The fifth room’s double doors were closed. Donata knocked once on them and turned the handle. “At least let me make certain she’s dressed,” she said, then slipped inside the room and closed the door in my face.
I waited in the outer room, which had a window with heavy brocade drapes framing a view of the park. In spite of the snow and the fading afternoon, the manicured gardens held their structured symmetry, evergreen shrubs encircling flowerbeds barren for winter. Beyond the gardens were trees and flowing hills, delightful country for riding. The difference between these elegant grounds and the coal-stained streets of London I’d left early this morning struck me anew.
This was Donata’s home. I was a visitor here, and I always would be. Likewise I would be at the Breckenridge estate and the townhouse on South Audley Street in Mayfair. I ought to be annoyed by that—I would technically be the head of Donata’s household and yet always be an outsider.
But I wasn’t. I had a house of my own in Norfolk, which Donata was alarmingly determined to make something of, though the estate would never bring in any income.
Also, I had witnessed heads of households, including my own father, be utter bastards to their families until it was a relief to all when he finally dropped dead. Donata’s first husband had been such a man, and I did not want to follow in either gentleman’s footsteps. Give me a good friend, a warm woman, and a comfortable place to lay my head, and I was happy. Perhaps the army in me made me enjoy the simple things in life; I had no idea. In any case, I was content to be Donata’s husband and had no interest in trying to seize any power from her and her son.
The door opened behind me, and I turned, my thoughts scattering like the light snowflakes on the winter breeze.
My daughter had grown a little taller since I’d seen her in the summer—at least, I thought she had. She’d also grown more beautiful.
Gabriella had been taken away from me when she’d been a toddler, barely able to say my name. Now she was a young woman, poised to enter the world and make it fall at her feet. Gabriella was a Lacey, all right—her dark brown hair and brown eyes attested to that. I also saw my mother in the tilt of her nose and lift of her chin. Gabriella was garbed in a plain brown and cream striped day gown, the dress of a country girl, and she was regarding me critically, any shyness I feared absent.
I was the one who was awkward. I loved Gabriella with every breath I took and had missed her as hard.
I noticed Donata had stayed behind in the inner room, giving us privacy. I blessed her astuteness and tact.
“Gabriella,” I said. The name stuck a little in my throat.
Gabriella gave me a polite curtsey. “How do you do, sir?”
She wasn’t as demure as the correct words made her out to be. She studied me with frank curiosity, which was an improvement over the shock and confusion with which she’d regarded me when she’d first discovered I was her true father. Today Gabriella’s look said she wanted to know all about me, including how I’d acquired such a spectacular set of bruises.
“I do well,” I said. “Considering. Your journey from France was good?”
“We were a bit tossed on the crossing, but Lord Pembroke’s carriage met us in Dover, and we were as comfortable as could be from there to here.”
“And your mother and . . . Major Auberge? They do well?”
“Mama is fine, as is Papa.” Gabriella said without embarrassment. Major Auberge, who’d stolen my wife and daughter more than fifteen years ago, had been the only father she’d ever known.
I had to stop and take breath. “And you?”
“Very well, sir. My health is good, as usual.”
The Laceys had always been robust. I started to answer with another politeness, but I couldn’t pretend any longer.
“Please don’t call me sir, Gabriella. It’s too bloody formal. My father made me call him that.”
Gabriella’s brows rose a little. “You mean . . . my grandfather?”
“Yes, and he was a selfish tyrant. I strive every day not to be like him, so please do not address me so.”
“Then what shall I call you? I have no wish to be impolite, but I cannot call you Papa, sir—I mean, Captain. And Captain is too formal as well, is it not? I will have to think of something else that would not offend either my papa or you. Father, perhaps?”
My heart, which had been banging and drubbing during the little speech, slowed a bit. “Father. Yes, I like that.” I nodded and hoped I wasn’t babbling. “Father will do very nicely.”
