The cause of Wren’s tears was the drinking glasses and individual vases. They were Heyden ware. The design was the last one Uncle Reggie had approved.
“Wherever—?” She whirled about to gaze at the Earl of Riverdale. He was smiling back at her, looking smugly pleased with himself.
“I was at one of the shops you visited with Lizzie and Jessica within hours of you leaving it,” he said. “Fortunately, the shop owner had a complete set of everything I needed. He did complain, though, that I had left him with almost nothing and it might take him weeks to get more.”
“Oh.” And he must have paid the full retail price for them when he might have got them … But no. She would not complete that thought, even within her own head.
“Thank you,” she said. “Oh, how inadequate words are. Thank you, Lord Riverdale.”
“Might that be Alexander now?” he said. “Or even Alex?”
“Yes.” But there was no time to say more. Their guests were arriving.
Sitting through the wedding breakfast with a large number of people, kind as they all were, was excruciatingly difficult for Wren. She had never done anything remotely like it before. Worse, she was very much on display as the bride and was expected to smile and converse without ceasing. None of them could have any idea what an ordeal it was for her. There were speeches and toasts, during which, inexplicably, everyone seemed to look and smile at her rather than at the speaker. And then, when it was all over, they removed to the drawing room and in many ways the situation was worse, for everyone circulated, as she remembered the neighbors doing it at that ghastly tea at Brambledean. But this time she did not have a veil to hide behind.
And yet on balance, Wren did not really regret what she had agreed to. At least she had done it. And now she had met almost the whole of her husband’s family and that terror was not still ahead of her.
Her husband. Every time that fact was mentioned—and it was mentioned a great deal—she felt an inner welling of joy. When she had made her list back in February and started to interview the gentlemen whose names were on it, she surely had not really believed her dream would come true. Had she?
But it had. Today.
Today was her wedding day.
Everyone left late in the afternoon. Everyone. Harry and Abigail went with Cousin Louise and Jessica to spend the night at Archer House. Cousin Viola went with the dowager countess and Matilda. Alexander’s mother and Elizabeth went with Aunt Lilian and Uncle Richard Radley. It had all been planned ahead of time and was accomplished with a great deal of chatter and laughter and hugs as the bride and groom were left alone at Westcott House.
“Would you like a stroll in the park?” Alexander suggested as they waved the last carriage on its way. They both needed some air and exercise, he believed, and he for one was not quite ready yet for the sudden quietness of the house.
“Lovely,” she said. She did not change out of the pink dress she had worn for the wedding, but she did don a plainer bonnet—a straw one he had seen before—and she drew the veil down over her face before they left the house. He raised his eyebrows. “Please understand. I have felt so dreadfully … exposed all day. It is something I have never done before. So many people! Until the day you first came to Withington I had not shown my face to anyone except my aunt and uncle and my governess and a few trusted servants in almost twenty years. Not even to anyone at the glassworks from the manager on down. Not to anyone.”
It was incredible to think that she had spent almost twenty years behind a veil—all through her girlhood, all through her early adulthood. “I am not intending to scold you,” he said as they made their way along South Audley Street. “You must always do as you choose. I am not going to play tyrant.”
“I know,” she said, and he turned his head to smile at her. It was still a bit dizzying to think that she was his wife, his countess.
“Do you realize,” he said, “that there is no marriage contract? You once told me you would protect your rights and your options before you married.”
“And do you realize,” she said, “that you still do not know the extent of my fortune? But marriage is not a business deal, is it? I am accustomed to deals and contracts and the careful protection of my rights and interests. Marriage ought not to be like that.”
“So you decided to trust me?” he said.
She did not answer for a while. “Yes,” she said then. “And I think perhaps you did the same thing, Alexander. I could be a pauper or deeply in debt for all you know.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But when I proposed marriage to you, it was because I wished to marry you, not your money.”
“We are a couple of fools,” she said as they crossed the road to the park. “Or that is what my business instincts tell me. I tell them to be quiet, however. I always remember something Aunt Megan once told me. Our brains are not in command of our lives unless we let them be, she said. We are in command.”
“We are not our brains, then?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “We possess brains, but sometimes they try to make us believe they possess us. My aunt was a placid lady and did not usually say much, but she had great depths of wisdom.”
“I know that today has been a huge ordeal for you, Wren,” he said as he led her onto the wide lawn between the carriage road and the trees. “I knew it even before you drew the veil over your face. I just hope it has not been too overwhelming.”
“I very much like your family,” she told him, “on both sides. You are very fortunate.”
“I am,” he agreed. He hesitated for only a moment. “Do you have family?”
It was a long time before she answered. “If by family you mean people with whom I have ties of blood,” she said, “then I assume so. I do not know for certain. Twenty years is a long time. But if by family you mean ties of affinity and loyalty and affection and all the things that bind the Westcott and Radley families, then no. I have no family. My uncle and aunt are dead.”
He kept his head turned toward her. Carriages and horses and pedestrians passed one another on the main thoroughfare, but here it was quieter. “Will you tell me about them one day?” he asked her.
“Perhaps,” she said. “One day.”
“But not yet.”
“No,” she said. “And perhaps never. It is not a story I want to tell, Alexander, and it is not one you would want to hear.”
“But perhaps you need to tell it,” he said, “and perhaps I need to hear. No, forget I said that. Please. I will not add yet one more burden to your load.” Although she was his wife, he had no right to her heart and soul. What was inside her was hers to guard or disclose. She had married him out of trust. He would earn that trust, then.
He talked of their wedding and the breakfast, of Harry and Abigail and Camille, of some of the mischief he had got up to with Sid when they were boys. She spoke of her governess and her aunt, of the time when her uncle and aunt had chosen Withington House as their country home, consulting her wishes every step of the way.
They dined together later upon cold cuts and leftovers from the breakfast—at Wren’s insistence for the sake of the servants, who had been unusually busy all day—and they spent the evening in the drawing room, talking again. This time she wanted to talk about Brambledean Court and what ought to be done there first now that there were funds.