A Summer to Remember (31 page)

“Sleep?” He lifted his head and grinned down at her. She was filled with instant alarm. “
Sleep,
Lauren? When we are both stale with sweat and sex and there is a perfectly decent pool out there, complete with waterfall?”

“Ki-it—”

He just grinned.

“I am
not,
” she said. “I am absolutely, definitely
not
going to swim out there. It is
raining
.”

“A definite problem,” he conceded, disengaging from her and lifting himself off both her and the bed. “You might get wet.”

Had she not giggled, she might have been saved. Though probably not, she admitted a couple of minutes later as her naked body plummeted into ice-cold water and she came up gasping, her hands with a death grip on Kit’s. She wished fervently that she knew a few foul curse words. But her teeth were probably clacking too loudly for them to be heard, anyway.

She shook her head to clear the water from her eyes and laughed at him before doing the most foolish thing she had done all day. She challenged him to a race to the waterfall and—of course—he accepted, another bedding in the cottage to be his prize if he won.

If he won!

She was still getting her arms and legs organized when he was nonchalantly treading water right under the waterfall and grinning despicably.

A wedding eve ball had been the tradition at Newbury Abbey for a number of generations. It seemed rather strange to Kit when the bride and groom might be expected to want as much sleep as they could get the night before their wedding night, but perhaps the Newbury bridegrooms who had allowed the tradition to develop had not been particularly lusty men. Or perhaps it had been a clever ruse of Newbury brides to take the edge off their lust.

However it was, his own wedding eve ball and Lauren’s was in full swing. The abbey was packed to the rafters with Kilbourne and Redfield family and friends. The dower house too, and the village inn. Even by the standards of a London Season, the gathering in the ballroom, on the balcony beyond the French windows, and on the landing and winding stairs beyond the ballroom might be called a very creditable squeeze. How everyone was expected to fit inside the village church tomorrow morning he could not begin to guess.

Lauren, with whom a mere bridegroom was expected to dance only once—and he had already been allotted his quota—was flushed and looking radiantly happy. She was also many times lovelier than the next loveliest lady in the room. She literally shimmered in a satin gown of such a deep violet that some might call it purple. The diamond necklace his mother and father had given her as a wedding present sparkled in the light of hundreds of candles. His ring—the diamond was so large and many-faceted that he had distinctly overheard one of his least favorite females, the former Lady Wilma Fawcitt, more recently the Countess of Sutton, describe it as vulgar—his ring glinted on her finger.

“You cannot get close enough for another dance, Ravensberg?” Lord Farrington asked him.

“An abomination, is it not?” Kit said cheerfully.

“Does the delectable Lady Muir dance?” Farrington asked. “One would hate to risk a faux pas when she has that limp.”

“She dances,” Kit said.

Farrington, it appeared, had escaped the clutches of the ambitious Merklingers during the spring. He was footloose again, his roving eye intact.

“I’ll go and try my luck with her, then,” he said, “and see if I can charm her away from that great handsome Viking.”

“Ralf Bedwyn?” Kit grinned—and then turned his attention to a footman who had touched his sleeve. There was a gentleman newly arrived and waiting downstairs. He had requested a word with Lord Ravensberg.

Yet
another
guest? Kit strode off in the direction of the staircase.

The new arrival was a very young man. He was tall and overslender as if he had not yet quite grown into his body. He was also fresh-faced. If he shaved at all yet, it was clearly not a daily necessity. He was a good-looking boy, though. Kit assessed him in one quick glance, as he had once been accustomed to doing with scores and even hundreds of new recruits.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Ravensberg?” The young man strode toward him, his right hand outstretched. “I read your invitation less than a week ago. By that time the notice of your wedding was in the papers. I came as quickly as I could.” He flushed when Kit regarded him blankly. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I am Whitleaf. Viscount Whitleaf.”

“Whitleaf?”
Kit took his hand. “The invitation was to my
betrothal
celebrations at Alvesley Park. My grandmother’s birthday party, actually.” He had sent it off at the same time as he had sent one to Baron Galton, before Lauren had arrived at Alvesley, before he had known of her total estrangement from her father’s family. He had been more relieved than disappointed when no one had shown up.

“I have been in Scotland ever since coming down from Oxford in the spring,” the young man explained, “on a walking tour with my old tutor and a couple of friends.”

And where have you been for the rest of Lauren’s life?

Kit did not ask the question aloud. He clasped his hands behind him.

“I asked my mother who Lauren Edgeworth was after reading your invitation,” Viscount Whitleaf said. “It was obvious she must be a relative. I am an Edgeworth too.”

“You did not
know
who she was?” Kit asked.

