Someone to Cherish

by Balogh, Mary

  “Dearly beloved,” the vicar said.

  By the time they came out of the vestry after signing the register, with Mrs. Bailey and Gil signing as witnesses, the members of the congregation were no longer sitting in their pews, speaking in hushed, reverential whispers, but were on their feet, talking and moving about.

  His mother, Harry saw, was hugging Mr. Winterbourne, while Marcel and Joel were shaking the hands of his sons. But there was little chance to notice details, for as soon as he appeared, his bride on his arm, the church erupted in a most indecorous, irreverent burst of applause.

  Lydia laughed.

  Harry grinned.

  Almost immediately they were engulfed in hugs and kisses and handshakes and backslappings and … And really everything was very much as Harry remembered Jessica and Gabriel’s wedding to have been two years ago in a small London church. Except that it felt different when one was the bridegroom instead of just a family member, and when it was one’s bride—one’s wife—who was being enfolded in the arms of Aunt Matilda and then sobbed over by her father. And when one was oneself being hugged and laughed over by two sisters who had once upon a time thought him lower on the scale of living beings than a toad, and then by a third sister who told him she loved him more than she could possibly say. And then clutched to the bosom of first one grandmother and then the other. And having his arm squeezed by a radiantly smiling Winifred.

  He bent down to allow Josephine to wrap her arms about his neck and kiss his cheek and noticed that Lydia was doing the same for Alice and Sarah.

  By the time Harry was able to reclaim his bride and take her arm through his to lead her from the church, he was aware that a number of the younger people, including all the children, had disappeared, and he knew what was awaiting them outside. But how absolutely splendid it felt to be the bridegroom and about to be the victim instead of the perpetrator—which he had been numerous times.

  “Well, Mrs. Westcott,” he said as they approached the doors. “Are you ready to face the ordeal?”

  “Oh, Harry,” she said, turning her head to smile at him—and all the sunshine was still there inside her and beaming out from her eyes and her whole face. Had she left any outside, or was it all dark and gloomy out there? “I am, am I not? I am Lydia Westcott.”

  The crowd beyond the gate had surely swelled since his arrival with Gil, Harry noticed. There was a crowd inside the gate too. The church path was lined with them on both sides—all the children over the age of about five, Cousins Peter and Ivan, Adrian Sawyer, Sally Underwood. And—a grinning Tom Corning.

  All of them, of course, had fistfuls of flower petals. Some of the older ones had bags bulging with extra supplies.

  And there was plenty of sunshine too.

  “Oh,” Lydia said, and laughed.

  Harry released her arm and took her hand in his instead. He laced their fingers tightly. “They will all be horribly disappointed if we do not run for it,” he said. “Ready?”

  And they dashed along the path, pelted from all sides, Harry laughing, Lydia shrieking and laughing until they were through the gate, which someone had been kind enough to open for them. But Lydia stopped abruptly.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Harry, look.”

  Her eyes were wide with wonder as she beheld the flower-bedecked carriage. It had been decorated early this morning. Harry had come to church in it. He would wager the fortune that was about to be his, however, that since then it had been further decorated—on its underside.

  And then they were inside it and the door had been shut upon them. The congregation was spilling out of the church, the church bell began to ring, and the carriage moved away from the gate—to an unholy din from all the debris that had been fastened below it.

  “Oh,” Lydia said again. At least, her mouth formed the word, though Harry could not hear the sound of it. He set an arm about her shoulders, cupped the side of her face with his other hand, and kissed her.

  It was only as he did so and her arm came about him that he realized that had been a cheering, friendly crowd. Those who were hostile to Lydia and perhaps him too had maybe not come to watch the show, of course. Or maybe some of them were realizing that there had been no scandal at all. Only a blossoming romance.

  He drew back his head and gazed into Lydia’s eyes. “I love you,” he said.

  She laughed and cupped a hand about her ear. “What?”

