Someone to Cherish

by Balogh, Mary

  “How is Esther?” she asked, and he beamed as he told her how his wife was remaining so sweet and cheerful even though he was insisting that she spend most of her days on the chaise in her room or the long couch in the drawing room, with her feet up.

  “Though I have insisted that while I am away she remain in her room,” he said. “Until I return to carry her down to the drawing room, that is.”

  Lydia smiled and took the leftover scones and cake out of the pantry. Her mind was beginning to race. She and Harry had agreed to keep their betrothal and wedding plans strictly secret from everyone except the vicar and the two witnesses. Their reason had been that it would not seem fair to involve his family when her own was far away. Now suddenly most of her family was here. Only Esther and Anthony were missing. But she could not say anything. Not without consulting Harry first.

  James and William would not stay for a cup of tea even though they must be hungry and thirsty after their journey. They insisted upon going without delay to reserve rooms and find stabling for the horses.

  So Lydia settled down to a visit with her father while her mind kept on churning over what she could say. It was unlikely Harry would come until much later, and it was important to her that any decision to be made be made together.

  She had less time to wait than she had expected. Within an hour after her brothers left, there was a knock upon her door and she opened it to discover on her doorstep two scowling brothers, a smiling, bonnetless, gloveless Marchioness of Dorchester, and a hatless Harry with a bright red chin and an upper lip that looked considerably fatter than it normally did.

  What—?

  “Lydie, you are not to worry—”

  “We will have you away from here, Lydie—”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Tavernor.”

  “Hello, Lydia.”

  They all spoke at the same time.

  “What in thunder?” Her father had come up behind her. “Is this the villain? Get him away from here. He is not coming inside this house. I forbid it. Lydie has her father to look after her now.”

  “Papa,” Lydia said, “this is my house. Please come in, all of you. Lady Dorchester, this is my father. The Marchioness of Dorchester, Papa. Major Westcott’s mother.”

  What on earth had happened? But it was a rhetorical question. Clearly the need to go to the inn in such a hurry to reserve rooms had been merely an excuse on her brothers’ part to go and confront Harry.

  “How do you do, Mr. Winterbourne?” the marchioness said. “How reassuring it must be for Mrs. Tavernor to have relatives who care so much for her that they have come a long distance in support of her. You will be returning home with your father, Mrs. Tavernor?”

  “I will not,” Lydia said. “Oh, this cottage was not built for so many people looming. Will you all please sit down?”

  Amazingly they all did except for Harry, who stood just inside her living room, his hands clasped at his back.

  “And I suppose,” Lydia continued, “one of you—James, at a guess—felt that you must defend my honor by finding Harry and hitting him. I suppose Lady Hill in her letter to Papa mentioned the fact that he kissed me when he conveyed me home from a village assembly in his carriage. Perhaps she even mentioned that he kissed me on the forehead. And thus, of course, he became the grand villain of the piece and you must all rush here to haul me home and punish the man who kissed my brow. I see no marks on either James or William. Was Harry too sensible to fight back? And did either of you even think of consulting me first? Of asking me exactly what happened? Of discovering from me if Harry did anything that was remotely either disrespectful or villainous? Has either of you even noticed during the past twenty-eight years that I have a voice? Has either of you even considered the possibility that perhaps I have a mind?”

  “Now, Lydie—” her father began.

  “And you, Papa,” she said, turning her glare on him. “Were you a party to this? Did you know that the first thing James and William intended to do after they arrived here was to go and mete out punishment without even asking me for my side of the story and my feelings and preferences? No, do not answer. Of course you knew. And you should be ashamed of yourself. All three of you should. You came here to take me home. Can’t you understand I am home? This is where I belong and where I choose to stay. I love you all very dearly, but I want to hear your apology to Harry.”

  Oh dear. Where had all that come from?

  “Lydia.” Harry’s hands had come to her shoulders from behind. “Perhaps we should tell your father and brothers? And my mother too?”

  “You are not worthy to shine Lydie’s shoes,” her father said. “I do not like to see your hands on her. Or to hear you make free with her name.”

  “Yes,” Lydia said, speaking to Harry.

  “Lydia and I are betrothed,” Harry said.

  His mother got to her feet.

  “Because we love each other,” Harry said. “Not because of the very foolish gossip concocted by a Peeping Tom of a boy and his hysterical mother. We will be getting married.”

  “Oh,” his mother said, clasping her hands to her bosom and looking at Lydia with glowing eyes.

  “May I?” Harry asked Lydia.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Tomorrow morning,” he said. “In the church here in the village. It was to have been a very private ceremony, even though all my family is currently staying at Hinsford Manor to celebrate my birthday, also tomorrow. We did not want a family wedding without any of Lydia’s family in attendance. But we also did not want to wait. Now it can be a family wedding after all.”

  “Oh,” the marchioness said again.

  Lydia’s father and brothers could not seem to find even that much to say.

  Harry squeezed Lydia’s shoulders almost hard enough to hurt. She raised a hand and covered one of his own.