“No, not really,” the young man replied. “Maybe she was mentioned when I was a lad. I don’t remember. I was sorry I had missed the celebrations at Alvesley. But when I read the notice in the paper, I thought it would be rather jolly to come down here to pay my respects to my cousin on the occasion of her wedding.”

“Jolly?”
Kit frowned.

The young man flushed again. “You are not pleased to see me,” he said.

“How long have you held the title?” Kit asked.

“Oh, forever.” Whitleaf made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “My father died when I was three. I was the last of six children—the only boy. I’ll reach my majority in January. I’ll be free of all my guardians then.
That
will be jolly, let me tell you. Are you really not glad I have come? Was my cousin offended when I did not even reply to the invitation? Should I leave?”

“Guardians,” Kit said quietly. “Since you were three.”

“Lord, yes,” the young man said, grimacing. “Three of them. A humorless lot. Not one funny bone among the lot of them. And my mother too, though she does occasionally laugh, to give her her due. And mothers do not have a great deal of say in their minor sons’ lives, you know. For some peculiar reason they are supposed not to have brains. Anyway, for most of my life I have had leading strings projecting from all parts of my body, like the spokes of an umbrella.”

“Did you know,” Kit asked, “that these guardians have been writing letters in your name? Declining the chance to take Lauren in as a child when her mother apparently disappeared during a long journey overseas, for example—even though her father had been a Viscount Whitleaf, presumably your uncle? Replying to her own overture of friendship when she was eighteen—eight years ago—with the information that you did not encourage indigent relatives or hangers-on?”

Viscount Whitleaf flushed and winced. “If ever I used to ask to see my correspondence or their replies,” he said, “they would call me a precocious cub or something equally endearing and look at me as if I were a particularly nasty insect that had crawled out from beneath the nearest piece of furniture. But that sounds just like them—what you just described, I mean. My mother told me last week that my aunt, Miss Edgeworth’s mother, was not highly regarded. She flirted with everything in breeches—according to my mother. And then she went off and married Wyatt before my uncle was cold in his grave. There was even a suspicion—er, perhaps I ought not to mention this. It’s doubtless nonsense, dreamed up by old tabbies who had nothing better to do with their time. It was even said, anyway, that her daughter—that is this Miss Edgeworth—was his. The new husband’s, I mean, and not my uncle’s.”

Kit, inclined to fury, decided on amusement instead. “But you still thought it might be jolly to meet her?” he asked.

“Oh, I did.” The young man smiled. “The family black sheep are invariably more interesting than the white sheep.
They
tend to be dead bores. Or worse.”

“Stay here,” Kit said. “Make yourself comfortable. Lauren is probably dancing with someone. I’ll fetch her down as soon as she is free. I can assure you beyond any reasonable doubt that my bride is indeed a legitimate member of the Edgeworth family.”

“Oh, I daresay,” the viscount said good-naturedly. “But I really wouldn’t care a fig if she wasn’t, you know.”

“She has your color eyes,” Kit said, smiling. “I should have realized who you were as soon as I walked through the door. But the light was behind you then.”

“Ah, the Edgeworth eyes,” the young man said. “They always look better on the women than the men.”

Kit chuckled to himself as he made his way back upstairs, greeting guests as he went, acknowledging their congratulations and good wishes. The stripling was surely going to discover within the next three or four years that women would fall all over themselves for just a single glance from Viscount Whitleaf’s violet eyes.

24

L
auren’s dressing room suddenly seemed rather crowded even though she had dismissed her tearful maid five minutes before. The silly girl had sniffed and wept all through the hour of dressing her mistress and styling her hair. She had never been happier in her life, she had declared while hiccuping woefully, and though she did not entirely fancy not seeing her mum, who lived in Lower Newbury, so often, she would be thrilled to move to Alvesley and call Lord Ravensberg master. He was the handsomest, kindest gent she had ever clapped eyes upon.

Lauren had made allowances for the fact that it was a day when emotions could be expected to run high.

It was her wedding day.

Aunt Clara was the first to come to her dressing room. Lauren had not breakfasted with all the guests in the dining room. A tray had been brought up to the bedchamber, laden with appetizing foods, all her favorites. She had not been able to swallow one bite.

Aunt Clara enfolded her in a light hug, so as not to squash either of their wedding finery.

“Lauren,” she said. It was all she could say for a while, even though she smiled.

Oh, yes, it was a day for emotions. Lauren knew that her aunt was delighted for her. She had been dreadfully upset at the broken engagement, convinced as she had been at Alvesley that her niece had found happiness at last. She had actually wept—Neville and Lily had had to console her—when Lauren and Kit had walked into the drawing room at the abbey late on that wet afternoon a month ago. They had not needed to say a word. Everyone had known instantly that they were reconciled. It had been almost embarrassing. It must have been glaringly obvious why they had been so long down on the beach.