  There was obviously no point in trying to hold any sort of conversation. Harry kissed his bride again. And if they were not both stone-deaf by the time they reached the house, it would be some sort of miracle.

  Snowball welcomed Lydia back to her cottage in the middle of the afternoon with ecstatic yips and barks and bounced about Harry with only slightly less enthusiasm.

  There had been a grand wedding breakfast at Hinsford, despite Harry’s plea yesterday that there be no such thing because his staff would be quite busy enough with preparations for the ball this evening. He might as well have saved his breath and accepted the fact that his authority had counted for precisely nothing since the arrival of his family one week ago. He was assured, though, that this evening’s banquet, planned to take place early, before outside guests began arriving for the ball, had been merely moved forward, with a few modifications, and they would all just peck at the leftovers before the evening’s celebrations.

  Harry could not imagine the Westcotts pecking at any meal, but he would not be there to witness what exactly that would mean. After a sumptuous feast, followed by wedding cake—yes, his intrepid cook had doubtless remained up all night to produce one, as Harry remembered she had for Abby and Gil’s wedding—and champagne, toasts, and speeches, everyone needed to prepare for the ball, even if preparing consisted only of resting for an hour or so. Harry could only imagine the frenzy of activity going on below-stairs.

  He and Lydia had headed for her cottage—on foot. His valet was going to come there later with his evening clothes—including one of his new London shirts—and all the rest of the paraphernalia necessary to make him presentable for the ball.

  “But not for at least three hours yet,” he said, turning to Lydia after the dog had returned from a leisurely frolic in the garden and was noisily lapping water in the kitchen. “That is a wicked smile, Lydia.”

  “And is that a leer I see on your face?” she asked him.

  “It is,” he said.

  They were in each other’s arms then, laughing and kissing—until they were doing neither, but were simply gazing into each other’s eyes, their foreheads touching.

  “Mrs. Westcott,” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “I like the sound of it,” he said.

  “Because you now own me?” she asked.

  “I positively refuse to quarrel on my wedding day,” he said. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

  They both laughed.

  “Lydia.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “I did not rush you too much?”

  “Rush?” she said. “Harry. This has been the longest week of my life. Someone must have stopped all the clocks. I thought today would never come.”

  “I wish someone would stop the clocks for the next three hours,” he said. “But since no one is going to, why are we standing here? Could we not find something better to do?”

  “I will leave you to answer that,” she said. “I might blush.”

  He drew back his head a little. “You are already doing it,” he said, smiling slowly at her.

  She proved his point.

  “Lydia.”

  But he could find no words to express the feelings that were welling up inside him. He scooped her up in his arms instead and carried her through to her bedchamber—their bedchamber for now and tonight and perhaps the next few nights until their house guests had returned to their own homes. He had no idea what would happen to the cottage then. They had not had a chance to discuss it. But that discussion could wait. They had a lifetime in which to decide.

  For now—for this
moment and the next three hours— there was only one thing that mattered.

  “Home,” he said, setting her down on her feet beside the bed. “Here. Hinsford. You. Me. Do you wonder I can never remember a whole speech?”

  She laughed softly. “And very thankful I am for it at the moment,” she said. “Make love with me, Harry.”

  He did that for the next three hours. Or, rather, they did.

  With me, she had said.

  Not to me, but with me.

  Twenty-five

  The morning of Harry’s birthday, which was to have been filled with all sorts of frenzied last-minute preparations for the birthday ball, was given over instead to the totally unexpected matter of a wedding to attend. The Westcott ladies might have been forgiven if they had thrown up their hands in despair as they contemplated disaster to their carefully crafted plan B. They were, however, made of sterner stuff and adapted.

  The cold luncheon that had been planned for the noon hour was replaced by a grand wedding breakfast. Heart palpitations had been averted, however, when Elizabeth had suggested that they simply move the preball banquet forward by a few hours. The champagne that would have been used to toast Harry would now be used to toast the newlyweds and Harry.

