The Wagered Miss Winslow (16 page)

“Yes, yes,” Vicar Thompson agreed testily, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an official-looking piece of paper. “I had them sign it yesterday, at the church, as well as the register. You didn’t think I was going to drag that book out here, did you? Here—it’s yours! Agatha—take me home!”

As the rain began to pelt down all around them and the green-striped canopy threatened to blow away in the stiff wind that had risen, the young men gathered around a squealing Mollie, offering to shield her with their jackets as she ran to the pony cart with the other servants, quickly passing by a clearly distressed Riggs, who was carefully making his way around the roped-off areas and heading for the shelter of a nearby tree, shrieking as he held his hands protectively over his head.

Woodrow pocketed the marriage lines after offering them to an oblivious Beau, who was now standing facing Rosalind, holding both of her hands in his. One brow arched high, the butler-cum-groomsman, realizing that his master was paying absolutely no attention to him, walked over to Bridget and held out his arm to her, planning to assist her into the nearby closed carriage which Kyle had driven to the ceremony.

Bridget smiled, inclining her head as she accepted the valet’s offer of assistance. “Bobby’s curricle is waitin’ just behind the wall for our bride and her groom, Woodrow,” she told the man as they approached the closed carriage. “And it’s thinkin’ I am that a little dab o’ water isn’t goin’ ta matter overmuch ta those two, if you take m’ meanin’.”

“We apprehend your meaning, Miss Reilly,” Woodrow answered calmly, even though the rain had become a torrent, the wind slashing it sideways, beating it against his back as he sheltered her as best he could. “Shall we repair to Remington Manor and lay out dry clothing for our newly wed pair, so that we shall not be overly delayed in commencing our remove to London?”

Bridget stood at the top of the steps leading into the carriage and looked past Woodrow’s shoulder, to the couple who continued to stand as immobile as statues beneath the billowing canopy, their hands still clasped between them, their eyes fastened on each other’s face. “And it’s countin’ your chickens you are, Woodrow. It’s turnin’ down the bed in the master bedchamber I should think we’d be better off tendin’ to, and no mistake!”

“Please, Miss Reilly,” Woodrow admonished stiffly, climbing into the carriage behind her. “We do not speak of such things.”

Bridget took off her bonnet, allowing it to drip onto the floor as she shook her gray curls. “And that’s the difference between us and you Englishers. We Irish speak the truth and shame the divil! No sense havin’ eyes if you refuse ta see, Woodrow, nor a mouth if you’re afeared ta speak your mind, don’t you know. And right now my mind is thinkin’ what a treat it’ll be ta chase Bobby’s bairns around as they get into mischief.”

“Children? We hadn’t planned on children. So messy, you understand, and prone to sticky fingers. We shall have to discuss this business of children if we are to stay on.” Woodrow looked out the side window as the carriage moved away, leaving the churchyard deserted except for Beau and Rosalind, who had yet to move an inch. “Yes, indeed. We shall have to discuss this.”

As quickly as it had begun, the rain stopped, and the sun came out from behind the clouds, bathing the churchyard in light, turning the raindrops clinging to rock and tree and grass into millions of twinkling diamonds.

Beau closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them once more, smiling as he saw that Rosalind still stood in front of him, looking more beautiful than anyone or anything he had ever seen in all of his life and travels. His right hand moved on her left hand, touching the thick band of gold he had placed on her finger sometime between Vicar Thompson’s instruction to “love each other” and his warning that a wife is never “to allow the stove to go out of a January morning.”

“You look very beautiful, Mrs. Remington,” he said at last, the sound of his voice seeming to wake Rosalind from some sort of trance that had held her immobile ever since he had taken her hands in his. “Very beautiful.”

Rosalind felt herself blushing—again. This embarrassing, and revealing, phenomena seemed to have become a regular part of her repertoire since meeting Beaumont Remington. “Thank you,” she said woodenly, trying in vain to pull her hands free of his. “You are looking quite handsome yourself,” she added, knowing that she had been standing there like some sort of waxwork figure while the world had exploded around her. “Do you think we’re really married?”

“Until death do we part—unless you let the stove go out of a January morning or serve me cabbage three days in a row ... Yes, I believe we are married,” Beau answered, pulling her closer, so that their hands were all but trapped between them. “However, I have yet to claim my first husbandly kiss. I doubt the whole business will be official until I have performed that particular office.”

Rosalind lowered her head for a moment, hiding a faintly triumphant smile. So, he wasn’t immune to her. She remembered their first kiss, shared not far from this very spot, and his declaration that, having kissed her, he needed to get her safely wed to him as soon as possible. Perhaps he had not been merely teasing a desperate old maid, speaking pretty words in order to secure her hand in marriage—and her deed to Winslow Manor.

However, a mere kiss would not make their marriage “official,” and well Rosalind knew it. To be a real marriage, they would have to consummate their vows. She knew it, and she was confident Beau knew it as well. But if he would be happy now with only a kiss, perhaps it would be best not to mention anything else—for the moment.

“I imagine you’re correct,” she said at last, tipping up her chin and looking straight into his glorious blue eyes, his laughing blue eyes, his lovable blue eyes. “We do wish this to be official, don’t we?”

Yes, he mused confidently, optimistically, breathing in her sweet scent, vowing to be patient. They’d begin with a kiss. For now. “Until death do we part, m’darlin’,” Beau promised, lowering his head to hers, until their mouths were only a whisper away from each other. “Until death do we part—and mayhap longer than that.”

And then, as the rain-fragrant breeze turned into a wind once more, and the billowing canopy lifted from its poles and flew off, unheeded, into the trees, Beau Remington kissed his bride.

