Come Near Me (19 page)

She was dressed, ready. As dressed, and as ready, as
three days of mad preparation could make her.

Her papa was nowhere to be found, unless she wished
to go out to the kennels, a thought she suppressed as quickly as it
had risen into her head. He’d been delighted with the match, of
course, and had all but fallen on Adam’s neck, profusely thanking
him for wedding the Victor hounds to the Daventry hounds. That’s
how her papa saw the thing, Sherry knew, but she had lived with the
man all of her life, and hadn’t expected more.

If only her mama were here. She’d fuss over her only
daughter. They’d giggle and plan and speculate about the gaiety of
the London Season. And her mama would tell her about Adam, about
what Adam would expect from her once she was his wife, once he
didn’t have to say “enough for now, sweetheart,” and take her hand,
and walk with her, walk away from their kisses.

She loved him. She was sure of that.

As sure as she could be.

“The gardener from up at Daventry Court sent these
on over, love,” Mary said from somewhere behind Sherry, so that she
turned around quickly, nearly coming to grief as she forgot that
her new shoes, purchased yesterday in the village, had small heels
on them.

“Oh, Mary, they’re beautiful!” Sherry reached toward
the bouquet of blush pink roses, the circlet of palest pink
rosebuds, almost afraid to touch their perfection. “Let’s go into
the drawing room, shall we? There’s a mirror in there.”

The circlet of roses had been fashioned around
ribbon-wrapped wire, purest white ribbon that also bunched and hung
from the back of the circlet, hanging as long as Sherry’s unbound
hair. Mary placed it on her young charge’s head, low, over her
forehead, then stood back, wiping a tear from her eye with a corner
of her apron. “Oh, Little Miss,” she said on a sob, “that’s just
what was needed. Now you’re an angel.”

Sherry smiled at this silliness as she took up the
nosegay of roses held in place by a cone-shaped, silver filigree
holder, and turned to look into the mirror. “Oh, my.” she said a
moment later, stepping forward slightly, unsure that she was seeing
her own reflection.

Her gown was new, but necessarily simple, as the
village seamstress had only three days and two assistants to help
her. It was more of a slip than a real gown, made of softest white
muslin, with a demurely scooped neckline that tied shut. In a
moment of inspiration, the seamstress had sewn four graduated tiers
of faux pearls to each shoulder, and they hung down nearly five
inches onto Sherry’s arms, giving the illusion of sleeves without
the work of setting those sleeves into place.

There hadn’t been time for fittings, so there hadn’t
been time for a cleverly constructed bodice. The gown fell straight
from her shoulders and gathered neckline, with only a
white-and-gold-satin rope loosely tied around her waist, rather in
the way of a monk’s habit. In fact, the entire gown had been made
with no more measurements than Sherry’s height, and even that
hadn’t quite worked out, as the gown was about three inches too
long, so that it dragged a bit as she walked.

And yet?

“I do look rather nice, don’t I, Mary?” Sherry said,
turning to smile at her maid, at her dear friend who wouldn’t
accompany her to London. “Oh, Mary, do you think he’ll approve? The
marquess is more accustomed to satin and diamonds and—”

“He’d be a blind man to say anyone has ever looked
more beautiful, Little Missy,” Mary interrupted brusquely. “And a
heathen indeed not to cherish you. Now, go sit down right here and
wait while I find your papa and scold him until he agrees to get
out of his boots and into decent clothes. A bath would be beyond
even my scolding, I know, so you’ll just have to be taken down the
aisle by a man who smells of wet dog, or worse.”

“Yes, Mary,” Sherry said obediently, waiting until
the maid had gone off in search of her papa, then uncrossing the
fingers she’d held behind her back. Picking up her skirts, she went
into the hallway, passing the mountain of luggage without a
backward look, and ran out across the grass, toward the stream.

It was a crazy idea, and she’d probably end with her
new satin slippers ruined and green smears on her hem, but she just
had to go to the stream. Had to be alone. Had to think.

Because she couldn’t remember what Adam looked like.
She wouldn’t be able to identify him by his voice. How tall was he?
She couldn’t remember. What color were his eyes? Brown, surely. A
brown nearly black in its darkness, especially when he looked at
her, brought his head closer, bent to kiss her, set her insides to
shivering.