  “Alexander and Avery make speeches in the House of Lords all the time,” the dowager countess had reminded them. “They can make speeches at the breakfast. Gil too, since he is to be Harry’s best man. And Marcel or Joel might wish to say a few words too.”

  “Or Viola or Camille or Abigail,” Wren had added, a twinkle in her eye. “Or Anna.”

  The wedding cake, magnificently iced, had been purely the initiative of Harry’s cook and had taken them all by surprise.

  Plans for the evening had been changed too. Harry was to have stood in the receiving line with his mother and his three sisters, greeting the outside guests as they arrived and allowing them all a moment to wish him a happy birthday. Harry and Camille were to have led off the dancing with a country set. There was to have been another toast to Harry at the late supper and the cutting of the birthday cake.

  Harry was no longer to be in the receiving line. He was, in fact, to be nowhere in sight until after everyone else had arrived. The entry of the new Mr. and Mrs. Harry Westcott was to be an Event in itself—Matilda wrote it on her new planning list with a capital letter. And the dancing was to begin not with a country set but with a waltz—to be danced for the first few minutes by the bride and groom alone.

  “Could there be anything more romantic?” Mary Kingsley had asked with a sigh.

  “Nothing in the world, Mary,” Viola had said, and looked dreamy-eyed for a moment until Matilda brought them back to order by asking who should announce the arrival of the bridal couple.

  Alexander had been appointed in his absence.

  And so it was that well before the middle of the evening, the small ballroom at Hinsford Manor, decorated to resemble the most lavish of gardens, was packed with family, house guests, villagers, neighboring gentry, and tenants. Viola and Marcel and her daughters and Anna and their husbands no longer stood in the receiving line. But the dancing had not yet begun, for everyone still awaited the arrival of the bride and groom. The orchestra, instruments tuned and ready, awaited instructions.

  “And so,” Estelle Lamarr said to her twin, “the last of our stepsiblings is married. And that leaves only us, Bertrand.”

  He draped an arm loosely about her shoulders and grinned at her. “Do I detect a wistful note in your voice, Stell?” he asked.

  They were in their middle twenties, both still single. They had mingled with society for a number of years, both of them with a great deal of success—they were, after all, the children of the Marquess of Dorchester, and both were darkly handsome. But two years ago they had decided to retire together to the country home where they had grown up with an aunt and uncle; no one lived there now but the two of them and their servants. Both felt the need to do some reflecting before moving on with their lives.

  “You must admit,” Estelle said, “that there is something very … affecting about a romance. And a wedding.”

  He chuckled. “I admit nothing.”

  Camille, half hiding behind Joel in order to push back into her elaborate and very elegant coiffure an errant lock—the usual one—that had broken ranks with its fellows to fall down over her shoulder, sighed audibly.

  “Can we possibly have been married for nine years?” she asked him.

  “Does it feel more like ninety some days?” he asked.

  She laughed and nudged him with her elbow. “It seems like yesterday,” she said. “Bath Abbey. Was it not the most wonderful wedding ever?”

  “I could point out a few couples in this very room who might disagree,” he said. “But yes, it was. Indisputably. And it is a good thing we have been married that long when you stop to count our children.”

  “Are we not the most fortunate couple in the world?” She beamed at him.

  “We are.” He smiled at her. “Here, Camille, let me fix your hair for you.”

  Colin, Lord Hodges, tucked Elizabeth’s arm beneath his as she turned away from her mother. “You are happy?” he asked her.

  “I am,” she said. “I was worried about Harry. We all were. He seemed so … lost after he came home from Paris. We would all have given the world to help him, but it is never quite enough, is it? It is sometimes so hard to help other people.”

  “I think you all did—we all did—the only thing we could do,” he told her. “We gave him love and we gave him space.”

  “Space,” she said. “Sometimes it is the hardest thing to give. Why are you so wise?”

  He chuckled. “Perhaps because I am married to you and have caught it from you?” he suggested, provoking answering laughter from her.