“I have thought a lot about it since we talked last summer,” she said. “I must admit that discovering I had two fathers was very confusing at first, but I have decided after much contemplation on the matter to let it be comforting. I rather like knowing I have a father in France and a father in England. To be honest, sir . . . Father . . . the most difficult thing for me to face is that I am not French—that both my true parents are English. I’d been so proud of being French, you see.”
Her downcast look made me smile. “Then I will do my best to show you how wonderful it is to be English.”
Gabriella’s obvious doubt made my smile turn to a laugh. I pushed my fears aside, put my hands on her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “I’ll make you fond of the damp and of boiled food.” I paused. “No, I won’t. I admit I preferred life in Spain and Portugal. I’ve often wanted to return there and sit in the sunshine.”
“Perhaps you will,” Gabriella said. “Perhaps when I come for another visit, we may go. I’d like to see it too.”
Something tight inside me eased. I’d feared Gabriella would want nothing to do with me, that she’d come here for my wedding because her parents had pressed the obligation onto her. But she looked at me in eagerness now, as though determined to explore the possibilities of having a new friend in me.
Lady Breckenridge came out of the bedroom beyond, interrupting any foolish sentimentality I might have uttered at this moment. “If you’ve finished with your greetings, Gabriella, you need to resume your fitting, or they’ll never have the changes made in time. Gabriel, Barnstable is upstairs—he’ll tend to your injuries. At a wedding, guests should be gazing at the bride, not at a groom who looks to have been brawling with pugilists. We’ll have a meal at eight, but we’re in such sixes and sevens, it won’t be much more than a cold repast. And don’t you dare run off with Grenville before you have your face tended to.”
So saying, my beloved fiancée whisked my daughter back inside the room. Gabriella shot me a look of amused sympathy before the door slammed shut, leaving me outside it.
I needn’t have worried. All was well here.
*** *** ***
Lady Breckenridge’s butler, a black-haired man called Barnstable, had doctored my injuries before. His homemade remedies had brought me more relief than had any physician’s potions.
This time Barnstable cleaned my face and applied one of his ointments to my cuts. The mixture stung a bit, but I tolerated it, knowing it would help. He checked the ribs Denis’s physician had wrapped, rubbed more ointment there, and rewrapped them.
“Takes down the swelling beautiful, sir,” Barnstable said. “And how is the knee?”
My torn knee had seen his ministrations before, to its benefit. “It escaped great injury this time,” I said. My abductors had kicked it to render me helpless, but they’d done little more than bruise it.
Barnstable tutted and gave me another ointment to be rubbed into it. He’d found me a spare walking stick and left me to change my clothes and rest. He too was helping with the wedding preparations, he told me, and could not linger. I, the groom, was superfluous.
Not that I minded putting on a clean shirt and breeches and lounging on the soft bed in the large guest room. I’d slept in this chamber before, in its wide, brocade-hung bed under a high ceiling painted a soothing white, with pictures of landscapes and horses hanging on the walls. This room had a different sort of elegance from Denis’s extremely tasteful spare chamber with its one exquisit
e painting. This chamber was warmer, more homelike, welcoming.
I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep, but what I saw was Hannah Wolff, aging and blind, her head up while she spoke with worry for her friend. I also saw Perry leaning to me out of the darkness, his side-whiskers, nose, and brows outlined by the wavering rush light.
I heard a faint rustle not part of the dreams and woke in a hurry. I’d trained myself long ago to come instantly awake and to take hold of whatever intruder had come for me. I closed my hand around a thin wrist and opened my eyes to see Felicity standing next to my bed.
I released her the next instant, thankful I hadn’t undressed for my nap. “Good Lord, how did you get in here?”
“Servants’ corridors run behind the walls,” Felicity said calmly. She left my side to flop into one of the chairs and put her feet up over its arm. “I can’t stay downstairs. They want me to fetch and carry—did as soon as I walked in. The majordomo is a tyrant, and I’m no one’s slavey.”
“Well, you cannot be in my bedchamber,” I said, rising and brushing off my clothes. “Her ladyship’s tolerance is only so great.”
