Dair Devil (53 page)

“I have told him your news,” she said gently. “I know he is overjoyed for you both. But now please leave me and hold hands in the carriage while I have five minutes alone with Monseigneur. Then we will go on to the big house to share your happy news with my son and Deborah and the children.”

She watched the couple leave the mausoleum hand in hand then turned to smile up at the marble figure of her husband, a hand to her flushed throat.

“And now I have something to tell you that will make you shake your head and laugh at me…” She looked over at the tomb with the second urn of roses before it and said, “You, too, Vallentine and Estée. You will scold me severely, but I tell you it could not be helped.” She looked back up at her beloved. “You will be happy for me, I know it. Though you will tell me it is an outcome that is nothing less than I deserve for marrying a virile man not much older than our son…”

When she rejoined the carriage, Michelle was waiting for her outside. Antonia understood why, and thanked her lady’s maid for giving the couple the privacy of the carriage. She found her cousin and her goddaughter snuggled up together in a corner, asleep. She was not surprised, after the emotionally exhausting events of the past twelve hours—she herself was tired. With a soft gloved knock to the panel above her head, the carriage set off, and she too snuggled into a corner, Michelle beside her, and dozed until the door was opened by an officious liveried footman of her son’s household.

Taking the white-gloved hand of the footman, and stepping down into fresh air, she made a most welcome discovery. She was no longer nauseous. Her morning sickness, which had come upon her swiftly and with surprise, had vanished just as it had arrived. Michelle must have been right in her calculations all along. Though she was partial to believing it was no coincidence, she had just been to the mausoleum to receive Monseigneur’s blessing for the new life growing within her. Tonight she would write to Jonathon with her news. He would be ecstatic, and no doubt scold her lovingly that he had told her so!

With a confident tread, Antonia, Duchess of Kinross swept into the gigantic foyer of what had once been her home. Her four grandchildren were rushing down the wide curved staircase to greet her, squealing and giggling with delight, nursemaids, servants and tutors in their wake. She floated to the marble floor in a cloud of soft silk, opened wide her arms, and scooped them all up in one loving embrace.

T
HIRTY-ONE

W 
ITH
THE
D
UCHESS
of Roxton and the Duchess of Kinross putting their heads together to organize every aspect of Rory and Dair’s wedding, from the guest list to the dishes to be served at the wedding breakfast, there was little for Rory to do but enjoy each day closer to the ceremony with a heightened sense of anticipation, as if she were living a dream.

She did not even have the drama of indecision regarding what gown would be most suitable. Her sister-in-law tried to convince her an ivory or lemon silk would be best for a bride, but neither suited Rory’s pale complexion. And she had promised Dair to wear the pink-lavender open-robed gown of silk and matching shoes he had seen her in on the stair of the Gatehouse Lodge. Edith knew just how to arrange her hair, despite Silla’s insistence she was more expert in such matters. And as for jewelry, Rory was perfectly content with her pale lavender sapphire betrothal ring—the color perfectly matched her choice of gown. Again, Silla said this would never do. She would find something suitable for Rory’s décolletage and wrists. Secretly, Rory hoped her search was in vain.

The next day Lord and Lady Grasby strolled up to the dower house from the Gatehouse Lodge to have morning tea with Rory on the terrace. Enjoying their second cup of tea, they presented Rory with a flat square jewelry case. Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, was a four-strand choker of luminous pearls and a matching bracelet. The set had belonged to Rory’s mother and worn on her wedding day in Oslo, and now it was Rory’s, a wedding gift from her brother and his wife. Rory was brought to tears, surprised Silla could part with such pearls.

Silla ruined the moment with the revelation she had a much more expensive five-strand choker with a long length of pearls fitted off with a gold and diamond clasp, and that it came with two matching bracelets and a pair of earrings. The set was a gift from her parents on her marriage into the Talbot family. Rory made no comment other than she was certain Silla’s pearls were beautiful indeed, to which Silla replied Rory would see them for herself when she wore them to the wedding ceremony the day after tomorrow.