Gwen was next to come.

“Oh,” she said, stopping in the doorway, “how absolutely beautiful you are, Lauren. No one else I know—except perhaps Elizabeth—can get away with simplicity and make it look like elegance personified. Some of us are
dumpy
.”

Lauren laughed with true amusement. Gwen was small and curvy, but
dumpy
was the last word anyone would use to describe her.

And then Viscount Whitleaf—Cousin Peter—scratched on the door and peered inside, all eager flushes, when Gwen opened it.

“Oh, I say!” he said. “You do look splendid, Cousin. I am just off to the church. I thought I would poke my head in and say good morning and good wishes and all that, me being the only relative present on your papa’s side. I hope this is not an impertinence. The ball last night was rather jolly, was it not?”

Lauren hurried across the room and took both his hands in hers.

“The ball was
very
jolly,” she said, “in large measure because you came and I met you at last. You have made my happiness complete.”

“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed, looking pleased. “But I must be off.” He spotted Gwen beside the door and made her a bow. “May I thank you again, ma’am, for your extreme kindness in giving up your room for me last night?”

There had not been another available either at the abbey or at the dower house or at the inn. Gwen had slept on a truckle bed in Aunt Clara’s dressing room.

And then, less than two minutes after he had left, Neville and Lily appeared.

“We simply had to run up and see Lauren on our way to church,” Lily said by way of apology. “Oh, Lauren, how
absolutely
gorgeous you look. I am so happy for you. So
happy
.” She hugged Lauren, regardless of the danger to their finery—and of the growingly visible bulk of her condition.

Lauren hugged her back. “I love you, Lily,” she whispered.

“Well, I would think so too,” Lily said, quite unabashed. “If it were not for me, this would not be your wedding day, would it?”

Trust Lily to bring all that out into the open.

And then it was Neville’s turn. Like Aunt Clara, he said nothing—not even her name. But he wrapped his arms tightly about her and hugged her close. She twined her arms about him and closed her eyes.

Neville. Her dearly beloved Neville. The dearest, dearest brother a woman ever had. She knew—though they had not spoken of it—just how much today meant to him. It was the day when he would finally see her happiness complete, the day he could finally let go of his terrible guilt.

“Be happy,” he said, releasing her at last and smiling at her. “Promise me?”

“I promise.” She smiled back. “I love him, you see.”

“If we do not leave immediately, Neville,” Aunt Clara said, “the bride is going to race us to the church. What a disgrace that would be.”

They all laughed, and Aunt Clara bent one last, lingering look on Lauren as she left with Neville and Lily.

Lauren was left alone with Gwen. She turned and looked at her, her smile fading.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I should have suggested Alvesley for the wedding after all.”

Gwen understood. How could she not? They had been sisters and dearest friends for all of twenty-three years.

“No,” she said. “Your dignity and your courage have not failed you for more than a year and a half, Lauren. They will not fail you now.”

Lauren’s maid tapped on the door then and poked her head around it. She was still looking tearful. Baron Galton awaited Miss Edgeworth and Lady Muir in the hall below, she announced.

It was all so very reminiscent. . . .

It had been spring the last time—March. It was late October this time. The weather was just as lovely, cool but sunny. The trees surrounding the dower house and lining the short stretch of driveway before the carriage reached the park gates and drove out to the village and the church beyond were decked out in all the glorious colors of autumn. The driveway was carpeted with leaves already fallen.

The village green was dotted with villagers. A denser crowd of them clustered about the churchyard gates. The roadway surrounding the green was lined with empty carriages of all kinds. Their coachmen stood idly about, gawking at all the excitement, their colorful liveries distinguishing them from the villagers.

Ah, yes, eerily reminiscent.

Standing inside the church porch a few minutes later while Gwen stooped to straighten her hem and arrange her train, Lauren could sense crowds of people filling the church just beyond the line of her vision. The vicar would be waiting at the altar rail. So would Kit and Sydnam. She could visualize all the people outside, waiting for the ringing of the church bells to herald the completion of the marriage ceremony, waiting to catch a glimpse of bride and groom as they came out of church, newly married.

And she could almost
feel
a small, shabbily clad woman dashing up the churchyard path and into the porch and brushing past Lauren to hurry on into the church to bring the world crashing to an end.

Her grandfather was waiting patiently, smiling benevolently at her.

She thought she would surely faint. Worse, she felt horribly bilious. Panic clawed at the edges of her control. Then Gwen looked up at her—and stood up to take her hand and squeeze it tightly in both her own.

“Lauren,” she said softly, “it is all over now. The past is gone. The future awaits you. This is today—your wedding day. Your
real
wedding day.”