Sherry picked her way through a line of trees and
into the open field, walking quickly. Beginning to run...

She didn’t know his full name. Certainly a marquess
had more than a single name, probably an entire string of them.
Perhaps the vicar would recite them for her during the ceremony, at
the same time Adam learned that her second name was Amelia.

Charlotte Amelia Victor.

Stranger.

Stranger marrying stranger.

She ran faster, her skirts hiked up past her ankles,
the streamers on the circlet of roses flying out behind her.

How had this all happened? How had she come to this
day, her wedding day, the day she’d give herself over to a stranger
for the rest of her life?

Perhaps if she didn’t go back to Frame Cottage, but
just stayed at the stream, dangling her toes in the cool water,
nobody would think to look for her there.

What would everyone do then? Her papa? Adam? Would
they mount a search, as her parents had done the day she’d hidden
in a tree and heard her Uncle Giddy-up suggest she was soon to be
torn apart by her papa’s hounds?

What was her fate to be this time?

A sob tore at her throat. Too fast, too fast. It was
all happening too fast. She didn’t know Adam. Not really. He didn’t
know her, couldn’t know her. She barely knew herself. After all,
hadn’t she been born only a few days ago?

Sherry slackened her pace only slightly as she
dashed through the line of trees that edged the stream, then
slammed to a halt in a patch of sunlight when she saw him. He was
standing with his back to her, informally dressed in a dark blue
jacket, his hands clasped behind his back, his head lifted, staring
up as other dusty shafts of sunlight threaded down through the
trees on the opposite bank.

“Adam?”

He turned slowly, as if he couldn’t quite believe
he’d heard her speak. “Sherry?”

She pressed a hand to her mouth as her stomach
dropped to her toes. He looked so young, with his jacket hanging
open, his shirt collar undone, his cravat nowhere in evidence. A
lock of midnight-dark hair fell forward over his forehead, above
slightly unfocused eyes. Darkest brown eyes, just as she
remembered.

“My God, Sherry,” he said quietly. “Look at you. All
in white, with your skirts trailing off behind you in a tumble of
sweet grass and wildflowers. You’re like an angel escaped from
Heaven. So young. So innocent. I must be out of my mind.”

She bent her head, plucking at the flowers in the
nosegay. “What are you doing here, Adam?” she asked as a single
tear splashed onto one perfect rose.

“Fighting with myself,” he answered, and she saw his
boots as she kept her eyes downcast, as she felt him moving closer,
closer. His hand was on her shoulder now, his touch fairy-light,
yet holding her in place, making it impossible for her to move.

She closed her eyes, her senses coming alive as he
traced his hand along her shoulder, slid his fingers over the silly
cascade of faux pearls, set fire to her flesh as he skimmed her
flesh, took her hand in his.

She raised her head, looked at him through her
tears, felt the living pulse of power leap between them even as she
knew she didn’t understand that power. Only that it frightened
her.

“I can’t let you go, Sherry,” he said, stepping
closer, bending his head so that his lips brushed her throat.
“You’ve overrun my head, my soul, my reason. I should wait, be
patient, give us both time. But I can’t. Not when I look at you,
not when you look into my eyes, not when I know that my entire life
changed the moment you entered it. And, after today, it will change
again, for both of us. You’re frightened, aren’t you, darling? I’m
frightened.”

There were words, thousands of words, tumbling over
themselves inside Sherry’s head, but she couldn’t seem to force any
of them past her lips. Instead, very simply, very honestly, she
lifted Adam’s hand, kissed it, pressed it against her cheek.

A moment later she was crushed inside his embrace,
and all her misgivings closed themselves away behind a locked door
in her mind.

~ ~ ~

“Married in buckskin breeches and shirtsleeves!
Married in boots, with your cravat looking as if you’d tied it in
three seconds, blindfolded. Married on the bank of a stream—the
vicar won’t forgive that bumblebee sting soon, let me tell you,
brother. Married to the sound of birdsong and cowbells and yapping
hounds, and with everyone made to stand about in the grass and
watch you all but eat Sherry up with your kisses before the two of
you did your flit, leaving me to deal with a weeping maid and a man
gleefully pointing out that his prize bitch was just then in the
process of being covered by my own Ripping Jack. Damn, Adam, but my
hat’s off to you. It was fantastic!”