  Alexander and Wren were standing close to the orchestra dais so Alexander could hop up onto it as soon as Brown, Harry’s butler, appeared in the doorway to give the signal.

  “Do you think Harry has finally and fully forgiven you for taking his title?” Wren asked.

  “I think he has.” He smiled down at her. “I think he did it with his intellect a long time ago. I believe he has done it with his heart more recently. Just as I have forgiven him for loading my life down with such helpless guilt.”

  “Oh, Alex,” she said. “I do love you.”

  “Exactly as much as I love you,” he said.

  Winifred, at her first ever ball, dressed all in white with her hair prettily styled by her mother’s maid, was wondering if she looked foolish or if it was just that she was feeling very, very self-conscious. She glanced gratefully at young Gordon Monteith, who had come to stand beside her and compliment her on her appearance before turning as red as a beetroot. She was grateful for his blushes and his freckles and the spots that had broken out on his chin. Bertrand Lamarr—the gorgeous Bertrand—had complimented her earlier with great kindness and courtliness of manner, and she had almost crumpled into a heap of stammers and terror.

  Three plushly upholstered chairs with arms had been placed side by side along the far wall of the ballroom for the comfort of the Dowager Countess of Riverdale in the middle, and Mrs. Monteith and Mrs. Kingsley on either side of her.

  “They look a bit like thrones,” Thomas, Lord Molenor, commented to his wife and her sisters.

  “The queen and her princesses,” Charles, Viscount Dirkson, his brother-in-law, agreed.

  “That is horribly disrespectful, Charles,” Matilda scolded before laughing.

  “Well,” her husband said, “I was going to call the other two attendants, my love, but that seemed definitely disrespectful.”

  “Mama does fancy herself as something of a queen,” Mildred said. “She was very hard on Mrs. Tavernor—on Lydia—just a few days ago. Is she here on sufferance tonight, do you think?”

  “Mildred!” Louise said, all amazement. “Mama adores anyone who stands up to her.”

  “As I know from personal experience,” Charles sai
d with a grin.

  “Yes.” Matilda heaved a heartfelt sigh and then smiled fondly at him.

  Mrs. Kingsley was looking toward the doors. The three chairs had been placed with a direct view across to them. “Harry deserves happiness more than anyone else I know,” she said. “I am partial, of course, since he is my only grandson. Will he be happy with Lydia? I do hope so.”

  The dowager’s tall pink and purple hair plumes nodded as she turned her head. “Happy?” she said. “He is over the moon. That was as clear as day this morning. So is she. And so they ought to be. It was extremely naughty of them to meet in that cottage when not a soul lives there with her unless you count that ball of fluff that calls itself a dog. Goodness knows what went on in there.”

  “But we can guess, Eugenia,” her sister said. “Harry would have to be a dreadful slowtop for nothing to have gone on, and I do not believe he is a slowtop. Just as he was not this afternoon, I daresay.”

  Mrs. Kingsley looked a mite shocked. The dowager countess merely nodded her head and her plumes slowly.

  Abigail and Gil were strolling about the room, stopping to exchange words with some of the guests. But they were between groups at the moment, and he covered her hand on his arm with his own.

  “Do you feel any regret,” he asked, moving his head closer to hers, “that we did not wait to do something like this four years ago?”

  They had married in the village church and returned here for a wedding breakfast. But apart from Harry and the vicar and Mrs. Jenkins, there had been no guests. They had spent their wedding night here at the manor and then gone to London to convince a judge to release Katy from her grandparents’ care into theirs.

  “This is a lovely wedding,” she said. “But it is Harry’s, Gil. And Lydia’s. Our wedding was ours. And it was perfect. I would not have had a single detail of it different.”

  “Even though there was no mention of love?” he asked her.

  “Even though,” she said. “We grew into love. And oh, it was worth every moment of the journey.”

  “Do you remember how angry you were with me the first time you saw me?” he asked her.