“So, here are the funds then. Muy bien, eh?” Lord Warring said, clasping his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels in satisfaction once he’d pushed a purse into Geoffrey’s hands.
“You are speaking Spanish, my dear, not Italian,” his wife corrected him from her chair in the front salon. She turned to the newlyweds. “So what do you think of our little surprise?”
Geoffrey opened his mouth, but had to close it to reconsider what he was going to say. Finally he managed to say, “For a trip to Italy. My heavens. That is quite a wedding surprise, heh, Alessandra?”
Perhaps she hadn’t considered such a journey either, because she looked rather stunned.
“Rome. The Acropolis, the Coliseum,” she said, and he thought she made an effort to sound thrilled. “I think I am the luckiest girl alive.” She crossed the room to give both of her parents a hug.
“It is my fault they are not as excited as they would have been, Malcolm, for I am afraid I let the cat out of the bag a little earlier today. I told Lessie she could wear her new dress for her going away, and since our children are naturally bright, I suspect this journey did not come as the big surprise we had intended.”
“Amelia,” Lord Warring scolded mildly, too pleased with the day’s work to really be upset.
“Come along, children,” Lady Warring said, of a sudden rising to her feet.
Geoffrey all at once realized that his new mother-in-law was signaling it was time to retire for the night. Alessandra and he looked at each other quickly, and he belatedly rose as well. Alessandra came slowly to her feet, seemingly taking her cue from him. Why hadn’t they discussed this moment beforehand? What had he envisioned would happen? Truth was, he’d had too little time to consider the wedding night when he’d been working diligently to arrange the wedding day. He didn’t even know where they were to live. Papa’s country estate? Certainly his bachelor’s room could not serve. I suppose I must find a town house for us.
Another, more immediate thought struck him: good heavens, he’d be seeing Alessandra in her nightdress, wouldn’t he? And she’d be seeing him in his nightshirt. He glanced at her, finding the idea was not repugnant.
For her part, she looked every inch the shy newlywed girl, her eyes fixed on the carpet at their feet.
“I have another little surprise for you, my dears,” Lady Warring said, crooking a finger at them, which Geoffrey interpreted as meaning they were meant to follow her.
She led them up the stairs, where they encountered his brand new sister-in-law, Emmeline, who was just returning from tucking her little brother into bed. Oliver was, of course, too old to require a tucking in bed, but it had been mutually agreed he was also too young to be trusted to not get up to some wedding night mischief, and he had therefore been escorted to his room by his eldest sister.
“Good night,” Emmeline said. She gave Alessandra a smile and a knowing nod, which Alessandra either did not see or chose not to acknowledge.
Instead of going to the left as Geoffrey expected, Lady Warring turned to the right. Alessandra frowned.
“The Sapphire Room,” her mother announced proudly, swinging the door open wide.
“Oh, yes,” Alessandra said wanly. “Also called the Bridal Room.”
“You had forgotten, hadn’t you, my dear? Well, I had not.” She leaned toward Geoffrey to place a hand on his arm and confide, “Every woman for the past two hundred years who has spent her wedding night in New Garden House has spent it here. It’s tradition.”
“I see,” Geoffrey said, sure his expression must be as noncommittal as his words.
“My dear, we are de trop,” Lord Warring said, catching up his wife’s hand and draping it over his arm. “Good night, all,” he called over his shoulder as he led his wife away.
Alessandra went into the room at once. Geoffrey followed more slowly, reaching to set aside on a chest of drawers the money purse he’d been awkwardly holding all this time. He watched as Alessandra moved through the large proportions of the room’s interior toward the door that indicated another room off the larger one. She came back out, looking pale.
“My heavens. Is everything in here blue? I confess I had forgotten this monstrous room existed.” Geoffrey spun around, still taking in the room. “There’s only one fireplace. Large as it is, it can’t possibly heat this space.”
“It doesn’t. Someone designed poorly when it was built to encourage some monarch or duke to stay here. His colors obviously included sapphire blue. When whoever it was fell out of favor, it became just the ‘Sapphire Room,’ and has been for so long that no one seems to recall who the eminent person was.”
“Ah, Cromwell, perhaps? Or good Queen Bess? No, not blue, and, no, she never fell out of favor, at least not to the extent that we should have forgot her.”
“Who cares about the room’s history, Lord Huntingsley?” Alessandra cried, wrapping her cooling arms around herself.
He didn’t miss that she had retreated into severe propriety, but he would not scold her. “Quite right. Please have a seat. I must speak to you.”
Her mouth formed a half-crescent frown. She did as she was bid, and moved to pull one of the heavy velvet-covered chairs nearer to the fire. There she sat, looking at him, the chair making her look more petite than ever. She was still dressed in her wedding gown, looking more like a girl playing at dressing up than a bride in truth.