Felicity expression held vast indifference. “I need a place to sit calmly and not be expected to carry about loaded trays and bins that pull my arms out of my sockets. The majordomo never so much as offered me coin for helping. I did my years in service, thank you, and I won’t do it again.”
Those below stairs would of course have put her to work immediately, if she styled herself as a maid. Staff in large houses always needed the extra help, especially with many guests arriving for an event. “I will ask her ladyship to provide you a room,” I said.
“Don’t bestir yourself. I’ll sit right here until it’s time to go back to London. Tomorrow night you’ll be with your lady anyway. You won’t be needing this bed.”
“Felicity . . . ”
“I see you have two choices,” she answered without moving. “Lift me over your shoulder and carry me away elsewhere, or ignore me and let me stay here. Less embarrassing than her ladyship having to explain to the housekeeper that the servant you brought isn’t really a servant and needs a room of her own. What will they all think?”
I had no doubt that Donata would put whomever she pleased into whatever room she pleased, and damn them all, but Felicity was right that I’d want to spare her any awkwardness. The late unlamented Lord Breckenridge had brought his mistresses into his house even when Donata was there, expecting her to look the other way. I did not wish the staff of this house to believe I was cut from the same cloth.
Before I could answer, someone knocked on my door. Instead of jumping up and hiding herself, Felicity remained where she was, yawning and settling deeper into the chair.
I limped to the door, opening it to reveal Lucius Grenville. He was as impeccably dressed as ever—he must have asked his tailor to make him a coat and breeches suitable for a gentleman in the country keeping himself out of the way the day before a wedding.
“Lacey . . .” He began, then saw Felicity.
“Hello, Mr. Grenville.” Felicity gave him a wide and sultry smile. “How nice to see you.”
Grenville stared at her then me, his animated dark gaze assessing. “Lacey, why have you got an impertinent London street girl in your bedchamber on the eve of your nuptials? And why do you look as though you’ve gone back to the wars? Mathias warned me of your appearance, and I knew I had to come and dig out the story.”
Nothing for it that I invited him in, let him seat himself—far from Felicity—and tell my tale again. Felicity punctuated the most dramatic moments and emphasized that I would still be under my captor’s power had she not rescued me.
“A nice problem,” Grenville said when I’d finished. “Trust you to have interesting adventures the moment I turn my back. But no matter. I’m in them now. Where do we begin?”
Chapter Five
We could not begin right away; I needed to get married.
Grenville at last convinced Felicity she could not sleep in my bedchamber and took her off to find better accommodations. Where, I did not know, but I trusted Grenville’s discretion.
Thankfully, I passed an uninterrupted night with much-needed sleep and woke to find that the swelling in my face and the pain in my ribs had gone down a bit.
Bartholomew came for my morning ablutions as usual. He prepared a bath for me, then shaved me, being careful of my cuts and bruises, and helped me into my regimentals. Grenville had offered to purchase a new tailored suit for me for the occasion, but I’d declined. Not from pride at his charity, but because these regimentals—cavalry, Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons—were who I was. Lady Breckenridge understood.
Bartholomew brushed the dark blue coat and its silver braid, which he kept in good repair, and settled the epaulets on my shoulders. I regarded myself in the mirror, a tall, upright man with unruly brown hair, a bad knee bent a little with my injury, and dark brown eyes that had seen much. My face, which never was able to lose its shadow of whiskers, was now decorated with dull red cuts and purpling bruises.
But while I could long for the handsomeness of my former commander, Colonel Brandon, or the charm of Grenville, I had learned that I could only ever be myself. Donata knew what she was marrying—no illusions. Her own experiences had stripped any romantic notions from her. She knew me for what I was, and I knew her.
I gave a final nod to Bartholomew, who at last stepped back from settling, brushing, and smoothing my coat and let me go.
I descended, my shako beneath my arm, through the splendor of the decorated house to the gold drawing room, where the ceremony would take place. The influence and money of Earl Pembroke had obtained a special license, so we could be married at Donata’s home rather than in a church, and a bishop had come to perform the ceremony. It was nine in the morning, fresh winter sunlight filling a cloudless sky.
