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“It is very obliging of her,” her mother agreed. “She must be fond of you, A
But there was more in the letter than just regrets.
“Oh,” A
She looked up.
It was not a great distance to Bath. However, going there would take them in the wrong direction. And really, Sydnam thought, he was longing to be home. He wanted to establish his new family at Ty Gwyn. And A
But Bath had been A
Her teeth sank into her lower lip.
“Do you wish to go?” he asked.
“It would be foolish,” she said. “All that way in order to have tea or perhaps di
“But do you want to go?” he asked again.
He knew the answer, though. He could see it in her eyes.
“He invited David and me to Penhallow for Christmas this year,” she said. “We will not be able to go, of course. David will probably not see him for a long time. But…” She bit her lip again. “But he is David’s cousin. I…”
He laughed. “A
“Perhaps we ought,” she said. “Will you mind terribly?”
Ty Gwyn, he thought, would have to wait.
“Next week?” he said. He turned to Mrs. Jewell. “May we impose upon your hospitality for a few days longer than expected, then, ma’am?”
“A month longer if you wish, Sydnam,” that lady said, and clasped her hands to her bosom.
Mr. Jewell smirked slightly at some private thought-or as if he knew a secret no one else even suspected-and left the breakfast parlor, presumably to return to his study.
And so in the middle of the following week, well after they had originally expected to be home in Wales, A
A
Now A
Marriage was begi
They had been invited to stay at Lady Potford’s in Bath. When their carriage drew up outside the tall house on Great Pulteney Street, the door opened almost immediately and her ladyship’s butler peered out. But David’s whoop of joy as A
“You have not grown one ounce the lighter since the summer, lad,” Joshua said. “And so your mama has got herself married, has she?”
“Yes,” David cried as if he were addressing someone half a mile away. “To my stepfather. He can ride. He can even jump hedges, though I haven’t seen him do it and Uncle Kit says that he will tie him to the nearest post and leave him there if he ever sees him try it. And he is teaching me to paint with oils. He was going to get me a teacher when we go home to Ty Gwyn, but he decided to teach me himself. He is the best teacher-much better than Mr. Upton,” he added disloyally. “I have lots of cousins where my mama used to live. Charles is nine too, but he is younger than I am and only comes up to here.” He smote himself just above the right ear. “Are Daniel and Emily here?”
“They are,” Joshua said, chuckling. “You had better put Daniel out of his misery and dash up to the nursery without pausing for another breath, if you will, lad.”
And he turned to grin at Sydnam and to catch A
Lady Hallmere and the children had come to Bath too, then, A
“Freyja and all the other Bedwyns and assorted spouses had decided that their matchmaking skills must have eluded them this past summer,” Joshua said. “But it would seem they were wrong. One can only imagine on what poor unwed mortal their collective eye will alight next. Marriage must agree with you both. I do not see a single gray hair between the two of you.”
A
“It agrees,” Sydnam said. “Very well indeed, in fact.”
“Come up and report to Freyja and my grandmother,” Joshua said. “Neither one of them was best pleased to learn that you had slunk off and got wed with great secrecy. They would have liked nothing better than to have given you a royal send-off.”
A
Of course he had had no one of his own at their wedding.
It was only as she proceeded up the stairs on Joshua’s arm, Sydnam coming up behind them, that it occurred to her to wonder how Lady Potford had learned of their marriage-and, even more puzzling, how she had known to send her letter to Gloucestershire.
But it was something she did not feel she could ask.
If Lady Potford had intended to host her small reception at home, it appeared that she had changed her mind. Indeed, there was no further mention of an actual reception. Instead, she a
The children must come too, she added-she would arrange for Daniel and Emily’s nurse to look after them there.
“I hope you do not mind this too terribly much,” A
He was wearing a black-tailed coat with ivory silk breeches and embroidered waistcoat and very white linen.
He looked nothing short of gorgeous, in fact.
“And you,” he said, “are looking quite exquisite.”
She was wearing her rose pink muslin dress, the prettiest of all her new ones, with its flounced, scalloped hem and soft folds falling from the high waistline, its short, puffed sleeves and modestly scooped neck. Lady Potford’s maid had done something very elaborate but very becoming with her hair. She was wearing her diamond pendant and earrings.