  And suddenly the prospect of tomorrow morning no longer seemed flat. Suddenly there was nothing but joy.

  The village of Fairfield was already in a state of suppressed excitement the following day when word began to spread from house to house, from business to business, as news and rumor and gossip always did in any community, that something was going on at the church. It was Major Harry Westcott’s birthday, and the illustrious Westcott family, not to mention the Kingsleys and other guests, had been causing a stir all week as they paid calls in the village upon the favored ones among them. Almost everyone had been invited to the ball tonight. It was many years since there had been any such entertainment at the manor.

  But now, when it was still only morning, something was happening at the church. Carriage after carriage was rolling up to it, and it looked as though everyone from the manor was descending from those carriages and going inside. Which seemed odd as this was Friday, not Sunday. Perhaps, someone suggested, the vicar was going to do a special thanksgiving service for the thirty years Major Westcott had spent on this earth—against the odds, it might be added, while he was still a military man.

  Doors opened on houses that were within sight of the church and remained open. Some people strolled up to the church, as though they just happened by pure chance to be in this place at this time. Yet others came hurrying up lest they miss something and made no pretense of being anything other than curious. Soon there was an impressive crowd gathered about the church gates, though they kept a respectful distance from it so they would not block the path being followed by each new arrival.

  And then Major Westcott himself arrived and descended from his carriage before waiting for his brother-in-law Mr. Gilbert Bennington to step out after him. Both men were dressed very smartly. But it was Major Westcott’s carriage upon which much of the attention was focused. For it was lavishly decorated with flowers and greenery and could only be—

  “God love him,” someone said loudly before having her voice drowned out by a swell of murmurings. “Our Lord Harry is getting himself married.”

  As the two men disappeared inside the church and the carriage moved of
f, at least temporarily, speculation was rife about the identity of the bride. There were a few very pretty young ladies staying at the manor, though there had been no indication all week that any one of them was affianced to Major Westcott.

  “Lydia?” Denise Franks whispered to Hannah Corning after moving through the crowd to stand beside her friend. “Is it possible?”

  “She has not said a word to me,” Hannah said. “And Harry has not said a word to Tom.”

  And then they turned to watch with everyone else. Two large men, both strangers, were striding up the street toward them, looking a bit ferocious. The crowd instinctively parted to let them through, though they were not arriving by carriage, and there was no real indication that their destination was the inside of the church.

  Behind them came another formidable-looking man, just as large as the other two, but a bit more portly, and older. He did not attract as much attention as the first ones, however, for as soon as the two in front began to move past the crowd, everyone had a clear view of the woman who was holding his arm.

  Mrs. Tavernor!

  She was simply dressed in green, with a straw bonnet that had been trimmed with fresh pink flowers—to match those that had been embroidered upon the hem of her dress. It struck a few of the observers that she had never appeared this dainty or this youthful and pretty when she had been the vicar’s wife.

  When they looked more closely, a few people could remember seeing the older man before, and maybe the taller of the other two. They had been here for the Reverend Tavernor’s funeral, had they not? The older man was Mrs. Tavernor’s father? A man of wealth and property and influence, it was said.

  The group of four made its way up the church path and into the church, and the crowd, buzzing with excitement and opinion, set itself to wait.

  “Oh, Denise,” Hannah said. “I am going to cry.”

  “Better not, Han,” Tom said. “I have only one handkerchief with me, and I may need that myself. My best friend is getting married.”

  His wife dug him fondly in the ribs with her elbow.

  Twenty-four

  The church would have looked distinctly lopsided if those connected with Harry had sat on one side and those with Lydia on the other. They had therefore been redistributed. Those guests from the manor who were not related by blood to Harry or were not married to a blood relative would sit on the bride’s side with Mr. Winterbourne and his two sons. Those people included Estelle and Bertrand Lamarr, Adrian Sawyer, Sally Underwood, Miranda and Gordon Monteith, and Mrs. Leeson and her daughters. Boris joined the elder Miss Leeson there.

  Harry half noticed the arrangement as he entered the church with Gil. It was something he would not have thought of himself. He would not have thought either of any decorations for the church, though he could recall that Mrs. Jenkins had made a floral garden of it for Abby and Gil’s wedding four years ago. The appearance of the church this morning more than matched it. The sweet scents of flowers competed with the usual smells of candles and old prayer books.

  Grandmama Kingsley had threatened a heart attack yesterday when he returned from Lydia’s cottage and announced his wedding by special license—tomorrow morning.

  Grandmama Westcott had displayed more fortitude. “And I suppose, Harry,” she had said, fixing him with a severe eye, “you have not given a single thought to flowers. Or wedding breakfasts. Or speeches. Matilda?”

  “I suppose,” Avery had said sotto voce to Harry, “you did also purchase a shirt or two, Harry? Just in case someone asked?”

  “I did,” Harry had assured him. “Also a wedding ring. Someone is bound to ask at any moment now.”

  “Harry,” Aunt Louise had said, “I suppose you have given no thought to a ring?”

  Gil had the wedding ring in his pocket now.

