The Gallant Guardian (32 page)

Max leapt out of the chair, nearly spilling the brandy in the process. He knew what he had to do now. Setting the glass down, he pawed feverishly through his valise until he found the packet of letters he had meant to show Charlotte. They would speak for him. With a sigh of relief, he retrieved his brandy glass, gulped down the remainder of its contents, and threw himself fully clothed onto the bed.

~~~~

The next morning the marquess was up betimes, certain that Charlotte would seek to clear her mind with an early morning ride. He waylaid her in the hall as she was heading toward the stables, hat and crop in her hand.

“Come with me.” Grasping her hand, Max led her downstairs and out into the rose garden where, without ceremony, he pulled her down next to him on a stone bench. “Read these. I think they may help you to think about what I have asked you to think about.”

“Letters?”

“From your mother and father to one another.”

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then did as he asked,
frowning at first, and then with increasing eagerness, until she had read through every one. He sat silent, gnawing his lip in impatience. At last she finished. Still clasping the letters, her hands dropped into her lap and she gazed unseeingly at the garden in front of her for what seemed like a very long time. “He did love us…after all,” she whispered at last.

“Yes, he did.” Max ached to touch her, to hold her and reassure her, but he held back. She had to work this out by herself.

“So it was not that he did not love.”

“No, I do not think he did not love.” Max produced the miniature he had found with the letters.

Charlotte gasped. “But it looks like me!”

“Very much so.”

“Then why?”

“Would you like to know what I think?”

She nodded mutely, begging him with her eyes to help her.

“I think that he could not bear losing her, and that you were too painful a reminder of what he had lost. Now, loving you as I do, I understand how it could have happened. If I were to lose you, I would feel that my life was not worth living, but unlike your father, I would cling to anything, everything, that reminded me of you. I do that now. Every time I see a field I think of riding with you; every time I see a pond I think of fishing with you; every time I see a book I think of talking with you. Everything now has meaning for me because now somehow everything reminds me of you. For your father, it was just the opposite; he could not bear to remember. If I had been your father, I would have cherished you, as I
do
cherish you. I love you, Charlotte, and I think, I hope, you love me.”

“I…I do love you, only I am afraid of losing…”

“I know. I am afraid of that too. In many ways it is much easier to be alone. When one is alone and does not have anyone, there is nothing to fear; when one loves as much as I love, there is everything to fear. However, when one is alone, there is also less to enjoy. But love gives us very little choice in the matter. We already love, we cannot help that. You never question your love for William, do you? It is just there and you take happiness in that. Could you not do the same for us?”

“But William?”

“William is part of you, part of us, and I think that if I were to
ask him, he would have no trouble in answering the question of whether or not I could be part of his life forever.”

Charlotte’s brain was in a whirl. So much had happened and what was she to make of it all? What was she to think? She looked up at Max to ask him for more time to sort out her jumbled thoughts, but was stopped by the look of understanding in his eyes. He knew all the doubts and fears that were plaguing her. They were plaguing him too, but he was ready to face them, to take up the challenge.

He was right; she was already in love with him. She could not help it, she had no choice in the matter. A tremulous smile stole across her lips. “Yes… Yes, I think I could,” she just managed to say before he crushed her in his arms. And the wonderful feelings that washed over her made a mockery of all her hesitation. Why had she tried so hard to think when all she had to do
was
to let herself go and feel the tightness of it all?

Chapter Thirty-five

“Charlie, Charlie.” William’s voice echoed from the library. Fortunately her brother usually gave fair warning of his approach, which gave Charlotte time to pull herself from the marquess’s embrace and smooth back the dark tendrils that had broken free from the knot at the back of her head and were curling wildly around her face. William. How was she going to tell him about her and the marquess when she herself had not quite adjusted to the idea?

She need not have worried about broaching the subject. The moment he was close enough to observe his sister’s expression, William came to a dead halt, forgetting everything but the strange look on her face. “Are you all right, Charlie?”

“Why yes, dear. What makes you think that anything is wrong?”

“Well…” He paused, screwing up his face in an effort to express himself. “Well, your eyes are all shiny, and…and your face is all pink.”

“Ah…We…” Charlotte groped for the words to tell him, but they would not come.

“What your sister is trying to say” —the marquess shot an amused glance at his tongue-tied ward and wife-to-be— “is that she has done me the very great honor of agreeing to become my wife.”

“She is your wife? Famous!” William beamed.

“Well, not yet, dear, but I will be. We must have a wedding first.”

“Soon.” Max amended, smiling at her in a way that made her knees weaken and her heart pound.

“Oh. I should love to see a wedding.” William digested this. Then the happy smile dimmed as he considered all the implications of this announcement. “But where will you live, Charlie, and…”

At last his sister found her voice and hastened to reassure him.

“Wherever we live, you will always be with us. But I expect that we shall live some of the time at Lydon Court and some of the time at Harcourt.” She glanced up shyly at Max.

“Undoubtedly. But I would also like to take the two of you to London and any other place you might like to visit.”

“London? Famous!” The smile was back on William’s face, broader than ever. “I must tell Speen.” He headed toward the stables, but paused in mid-flight to turn back toward his sister. “May I, Charlie?”

“Certainly, dear.”

He ran off joyfully toward the stables shouting, “Speen, Speen, Charlie is to marry Lord Lydon and I am to live with them and we are to visit London.”

“And now, my love,” the marquess said, pulling Charlotte back into his arms, “you are well and truly committed, for once Speen is told, there is no turning back. In fact, I do rather feel as though I have been somewhat remiss in not asking his permission.”

“Or Felbridge’s.”