Geoffrey pulled over and sat in a chair he angled off hers. He leaned forward, folding his hands together. “So then, by marrying we have scotched all the tawdry rumors and set our reputations to rights.”
She nodded.
He cleared his throat. “Now, how we go on is up to us…,” he hesitated, disturbed by something that sprang to life in her expression. Not too hard to interpret: the lingering offer of a divorce must be, at best, insulting to the lady. An awkward silence fell between them, broken only by the ticking of an ornate ormolu clock over the mantelpiece.
“Well?” he said at length, rubbing his hands together from the chill. He peered through the evening’s gloom toward her.
“Well,” she said in an arid, squeaky voice, and then, “Well what?”
“Are we to try to make a go of it?”
The clock ticked some more; in fact, he counted exactly sixteen ticks of the clock before she spoke again. “I think we should try.”
Now it was his turn to sit quietly, while he seriously pondered. Finally he nodded. “I agree.”
Did her shoulders relax?
“That brings us to the matter of…tonight.”
Her lips parted, closed, then parted again, but no sound came out as she studiously avoided glancing toward the bed. Clearly, she took his meaning.
Perhaps he smiled to himself a little, because she looked so pale and unsure. Imagine, a woman afraid of him! They’d once climbed trees together. She was right, though, they’d been thrown together against their wills. They had scarce idea what each other was like in adulthood. He shook his head and gave a hint of a laugh. “Alessandra, there’s no hurry. I’m sure your sensibilities, not to mention my own, have been stretched and frayed this week past. Let us not…make any demands of one another tonight.” He sat back and ran a hand through his hair. “I, for one, am exhausted and want nothing so much as to sleep for ten hours.”
“Just…just go to sleep?” she questioned. At his nod, she half-twisted in her seat toward the attached servant’s chamber. “There’s no bed or cot in there. I looked.”
He cast a look at the bed, a big four-poster.
“That is the only one to be had,” she affirmed, still not looking toward it.
He slapped his hands on his thighs, trying to sound less bedeviled—peculiar, or maybe again, perhaps not—than he felt. “Then I shall ask for another room for the night,” he announced as he stood. Oh God, what will Lord and Lady Warring have to say to that event? Do I dare leave the house to go to my rooms off Oxford Street?
No. No, I don’t dare.
“But for now,” he determined, “I am going to find a glass of brandy.”
He moved to the door, then, glancing back at her petite form shivering in the near dark, paused. He returned to her side, the heels of his Hessians clicking over marble floor and then carpet. He went to the bell pull and gave it a yank. He moved on to the bed, pulled off the huge counterpane, and carried it back to her.
“Wrap up in this until your maid comes to assist you.”
She gave him a fleeting smile as he pulled an edge around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“Alessandra,” her Christian name still came uneasily to his lips, just as his had just done for her. “It is… That is, that we mean to try, I think it is well. But if you ever want out, you know you have my word I shall grant you your freedom.” He paused. “I think we must agree that it would be a shame to let other’s expectations dictate how we must live the rest of our lives, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” she said.
She looked resolute enough when she’d replied, but he left with the impression the word had been slow in coming.
“What’s wrong with my Lessie!” Lord Warring demanded to know, his voice unnaturally deep as his fist crashed down on the chest of drawers in his sitting room, the bibelots that littered its top dancing nervously. Lord Warring’s floor-length dressing robe had begun to come untied, exposing the white nightshirt underneath, and his nightcap had already fallen forgotten to the floor, exposing his graying head to the night’s chill.
“My dear, please, calm yourself before you have an attack of apoplexy,” Lady Warring pleaded, her hastily thrown-on night robe also askew.
“It is not a matter of anything being amiss with your daughter, sir,” Geoffrey said, his face as tight as his voice. Why had a damned servant felt a need to mention to Geoffrey’s hosts that he’d asked that a room be readied for him?
“Then why in Hades don’t you plan to share her room, I ask you?”
“Please, Malcolm, your voice! Think of the servants.”
“Sir, I explained this was merely a quieter, gentler way for Alessandra and I to get on with beginning our lives together—” Geoffrey spoke softly.
“This isn’t getting on. This is avoiding,” Lord Warring hissed in a stage whisper in a vain attempt to accede to his wife’s behest.
“You know this was no love match—”
“Well then, damn it, make it one.”
“Such language,” Amelia cried, hiding distress behind censure.
“Really, Lord Warring. I cannot imagine you are thinking this situation all the way through. I have saved your daughter’s reputation—”
“Only to ruin it!” The older man leaned toward the younger, his fists clenching at his sides.
“In what possible way will it be ruined?” Geoffrey asked, allowing a shade of his growing impatience to show.