  Harry’s legs felt as though they did not quite belong to him, and if he had eaten any breakfast at all—he had not— he would swear that a large portion of it had lodged somewhere just below his throat and was refusing to be dislodged. He was not having second or twenty-second thoughts or any doubts at all, in fact. But the possibility that Lydia was having them had kept him awake half the night.

  She had been so adamant until just a few days ago that freedom and independence meant more to her than anything else and that she would never give them up to any man. She had been happy in her little cottage, cooking and doing for herself. Had she acted too impulsively in the last few days? She did occasionally speak impulsively, after all. Would she live to regret today—if she turned up today, that was?

  But then, after he had been sitting on the front pew for endless minutes, gazing ahead and trying not to think at all—and thinking more than he had ever thought in his life, one thought teeming upon another without even waiting politely for the one before it to move out of the way—she came.

  At least, her brothers did—large, menacing, scowling. No, unfair. Harry had not even turned his head to look at them as they appeared at the edge of his vision and took their seats in the pew across from him. He did glance their way after they were seated. They were both looking straight ahead, no discernible expression on their faces. Harry touched his tongue to his upper lip. Not as much damage had been done as he had thought yesterday. It was still a bit tender, but not swollen enough to mar his wedding day.

  Good Lord, those two were about to be his brothers-in-law. But suddenly Harry was glad Lydia had such fierce defenders. She was much loved, even if that love was sometimes a bit overpossessive and provoked the sort of scold she had given them yesterday.

  The Reverend Bailey appeared before them, clad in his clerical vestments, and invited the congregation to stand. Harry turned to watch Lydia come along the very short nave on the arm of her father. Looking calm and beautiful. And meeting his eyes and smiling at him and bringing all the sunshine of the outdoors inside with her.

  His legs were suddenly back, and the blockage in his throat had magically cleared. His restless sleep was forgotten, and all his anxieties had dissipated.

  For there was not only sunshine in her face. There was also love. And … trust.

  And it was their wedding day.

  * * *

  Lydia had surprised herself by sleeping soundly all night. She might indeed have slept longer if Snowball had not been huffing beside her bed, begging to be let out.

  She had thrown back the curtains from the windows and left the front door open as her dog bounced outside. The sun was shining. The tree branches were still. The air was already warm.

  She had stood in the doorway, waiting for the onslaught of doubt. She had raised her eyes to the sky. Pure blue except for a few small fluffy white clouds.

  She had felt only blessings.

  Today was her wedding day. To Harry.

  All doubts over their decision not to wait but to marry now, today, on Harry’s birthday, before his party, had been lifted by the arrival of her father and brothers—who would be here later to walk to church with her.

  She had eaten breakfast, having discovered none of the expected loss of appetite. She had donned the green dress and felt no impulse to pull it off in favor of something more sober. She had styled her hair in a simple knot at her neck to accommodate her bonnet—the straw one she had owned before her first marriage and scarcely worn during it for the usual reason, though she had never understood what was frivolous about plain, unadorned straw. It was very unadorned. That thought had sent her outside to pick some blooms from her garden—all of them pink—and some greenery. She had woven them into the straw about the crown.

  Even the arrival of her father and brothers had not put a dent in her happiness, although they had all looked as if they were about to attend a funeral. But after she had laughed at the sight of them and hugged them all in turn and told them this was the happiest day of her life and their being here made it absolutely perfect, they had all cheered up and hugged her again and assured her that all they wanted for her—all they had ever wanted—was that she be happy.


  “And with a good man to look after you, Lydie,” James had not been able to resist adding.

  “I think it may just be possible,” her father had conceded, “that Westcott is a good man, James. Good breeding. He must get it from his mother. His father was a scoundrel.”

  “The Westcotts do not seem to hold it against him that he is a bas—that his birth was irregular,” William had said. “So why should we?”

  “Why indeed?” Lydia had asked, bending over his chair to kiss the top of his head.

  They had walked to church, something that turned into a bit of an ordeal when it became obvious that a small crowd had gathered outside the gate. The arrival of carriages from Hinsford must have alerted everyone. They had come down the drive in a steady stream and with a great deal of noise and pomp while Lydia was still at home.

  But the crowd parted before James and William, who were walking side by side ahead of Lydia and her father, and watched them proceed through the gate and up the path to the church.

  And oh, she was so, so glad Harry’s whole family was here for their wedding after all. And that her father and two of her brothers were here too. She watched James and William stride on into the church and down to the front pew and then turned to her father.

  He had tears in his eyes.

  “Lydie.” He bent his head and kissed her cheek. “Be happy. It is all I have ever wanted for you. It is all your mother would have wanted.”

  She swallowed and took his arm. And then she was walking with him to meet her bridegroom. What was that line from surely the loveliest of all the psalms?

  My cup runneth over, she thought as she smiled at Harry and watched the tension and anxiety fade from his face before he smiled back.

  They turned together to face the Reverend Bailey. Her father released her arm and took her hand in his instead— ready to give it to the man who was about to become her husband.

  “Happy birthday,” Lydia whispered.