The great pipe organ began playing. Lauren’s grandfather offered his arm. And they stepped inside the church, into the long nave.

For a few moments she could see everything, as if it were all etching itself onto her memory for all time. Faces turned back to watch her approach, most of them familiar, almost all of them smiling. She even noticed individuals—Joseph, daring to wink at her, Claude and Daphne Willard, Aunt Sadie and Uncle Webster, the Duke of Bewcastle and Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, Elizabeth and the Duke of Portfrey, Cousin Peter, Kit’s grandmother, nodding and beaming, Lily and Neville, Aunt Clara, the Earl and Countess of Redfield.

But only for a few moments. Then her eyes focused on the end of the nave, where a man stood watching her come. He was not as tall as either the vicar on one side of him or Sydnam on the other. But he was handsome beyond belief and dressed with consummate elegance in a black, form-fitting tailed coat with ivory satin knee breeches and embroidered waistcoat and sparkling white linen and stockings. Lace frothed at his throat and wrists.

Kit!

He looked formal and solemn. But no! As she drew closer, Lauren could see that his eyes smiled. Not with his customary merriment and roguery, but with something that took her breath away even though she had known beyond any doubt for a whole month that he loved her. He had written daily from Alvesley—sometimes twice daily, once three times—to tell her so, often in outrageously florid language that he knew would have her laughing.

His eyes drew her to him. They warmed her from head to toe, they devoured her, they made her beautiful and desirable and very much wanted. His eyes adored her.

She wondered suddenly if she was smiling and discovered that she was.

She was also as terrified as she had been all through a sleepless night, all through the dressing for her wedding, all through coming to church and standing in the porch. Terrified that even now, even now when Grandpapa was answering the vicar’s question and giving her hand into Kit’s, something would happen. The wedding service—
her
wedding—had begun, she realized, but she could not concentrate on it. She thought it altogether possible that she might be going to faint.

He had never seen her more beautiful. Her dress of shimmering white satin was unadorned except at the hem and around the bottom of the train, at the edge of the short sleeves and about the scooped neckline, where it was delicately scalloped and decorated with silver embroidery and hundreds—perhaps thousands—of tiny pearls. Her bonnet, slippers, and long gloves were all white, the former adorned with the finest lace veil, which fell over her face. The only touches of color were the violet ribbon beneath her bosom, its ends trailing to her hem, and the small posy of violets and dark green leaves she carried in one hand.

He had never expected his wedding day to be the happiest of his life. Weddings—with the possible exception of the wedding night—were tedious, rather embarrassing affairs for the man, he had always thought. But today he was prepared to concede that there was something to be said for the old cliché. A great deal, in fact. She looked rather like the old marble Lauren Edgeworth at first. But then, when her eyes focused upon him and she came closer, she smiled.

His heart turned over. Another cliché. Perhaps weddings were clichés personified. He had missed her during the past month. And yesterday he had scarcely been able to get near her. Today . . . well, today was the happiest of his life.

And then he saw the terror behind her smile and felt the rigidity in her hand. It was not simple nervousness. He knew her well enough, by God, to know that. And of course—of course! He had wondered about the suitability of the church at Newbury—the scene of her first wedding—for their nuptials. But he had concluded that it would be good for her to have it happen here, to be able to lay the final ghosts to rest. Foolish of him—
stupid
of him—not to have realized what an ordeal this part of today would be for her.

He tried to reassure her with his hands, with his eyes. He tried to wrap the security of his love about her. He stopped concentrating on the marriage service.

“I require and charge you both,” the vicar was saying when Kit paid attention again—and he could see that Lauren was suddenly listening too, “as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful.”

Her hand stiffened further in his.

No, my love, no one will break the silence. There is no impediment. It will all be over in a moment now—all the irrational fear. Courage, my love.

“Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?”

It was
over
. It
was
over. She relaxed instantly and smiled radiantly at him. There was no impediment.

Soon—very soon—they were man and wife. Joined together as one until death did them part. He lifted the veil back from her face and folded it over the brim of her bonnet. He smiled into her eyes.

His love. His viscountess. His wife.

The terror—the foolish terror—was all forgotten. The register signed, the church bells pealing joyfully to the world outside, the organ playing jubilantly, the newly married couple made their way back up the nave, smiling at all their family and friends, who smiled right back at them.

But some of the congregation had not waited. Cousins from both families and a few others had slipped out and armed themselves before Kit and Lauren stepped out into the bright sunshine and the villagers raised a cheer, almost all of them now clustered about the gateway and the open barouche—lavishly decorated with white ribbons and streamers—that would convey them to the abbey for the wedding breakfast. The cousins were lined up on either side of the churchyard path, all grinning maliciously, all armed with mounds of autumn leaves.