Edith Layton (27 page)

There was no answer. But at least the baron’s wife stopped weeping. Abruptly. And took the pen from her husband’s hand to add her own name to the paper he’d just signed.

I
t was a small wedding reception held at a huge house. The Viscount Wycoff and his bride danced in the ballroom, then out the long doors onto the terrace in the twilight, and then on to the scythed lawns that rolled to the river’s edge, and on into the coming night. The other guests did, too. Lanterns were hung in the trees, twinkling in the boughs like trapped stars. Torches flamed on the lawns, the house itself was aglow with light this long midsummer’s evening.

The bride wore a gown of blushing pink, the groom dressed elegantly as for a court reception. The guests were the cream of society and the best of friends and relatives, all garbed in their finest. But the bride and groom had eyes only for each other.

“Clever to have the wedding party here,” Rafe commented to his friend Lord Drummond as they
watched the happy couple. “Lucky he has an estate on the Thames, so close to London we can all be here, too.”

“Luckier still that Gilly gave him an excuse not to travel north to have the reception at his father—and mother’s—house,” Drum said quietly, eyeing the viscount’s mama, the only one of the family not dancing. She sat upright in a chair, watching the merriment with a glacial stare. Her husband led his aged sister in a minuet; they made a game of it. It must have been a relief for him, as he’d just done dancing with Lady Jersey, who never stopped chattering. Mr. and Mrs. Ames, proud beyond words to be invited, happier still that their trip had been paid for, danced past, their smiles dazzling in the lantern glow. Perkins took Sukey’s hand when they promenaded in the servants’ dance to the side of the lawn, as a symbol of the two households coming together.

“Well, I said I couldn’t travel far in my condition, and his mama had to accept it,” Gilly laughed. “Wycoff blessed me for it, but I’m happy to be an excuse.”

“So don’t dance so much, baggage,” Drum said, “or she’ll guess.”

“Ho!” she said. “As if that would stop me. How much longer shall I be able to dance this close in his arms? Soon there’ll be something coming between us,” she said, running a hand over her still flat abdomen. “I know, I know,” she added, with a bright look at her husband, “that’s not something a lady would say.”

Her husband grinned. “I know. Lucky me. Now they’ve struck up a waltz. So come, let’s dance as close as we can while we may.”

“That’s a lucky fellow, indeed,” Drum said, watching the pair waltz off together.

“And there’s another,” Rafe said, watching Wycoff and Lucy glide by.

“Who would have guessed that Wycoff, of all people—
Wycoff
,” Rafe said, shaking his head, “would be so tamed by love.”

“Anyone, actually,” Drum answered.

Rafe fell still. Both men stood in silence on the terrace, as the music played on.

The other guests were busily talking about the newly wedded couple, too.

“She’s lovely,” the hazel-eyed young girl told her brother as they watched the Viscount Wycoff and his new bride. “Honest and charming and good-hearted, with no airs at all. She loves him for all the good things we know he is. She’s so friendly and warm, young enough to be pretty, but old enough to care for me like a mother. And she really seems to care for me, too.”

“Yes. A wonderful woman, but with terrible judgment about other females,” commented her brother, with laughter in his voice.

She ignored his jest. “I
so
worried he’d attach some flighty young thing, or a wicked stepmother,” she sighed. “But she’s perfect. I can scarcely believe it’s so.”

“It’s so,” Crispin told his sister, proudly.

“Wonderful,” she laughed. “Now I can live at home, and be comfortable again. Everything is splendid—except I have yet another brother!” she said with a ferocious scowl at Jamie.

Jamie grinned at her. He knew her brand of teasing by now, he’d learned it in the weeks since they’d met.

“But Jamie is the best of boys,” Harmony Ames protested.

“Now that he’s not home with us anymore,” her sister Bess giggled.

“Who would have thought such good could have come from such a bad misunderstanding?” their sister Jenny asked in wonder.

“What misunderstanding?” Crispin asked.

The girls grew pink, and tittered.

“You don’t know?” Jamie asked in delight. “It’s a famous story! You see…” He lowered his voice.

In a moment all the young people were laughing. Everyone at this wedding reception was, when they weren’t chatting together.

Except for the bride and groom. They said little. They waltzed in ever slower circles and looked into each other’s eyes—one mind, one heart.

“Mine, at last,” Wycoff said into his bride’s ear, holding her close.

“No,
mine
, at last,” she whispered back, moving closer.

They didn’t need to say more.