And his bride kissed him back, tentatively at first, and then with increasing confidence. They stood exposed to the elements, their bodies melded together, their arms tight around each other, and fed on each other, their mouths and tongues tasting, sensing, exploring ...

“Oh, laws, laws, they’ve all gone and left me! What shall I do? Whatever shall I do?”

Rosalind, lost in a daze of sheer bliss and most wishful thinking, clung helplessly to Beau’s shoulders—their fevered kisses interrupted by Riggs’ hysterical outburst (which had taken place directly beside them)—as they turned as one to look at the rain-bedraggled butler.

Riggs, his sopping hair plastered to his head and his butler’s uniform wet and muddy past all redemption, spread his mud-caked hands in front of him as if he could somehow disassociate himself from his own person, and declared in injured accents, “They left me, Mr. Remington. They left me and I ran after them as fast as I could, until my foot caught on a length of string and I pitched forward into the quagmire. My trousers—my beautiful coat! Oh, the humiliation! What shall I do? Whatever shall I do?”

Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont Remington of Remington Manor and, soon, Portman Square, had no answer for the woebegone butler. One way or another, Riggs’ dilemma had provided the crowning touch to a morning crowded with sublime ridiculousness. And so, instead of lending the butler assistance, they could only look at each other for a moment, sharing the humor of the situation, then cling together for mutual support—and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

They couldn’t know it then, but this very singular wedding day, filled with a generous mixture of wonderment, of passion, and of shared laughter, was to set the tone for their entire married life.

R
iggs’ presence in the curricle—making for an uncomfortable, not to mention messy, squeezing of their persons on the narrow seat—and the ride back to Remington Manor, during which the butler kept up a running litany of the injuries sustained by his person and sensibilities, served to bring both Beau and Rosalind back to their senses.

Yes, they were married. But no, they were not to be allowed the luxury of a prolonged honeymoon, or even a modicum of privacy. Their bags had been packed, the dust sheets laid over the furniture, and they were already going to be delayed at least an hour while Riggs bathed and changed his clothes (an hour and a half, if he were to be allowed the luxury of a bout of tears before bathing).

There was nothing else for it—they would have to be on their way as soon as a quick cold collation could be served. Otherwise they would be forced to deal with the distressing business of deciding precisely where in Remington Manor the just-married couple would sleep that night.

Both of them had a fairly good idea of the sleeping accommodations they would favor but, as neither of them was going to be the first to broach the subject, it just seemed easier to get on the road.

And so, with a great deal of baggage (mostly human), and two equipages, the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont Remington (after a single night’s stay in an inn—and in separate chambers) descended on London at six or the clock the evening after their wedding day, tired, faintly bedraggled, and clearly not up to arguing with Woodrow’s cool, efficient orders concerning the disposition of a simple meal and a temporary assignment of bedchambers in the mansion in Portman Square.

Rosalind awoke just before eleven the next morning, faintly confused by her surroundings until Mollie scratched at the door, poked her head in, and announced, “What a deep gravy boat we’ve fallen into, miss. There must be twenty rooms, not that there’s a stick of furniture in above six of them, and the ceilings are ever so high. I checked on you twice, thinkin’ you would want to see the place better than we did last night. But you’re up now, aren’t you. I’ll fetch your morning chocolate.”

Rosalind pushed herself up against the pile of pillows, blinking at the maid. “Isn’t there a bellpull, Mollie? Surely it would be simpler to ring for a servant.”

Mollie’s pert nose wrinkled at what seemed to her to be a ridiculous question. “Waters—he’s the under-footman, and has the most wonderful big brown eyes, like a cow, miss. Anyways, Waters is in the kitchens now, helpin’ with the vegetables for luncheon. So I thought I’d just nip downstairs to—”

“Never mind, Mollie,” Rosalind interrupted, rolling her eyes. Obviously you could take the maid out of Sussex, but it was impossible to change the maid. “However, I would like a bath, I believe, before I dress. Do you think you can manage delivering the order for a tub to be brought before you take yourself off to the mews to weigh the merits of Mr. Remington’s grooms?”

Now Mollie rolled
her
eyes. “There’s three, miss, and not a good specimen between ‘em. One is older than God, the younger one has red hair and freckles the size of penny pieces, and the last has no teeth! Why, they nearly make me pine for Kyle, which is a poor enough thing to have happen on my first day in London, isn’t it? Be right back, miss,” she chirped, then disappeared.

As it ended up, Rosalind partook of her luncheon in her bedchamber after bathing and dressing for, as Bridget pointed out as she personally carried the tray into the room, “Bobby’s dressed ta the nines and out and about already, and the dining room is nothing but an empty echo, don’t ye know.”

Rosalind could not decide whether she was annoyed, disappointed, or relieved to have been deserted by her husband on her first day in London. After taking a cursory tour of the mansion, she found herself to be delighted!

The mansion was like a blank canvas waiting for the first application of paint. Oh, yes, there were furnishings, but they were confined to a few bedchambers, the kitchens, and a small parlor at the rear of the mansion. Other than that, all she found were chandeliers, ornate paneled walls, delicately decorated ceilings, a few mirrors, and blessed
opportunity
.

Her father had fallen on straightened circumstances near the end of his life, so that Winslow Manor had been her only legacy, her only dowry. Winslow Manor had become Beau’s the moment they had exchanged their vows. It seemed only fair that she should be able to count the estate as a major contribution to the Remington fortune. Therefore she felt no qualms about furnishing this mansion by making serious inroads on Beau’s wealth which, according to both Bridget and Woodrow, was considerable.