“You mean to leave the girl on her wedding night, and you ask me ‘What possible way’?” Lord Warring cried, throwing his arms up in the air in a gesture of disbelief. “That I even know of this ridiculousness is proof enough that servants talk. Do you think it won’t be whispered about that Alessandra Hamilton was such a quiz her husband would not even spend their wedding night with her? Bah!” he cried, suddenly throwing himself into one of his wife’s sitting-room chairs, his hands holding either side of his head.
“I don’t mean to insult her. Nor you, sir,” Geoffrey said, trying to make annoyance sound like reason.
Lord Warring looked up. His face scrunched into a mask of thoughtfulness and exasperation combined, and he leaned forward to plant his hands on his knees, his elbows at right angles, obviously assessing the situation, trying to control his anger.
“What does Lessie say to all this? You have spoken to her, I should hope?” he demanded.
“I have. She is agreed there is no hurry.”
Lady Warring uttered some sort of prayer or invocation, and sank into the chair next to her husband’s.
Lord Warring fell silent, his mouth held tight as he stared at the man before him. At length, he sighed, and stood once again. He planted himself before Geoffrey, his arms crossed in resignation. “Well then,” he sighed heavily. “I suppose she’s been a trifle ruffled. She’s young and…and delicate, as a miss of but eighteen ought to be.”
Geoffrey found the word “delicate” unsuited to the Alessandra he’d met with over the last week, but chose not to speak.
“One night then. You can have your cursed room to yourself this night, but tomorrow you shall resume your husbandly place in the marriage bed.”
“Such talk!” Lady Warring took up a book and began to fan her face with it.
There was nothing for it, of course. He and Alessandra meant to try to play at this game called marriage. Time would march forward; there must be a coming together at some point anyway. “Very well, sir,” he said. “I agree.”
Lord Warring “hmphed” and took up Geoffrey’s hand to press it with both his own. Then he said, “She’s pretty, my Lessie, eh?”
Geoffrey inclined his head. “She is.”
“And as of tomorrow you’ll share the Sapphire Room with her?”
“I have given my word that I will.” Although I said nothing about the how of that sharing, he thought to himself.
“And you’ll give me grandchildren?”
“I never said so.”
Lord Warring’s jaw dropped. “But you must!”
Geoffrey smiled ever so slightly. “I need not. You and I arrived at no such bargain.”
“I add it now—”
“No, my lord. Your bargain is made. But, fear not, your daughter and I shall inform you if ever such a blessed event is to be.”
Geoffrey issued a sharp bow, and left his new relations gaping at his retreating back. Perhaps Lord Warring would henceforth think twice before trying to dictate his—or even Alessandra’s—behavior in the future.
***
Having found and downed his snifter of brandy, Geoffrey was led to a different bedchamber by a bleary-eyed footman.
Despite his claim to Alessandra, Geoffrey found he was not sleepy. A servant had moved his portmanteau to a quickly opened room, and filled a chest of drawers with the few garments he’d brought along with his wedding clothes. His nightshirt lay across the bed’s pillows. He grimaced a little as he looked at the garment, thinking that Lord Warring’s servants were certainly efficient, and almost without doubt as wont to gossip about two rooms for the newlyweds as Lord Warring feared.
As he’d done for Alessandra, Geoffrey pulled the counterpane from the bed and wrapped it about his body, then sat before the fire. It was a blasted chilly room—albeit better than in the Sapphire Room.
He stared into the flames, willing his mind to rest and think of nothing, but before long he was bored and wishing he had something to read. That thought led to the fact there was only one lamp lighted. Surely there would be candles in some drawer or other?
He rose, doffed his blanket with a disapproving shiver, and moved about the room until he had located no candles but a second lamp. Old lectures from his nanny came to mind to assure him that it was a decidedly wasteful thing to burn lamps late at night, but Geoffrey proceeded to do so, thinking Lord Warring could safely absorb the expense of their oil, the least the man could do for all the trouble he, Geoffrey, was being put to.
He picked up the second lamp and circled the room, looking into cupboards and drawers and onto shelves. In no time he had located three books, clearly discarded by other occupants, stashed about the room. They were dry travel and exploration tomes, but there was one about America which at least promised to have some interesting tales of savages hidden among its pages.
He took it back to his chair, wrapped himself again in the counterpane, and opened the book so that the twin lights fell upon it to best advantage.
He was starting to feel a little drowsy when the door opened quietly and Alessandra stepped in without first knocking. Her hair was no longer pinned up on her head, but caught back in a long, dark plait. Clearly a maid had seen to her, and put her in night dress, over which she now wore a woolen robe. She kept her eyes down, and she stopped only two steps into the room. For a moment he recalled the same half-scared expression upon the face of a five year old Alessandra, that time he had roundly scolded her for telling on him to his father. He had made the mistake of trying to get his father’s miniature ship most unsuccessfully out of its bottle, and she had had the bad grace to report he’d broken it.
He sighed deeply, and saw her just stop herself from retreating. “Come to the fire,” he said gently, for it was obvious she was fighting back tears.