Adam sat in the Grosvenor Square drawing room, a
glass of wine dangling from his fingertips. He looked at his
brother, who had finally arrived, a full two hours after he and
Sherry had entered the mansion. Sherry, exhausted from their
three-hour drive, was upstairs, taking a bath and a small nap
before they’d share a late dinner in his rooms. An intimate dinner
in his rooms.

“No, Geoff,” he told him. “It would have been
fantastic if you hadn’t followed after us. Tell me, where is
Sherry’s papa? Not with you, I hope.”

“What? And leave his boys? No, you have no fears
there, Adam. Although Sherry’s maid, Mary, decided to come along at
the last moment. That was jolly, sharing my carriage with her. She
doesn’t travel well, old Mary don’t, but she wasn’t about to let
her baby go without a proper good-bye. You’ll have the good woman
in residence for the Season before she retires to her sister’s
house in Dorset, which is small, but they should all manage well
enough. Would you like to know the names of her sister’s children,
and
their
children?”

Adam’s lip twitched in amusement, knowing his
brother would probably have taken the reins from the driver and
raced his way to London if the maid hadn’t been along for the ride.
“My apologies, I’m sure.”

“Accepted. I’m just happy to be here, even if we did
arrive at a snail’s pace and with my left ear all but burned off
with Mary’s nonstop conversation. But I won’t be a bother, I
promise. There’s a multitude of rooms in this pile where I can hide
myself while you and Sherry... well, you know. Besides, the Season
will be starting soon. You don’t expect me to stay locked up at
Daventry Court, do you? I want to help you introduce Sherry to
Society, watch people’s faces as I do it.” He poured himself a
glass of wine, then sank into a chair, crossing one leg over the
other. “Ought to be grand fun.”

“But not at my wife’s expense, Geoff,” Adam said in
warning. “We have to go about this slowly, for Sherry’s sake. Get
her outfitted correctly, introduce her to a few new faces at a
time, guide her way.”

“You could engage a nanny for her, I suppose,” Geoff
said, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Put her in leading strings.
Have her learn the names of our most influential hostesses by
rote.”

Adam took a sip of his own wine. “Don’t be
facetious, Geoff. You know what I mean.”

“I do, I do,” Geoff answered, nodding. “We’re about
to toss an innocent infant to the wolves. The fact that those
wolves have titles like ‘countess’ and ‘duchess’ means less than
nothing. Will the lovely Melinda be in town, do you think?”

“Melinda?” Adam shook his head, rising to his feet,
off to take his own bath, ready himself for the evening. “That’s
long over, Geoff. I have no fears there. I just want Sherry to be
happy, that’s all. So we’ll do as I’ve planned. Outfit her, ease
her into Society by way of a few small parties, and then host our
own ball here at the very end of the Season, when she’s confident
of her ability as a hostess. I had just sent off an announcement of
our wedding to the newspapers when you arrived. Everything will be
fine. London will love her.”

“As you do?” Geoff called after him, “Love her, that
is?”

“Just as I do, brother,” Adam said very
definitely.

~ ~ ~

Mary’s unexpected arrival in Grosvenor Square had
delighted Sherry, who had been more than slightly intimidated by
the Daventry housekeeper, Mrs. Clement, who had seemed to
disapprove of her. She’d arrived without a maid, without notice,
while wearing wilting roses in her hair and clad in an
unfashionable gown with grass stains on its hem.

And giggling.

She probably shouldn’t have been giggling.

But Adam had entertained her for the entirety of
their journey, telling her mad tales of the foibles of London
Society, teasing her whenever she slipped into silence, stared out
the window of the rapidly moving carriage. He’d just told her about
his friend Chollie’s sadly failed sartorial experiment with
puce-velvet and high-heeled shoes as they’d arrived in Grosvenor
Square, and she’d still been laughing at Adam’s description of the
man as being “part peacock, part slice of plum pudding” as Mrs.
Clement had been introduced.

“So? What do you think, Mary?” she asked now,
spreading her arms wide to take in the entirety of the massive
bedchamber that could have swallowed her childhood bedchamber three
times over and still had room for half of her papa’s kennels.