Rory exchanged a look with her brother, who merely rolled his eyes, bit down on a retort, and silently drank his tea. Yet not five minutes later, Silla outdid herself with an insensitive reply to Grasby’s innocent enquiry as to which of her walking sticks Rory had chosen to use for the big occasion. The Malacca stick with the ivory handle carved in the shape of a pineapple, was Rory’s preference. In fact, he had given it to her on her twenty-first birthday, did he not remember? It was also the one she had with her that fateful night at Romney’s Studio. Grasby laughed at that and said it was the perfect choice, and wondered aloud if his best friend remembered the offending instrument.

Silla found nothing to laugh at. In fact, she was alarmed to think Rory was going to be married with a walking stick. Setting her teacup in its saucer, she said bluntly, oblivious her words were in the least offensive,

“Rory cannot possibly be married with her stick, Grasby. Have you ever seen a bride with a walking stick? No. It simply won’t do. You must lean on the Major’s arm. That is more fitting and thoroughly acceptable for a new bride. People will then think you are emotionally overcome by the ceremony and will be none the wiser—”

“Silla! How can you say—”

Grasby was cut off.

“As it is a family wedding, Silla, everyone is wise to the fact I use a walking stick,” Rory replied without heat. “And I am not such a poor creature that I am likely to faint at my own wedding.” She dimpled. “I am more likely to be wearing a silly grin of happiness, which I must temper or I shall appear a fool.” She touched her brother’s upturned cuff. “You will tell me by some signal or other, if I start grinning like a Bedlam inmate, won’t you?”

“But, dearest, you’ve never been the center of attention before,” Silla argued. “And you’ve never danced. You’ve always sat in out of the way places at functions. So there are quite possibly those who have no idea who you are! Believe me, having everyone stare at you is more nerve-wracking than you can possibly imagine.”

Rory suppressed a smile at her sister-in-law’s conceit, and said levelly, but with tongue firmly planted in cheek, “Even more reason to use my stick upon this occasion. After all, one day I will be Countess of Strathsay, so the sooner I become accustomed to being the center of attention the better. Don’t you agree, Grasby?”

“Most certainly. In my book, you can’t become the center of attention soon enough, sister dear.”

Brother and sister laughed, but Silla saw nothing to be amused about. After thoughtful consideration she said, “I suppose that is true, Rory. And with so many titled relatives in attendance, we can’t have the bride falling flat on her face.”

“No. No, we cannot,” Rory agreed and when her brother pulled a funny face at her, out of his wife’s line of sight, she giggled into her teacup. When she had regained her composure, she added, “What an inauspicious start to our marriage if I were to trip, twist my good ankle, and land on my face! Poor Alisdair!”

Silla gave a prim little cough into her gloved fist.

“Dearest, it is only ever Alisdair when you are private, and once he is your husband,” she enunciated in a patronizing tone. “
Always
Fitzstuart in company, and
my lord
before the servants and other menials.”

Stunned by such an unwarranted rebuke, Rory could think of nothing to say, so went about organizing the tea things, undecided if she should be angry or embarrassed.

Grasby stepped in, patience worn thin. His wife might be with child, and he was warned not to upset her delicate nerves at such an early stage in the pregnancy, but he was not going to sit idly by and let his sister be told how to conduct herself, which was none of his wife’s business. Irritated to anger, he said what was on the tip of Rory’s tongue but which good manners dictated she not voice aloud.

“Where do you get your singular notions to lecture
us
? My sister is a Talbot, and we Talbots know how to conduct ourselves in any company. Besides, she can say what she likes—call her husband Rover or-or Spot if it pleases
him,
for all I jolly well care! By the bye, where is Rover—er—the lucky groom?” he asked, taking his temper down a notch, and shifting in his chair to look left and then right, as if he expected his best friend to leap out from behind a statue to frighten the life out of him. It had happened before. “I thought he’d be here, with you.”

“Not until nuncheon today,” Rory told them. “He has business to discuss with the Duke.”

“I thought we’d done all the settlements and such yesterday,” Grasby remarked. And when Rory frowned, explained. “Grand and me, Roxton and Dair, worked out the settlements, your dowry and pin money.” He smiled as if he was well-pleased with himself. “I don’t mind telling you, sister dear, that you are being well looked after, with all eventualities covered.”

“Eventualities?” Rory had no idea what he was talking about.