She did not move for a moment, but finally she stepped forward woodenly and sat stiffly on the edge of the chair opposite his own, blinking until her misty eyes no longer threatened to overflow.
“Your father ordered you to come to this room,” he stated. He did not add he suspected her father was yet outside the door, making sure Alessandra did not come back out.
“If my father meant to save me from humiliation, he would not have made me do this,” she said in carrying tones, staring straight ahead, her lower lip trembling.
“It is my fault.” Geoffrey spoke more quietly than she, for he didn’t care to have Lord Warring hear any protests he might make. Instead, he half-smiled, knowing she had to see chagrin in the slant of his mouth. “I challenged him. But he has bested me in the end. He’s a sly old thing, yes?”
“Yes,” she said bitterly.
“He doesn’t understand you very well, does he?”
She looked at him then, surprised.
“Nor does he understand me. I am not a slave to my drives. But how was he to know that?”
“Your…drives…?”
He waved the word away. “Let us make the best of this chess game of your father’s then, shall we? We have made our choice for the night, and this little mummer’s play of his changes nothing.”
Her eyes were wide, and she gave an uncertain nod.
“I’m hungry. Are you? Do you object if I ring for something to eat?”
Alessandra slowly slid deeper into her chair. “All right,” she agreed, her lower lip retracting a little. “And I would like some chocolate to drink.”
“Sounds enchanting. I myself have had enough champagne for one day.” So saying, he rose, still wrapped in his bulky covering, and waddled to the bell pull by the bed. After he had tugged the plaited cord, trusting it would ring somewhere below stairs, for it was otherwise silent, he shuffled back to his chair, dragging a second blanket from off the bed behind him. “My dear?” he offered it to Alessandra.
She accepted the offering and stood to wrap it around herself, unable to keep a sigh of appreciation from passing her lips as she snuggled down once again into the chair. He noted the chair was large enough that her toes scarcely touched the carpet when she sat back.
A servant soon appeared, and if the girl, Maggie, was surprised to find the couple wrapped in blankets, with Alessandra far outside her husband’s reach, and asking that an array of foodstuffs be delivered to the room, she did not let it show.
Maggie returned with a tray in short order, chocolate steaming in its pot next to a cold array of taste tempters Cook had harvested from prior meals. That they were hungry was perhaps not so surprising to the maid, but she did blink when she was asked to bring a deck of cards. Between the newlyweds sat a small table upon which resided a cribbage board, having been located on the top shelf of one of the wardrobes, its pegs already placed in the starting positions in anticipation of a game.
When Maggie returned with the deck of cards, she made her curtsy to each of them after being assured they required nothing else, and said, “The whole staff sends their best wishes on this happy day, Lord Huntingsley, Lady Huntingsley.”
Despite the remaining oddness of how her new title sat upon her shoulders, Alessandra inclined her head graciously and thanked the woman. As Maggie pulled the door to behind herself, Alessandra caught the edge of the maid’s smile.
“So, we amuse the servants as well as provide delicious gossip for them,” Geoffrey teased as he reached around the folds of his counterpane for the deck of cards.
“I suppose we do.” In turn, she leaned forward for a wedge of cheese, and watched him shuffle. “I...I’m sorry if I made a fuss earlier,” she said, reaching to pick up the cards as he dealt them to her.
“We all made fusses today. I think it goes with weddings.”
Alessandra gave a little nod, and poured a cup of chocolate for both of them. She handed hid across to him, a proper little hostess.
Chocolate sampled, as well as more of the foodstuffs, she selected two cards and placed them in the crib, on his side of the table, frowning at the cards left in her hand. “I should very much like to see an eight turned up.” He noted she gave it the right inflection, as if she might as well be at a card party as sitting here with a man who had married her yet declined to sweep her into a bed.
When he had added two of his cards to the crib, she reached to cut the deck. He turned over a knave, and moved a peg.
“Drat.”
“Such language. I can’t have that from my wife, you know.”
She gave him another tentative smile.
***
When Geoffrey had won the sixth game to her fifth, they set the cards aside. They had eaten as much as they cared for from the tray. They had drunk all the chocolate, and decided against ringing for tea. They had talked about their respective childhoods, recalling mutual occasions when the families had come together, and had finally deduced that they were related to one another through third great-grandparents.
Geoffrey, his eyes heavy, looked to the clock ticking above their heads from the mantel. “It’s one in the morning,” he cried.
“Really?” Alessandra asked, not quite stifling a yawn behind her hand. “I had no idea.”
They sat in silence for a while, until Geoffrey stood. “Come, help me push these chairs together.”
She saw his intention, and rose with her lips arranged in a straight line, making no comment. After a little trouble with the carpet, they finally managed to push the chairs together to form a sort of bed.
“It’s far too short,” she said, shaking her head. “Even for me.”