The gold drawing room had been so named because of the amount of golden satinwood and gilt furniture that filled it. The room itself was vast, the length of it exactly double its width. The high coffered ceiling was of polished wood, its grain reflecting sunlight that poured through the multitude of arched windows. The predominance of gold in the fabric, the wood, and the gilt was contrasted by reds in cushions, colorful landscape paintings, and scarlet and white hothouse flowers.
For the wedding ceremony, the sofas, chairs, and tables had been pushed to the sides of the room, and guests filled in where the furniture had been. Lady Breckenridge’s mother, Countess Pembroke, had been correct about the warmth of the chamber when she’d suggested it the day I’d proposed to Donata. The room was heated by three fireplaces, two on either end and one in the middle of the inside wall.
The guest list contained only family members and a few close friends, but the room was plenty crowded. Though Donata was an only child, she came from a large family; Earl Pembroke had two younger brothers and a sister who’d each married and born issue. Several of the grown children of these had already born issue themselves. Pembroke’s uncle and his substantial family had also come, as had Lady Pembroke’s brother—another earl—and his family. Donata’s close friends and the friends of her parents filled out the room.
I was represented by Grenville, my daughter, and my daughter’s French step-uncle and aunt. The uncle, Quentin Auberge, was the brother of the man who’d eloped with my wife and stolen my daughter. The tone of Major Auberge’s letter, when he’d written to me that his brother would accompany Gabriella across the Channel, had implied that he didn’t think it appropriate for himself or Carlotta, my former wife, to attend my wedding. I’d quite agreed.
Though Quentin Auberge and his wife spoke little English and were country gentry rather than aristocrats, they’d had no trouble getting along with Earl and Lady Pembroke, who both spoke fluent French and shared interests with the Auberges. At least I’d not had to worry about entertaining them.
Gabriella wore the gown she must have been fitted for yesterday, a thin white muslin over a cream-colored s
lip, the muslin embroidered in bright colors at the cuffs, neckline, and hem. Her hair was done up in a fashionable knot, exposing her white neck. Gabriella would be eighteen soon, a young lady ready for the world.
My heart squeezed with something akin to pain. To me, she’d always be the little mite who’d clung to my boot while I walked about camp, or rode on my shoulders as we visited my comrades in arms. My fellow soldiers had laughed at me and called me Lieutenant Nanny, and I hadn’t cared one whit.
Gabriella smiled at me, serene, protected by her aunt and uncle, nothing troubling her young heart at the moment. I longed to change the world so nothing ever would.
I’d entered the room on its far side to stand near one of the large fireplaces with Grenville and the bishop. Grenville gave me a look of approval, hard won from him. But Bartholomew had done a fine job on me, cleaning and brushing the uniform, polishing my boots until I could see my face in them. I’d bathed so long my skin felt soft and wrinkled, but Bartholomew hadn’t let me out of the bath until I’d gleamed like my boots.
Grenville was as natty as ever, but I noted that he’d not tried to out-dress every gentleman in the room this morning. He kept himself subdued in his monochrome suit, letting me have my day.
No, not my day. The crowd quieted as the double doors on the other end of the chamber opened to reveal Donata poised on the threshold, her hand on her father’s arm.
The beating of my heart drowned out all other sound. I knew the women of my acquaintance—Louisa Brandon, Lady Aline Carrington, and my landlady Mrs. Beltan—would demand from me the details of Donata’s wedding finery. I also knew I’d never be able to tell them.
I saw only Donata’s fine-boned face and the way the light played upon her dark hair, how blue her eyes were as her gaze fixed on me. She seemed to be in shimmering silver, though later I realized that her gown was a glistening net over a more solid dress. But I couldn’t have told if the gown fastened in front or back or what sort of sleeves it had, wouldn’t remember the intricate pattern of blue ribbon across her bodice. I only knew, when Donata stopped beside me and gave me a sharp look, that the ribbon matched the color of her eyes.