“You know… If anything were to happen to Dair—Not that it’s likely to!” he assured her quickly when her frowned deepened. “He’s given up playing at spy—Now there’s something I didn’t know about him, and he my best friend! A spy all these years! But, Rory, please. Don’t look at me like that! I hadn’t the foggiest notion. But he’s given all that shadow-and-stab stuff up. And so he should, now he’s to be married. He has other responsibilities—you being the most important one, and so I told him! But I haven’t any worries, have I, when he’s practically stitched himself to your skirts!” He teased his sister. “And if he’s not sewn to you, he’s looming large like a shadow, just one step away. And the poor fellow can’t keep his eyes off you. I’d say he’s got it bad—”

“What? What’s he got?” Silla asked swiftly, a hand to her bodice. “It’s not contagious, is it? The baby—”

Lord Grasby put up a shoulder and stuck out his bottom lip. “That’s difficult to say—”

“Oh, stop your teasing, Harvel!” Rory admonished him lovingly, cheeks red with embarrassment. “Your baby is perfectly safe, Silla.”

Lady Grasby heaved a huge sigh of relief and fanned herself, as if she truly believed Major Lord Fitzstuart was infected with the plague.

“Thank Goodness! Deb Roxton has put such an effort into your wedding, and she heavy with child, too,” Silla said dramatically. “What a disappointment for her and her Grace of Kinross, if, after all their planning and hard work, the wedding was to be called off because the Major is struck down with the flu!”

“Oh yes! Let’s not disappoint the Duchess—
two
duchesses, in fact,” Lord Grasby scoffed and put aside his teacup and saucer. “Never mind disappointing his bride!”

When Rory opened wide her eyes at him, he knew he had gone too far with his chastisement of his wife and did his best to temper his annoyance. It was not only Silla who had put him out of charity. If he were honest with himself, he had been out of sorts with the world since learning of his sister’s engagement to his best friend. Selfishly, he did not want her leaving the family fold. He did not entirely understand why she was staying with the Duchess of Kinross before her marriage, and not at the Gatehouse Lodge with her immediate family. His grandfather’s explanation was that the Lodge was small, and with William Watkins in the house, it was best for Rory to be elsewhere.

But then William Watkins had departed for London under a cloud only the day before. He was not given the full explanation, only that the Weasel was needed in the city on Crown business. Grasby knew that was only part of the story. The other part he had heard loud and clear through the thin walls of the Lodge, because he just happened to be sitting just outside the study, on the first step of the staircase, reading the
Gazette
.

The Weasel accused Dair of being a traitor—nothing new there—he was always trying to discredit the Major, and it had become a long-standing joke between Grasby and his grandfather. But this time, the Weasel said he had proof, a letter in the Major’s hand to his brother Charles. It had come into the Weasel’s possession by mysterious means he was not prepared to divulge. There was then a lot of back-and-forth arguing between the Weasel and the Spymaster General, and Grasby could only catch the odd word. The upshot was the Weasel screaming for Shrewsbury not to toss the offending letter into the flames.

Mr. William Watkins had then exited the study, took one look at Grasby, and blurted out that the House of Lords was filled with blackguards, and the sooner it was abolished the better for the country! To which Grasby replied mildly that such words were treasonous, and if he really wanted to make a difference somewhere, there was a revolution going on in the American colonies. He was confident the patriots would welcome a man of the Weasel’s abilities and philosophical leanings with open arms. He then returned to reading the
Gazette
as the Weasel stomped past him up the steps to have his bags packed.

Memory of the exchange brought a smile back to Grasby’s face, and he was more in charity with the world, thinking the Weasel might yet decide to throw in his lot in with a bunch of revolutionaries and run off to America, and so leave him and his wife in peace.

“There’s nothing at all wrong with Dair,” Grasby told his wife gently. “To point out fact, all’s right with our Major. He’s just in love with my sister, and hooray for that.” He smiled at Rory. “I couldn’t be happier for you both. I should have known it when I saw you at the Banks House wall.” He sat back with a wink at Rory. “If Dair’s not needed here, Cedric and I will claim him tomorrow morning. We’re off hawking with Roxton and a few of the local gentry, all come to celebrate the poor fellow’s last hours of freedom; before he’s leg-shackled for life and can never move again without the wife demanding to know his whereabouts.”