“Lord yes! Though if I know Felbridge, he has been aware of the state of affairs for some time and I would even hazard a guess that he knew I was madly in love with you even before I did.”

“Mmm.” Charlotte sighed with satisfaction as his lips came down again on hers.

Indeed, neither Speen nor Felbridge exhibited the least bit of surprise at this happy news. “And so we are to become part of one another’s establishments, Mr. Felbridge,” Speen remarked when he encountered the marquess’s henchman in the stableyard later that day.

“So we are, Mr. Speen.” Felbridge allowed himself a conspiratorial grin. “Which, I believe, comes as no surprise to either of us.”

“None at all, Mr. Felbridge, though, if I may say it, it will be an honor to serve with you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Speen. I assure you, the feeling is mutual.”

And secure in the superiority of their foresight, they parted amicably to return to their respective duties.

The rest of the world received the news with varying degrees of surprise and enthusiasm.

The atmosphere at Harcourt was generally ecstatic. Cook sighed gustily over the leg of lamb she was dressing while Mr. Tidworth unbent so much as to confide to Mrs. Hodges that it had long been his fondest wish that a gentleman would appear for his young mistress. ‘Though even
I
could not have hoped for such a fine gentleman as his lordship, Mrs. Hodges,” he admitted humbly.

“I do believe that none of us could have dreamed such a thing, Mr. Tidworth,” the housekeeper responded generously.

The joy was by no means universal, however. In a slim house in Brook Street, the occupants were again treated to the sound of smashing Sevres as Lady Hillyard hurled not one, but two figurines into the fireplace. “Married! Married!” she shrieked. “To that chit? Why she knows nothing of the world, and as for fashion, she has none.”

“Calm yourself, Madame.” Marie hovered out of her mistress’s range, clutching a bowl of lavender water and soothing compresses. “Just look at the beautiful bouquet that Lord Atwater sent you this morning. And yesterday it was magnificent peaches and grapes from the hothouses on his estates. Such a noble estate, and of far greater antiquity and importance than most others in England.”

It was not until very late in the afternoon that the maid was able to lull her mistress into a restorative nap, for Isabella was so upset that only the most forcible representation of the damage that could be done to lovely eyes and an exquisite complexion by continued outbursts of rage was effective in quieting her.

“Fool,” Marie hissed at Nancy, who had stationed herself just outside the door that the weary maid was finally able to shut behind her.

“But how was I to know she would fly into the boughs over a letter?” the unhappy housemaid wailed.

Marie sniffed haughtily. “A true lady’s maid knows that a letter from a relative with whom Madame never corresponds, a relative who lives in the country, quite close to where Madame happened upon milord and his ward, is a letter that at the very best will revive unfortunate memories, and at the worst…” She glanced significantly at the door and shrugged.

“But what was I to do? You do not mean I should have destroyed it?”

“
Exactement.
”
And turning on her heel, Marie marched down the stairs, leaving Nancy to the miserable reflection that she would never rise to the august position of lady’s maid, it requiring a great deal more circumspection and discretion than she could ever imagine herself possessing.

Nor was Lady Hillyard the only person who found herself to be
less than delighted by the approaching nuptials. Almeria, upon alighting at Wadleigh after their rout from Harcourt, could not help uttering a disparaging sniff as she cast a scornful eye over that medieval pile, a pile that seemed to demand an increasing share of the tenants’ dwindling rents for its repair and upkeep. “With a fortune such as his, he could have no possible use or need for a place such as Harcourt. It is a waste, a shocking waste.” And having accused Lord Lydon of the ultimate sin, she shut her mouth with a snap and marched off to her bedchamber to relieve her spirits by bullying her maid, then the housekeeper, and finally, the butler himself.

Nothing could have prevailed upon the Wadleighs to accept an invitation to the wedding of the Marquess of Lydon and Lady Charlotte Winterbourne, which was indeed fortunate as they were not invited.

It was a small and select group invited to the chapel at Harcourt one fine July morning. Chief among these were servants from Harcourt and Lydon Court and a few close neighbors.

The air was redolent of flowers, and the humming of bees and chirping of birds added to the general air of celebration. There were no attendants for either party, only the groom, resplendent in breeches and dark blue coat of Bath superfine and looking more imposing than ever next to his slender bride, who appeared almost ethereal in a gown of white net shot with silver over a white satin slip, the spidery gauze of her veil held in place by a wreath of roses.

There was not a dry eye in the place as they exchanged vows; even the stalwart Speen, not to mention, Jem, Tim, Mr. Dashett, Griggs, and Felbridge, could be seen blinking rapidly and having recourse to pocket handkerchiefs.

“I would not be in her shoes for the life of me,” Emily Winslow whispered to her sister as the radiant bride swept past their pew on the arm of her husband. “Once a rake, always a rake, they say.” She pursed her lips in a righteous simper.

“How do you know?” Selina cast a saucy smile at the marquess. “It might be quite enjoyable to be married to someone who makes himself so agreeable to the female sex.”

“Selina, Emily, do try for a little countenance,” Lady Winslow quelled them with a frown.

The service, simple and short, was soon over, and the bride and groom emerged into the sunlight surrounded by a group of friends
and well-wishers. They paused on the steps outside the church where Max, having rid himself of the most troublesome of his wards, bent down and kissed her heartily in front of the beaming crowd of servants and villagers.

“I may have lost a ward,” he whispered gently into Charlotte’s ear, “but I have gained a happiness I never thought possible, my wonderful wife.”

Charlotte’s unladylike chuckle was drowned by the peal of church bells announcing the union of the Marquess and Marchioness of Lydon.

To Edoardo and Eleonora

Copyright © 1998 by Evelyn Richardson

Originally published by Signet (0451197151)

Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228