around the perimeter. Some had even gone up to the gallery. And there was a murmur and a smattering of applause.
He smiled at Estelle, and she smiled back.
“I hope,” she said, “you know the steps.”
“What steps?” he asked, setting his right arm about her waist while she set one hand on his shoulder and he took her other hand in his. “Help!”
She laughed. “Well, you know,” she said, “I have never seen you at a ball in London.”
The music began and he led his bride into the waltz, twirling her slowly while they caught the rhythm and arranged their feet so that they did not step upon each other’s. Then he twirled her more boldly as he smiled into her eyes and she smiled back.
“I love you,” he said.
“I am glad,” she said. “For I love you too.”
Some of the spectators were clapping to the rhythm. A few wags called out encouragement. Someone whistled.
After a few minutes the Marquess of Dorchester stepped onto the floor with the marchioness, and Watley with Maria, and Harry Westcott with his wife, and Sid Sharpe with Angela Ormsbury, and Nigel Dickson with Winifred Cunningham. And gradually the floor filled with dancers, and their guests celebrated a wedding.
He had felt so terribly alone, Justin remembered. Then he had gone to fetch Maria. And invited his relatives and hers to come here in a desperate, potentially disastrous attempt to make her feel at home. And then he had come across a woman alone on a riverbank, her dress up about her knees, her feet dangling in the water, her hair loose and untidy down her back.
And here he was, a mere few months later. At home. No longer alone. Dancing in a room full of people with whom he belonged and always would. Waltzing with that woman from the riverbank.
His wife. His countess.
“Happy?” he asked.
She nodded. “Happy,” she said.
His love.
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