Winter Wedding (3 page)

“None of the girls at Miss Simpson’s liked her,” Prissie said comprehensively.

“Naturally they would not like a pretty young heiress,” her mother rallied. “Put you all in the shade, I wager. It is clear she has caught Benjie, however, and where the deuce are we to put her? Every room in the house is full to the rafters. I think she must bunk in with you, Prissie.”

“No! She will not!” Prissie declared at once. “She will have her abigail and ten trunks with her. I won’t have her taking over my room, right at my wedding time. I hate her.”

“Oh dear,” Lady Lucker said, and immediately backed down. “But we cannot send her to an inn, a single young lady, and Anglin’s ward.” Her mind ran to Clara’s present room. Such a shabby little corner, with no space for an abigail and ten trunks, or even two. She continued to fret over this detail while Christmas approached, with all the fuss of food and Christmas baskets and carolers.

Lord Oglethorpe arrived on the evening of the twenty-fourth to spend Christmas with them, but it was the twenty-sixth that was to see the first large influx of visitors. On Christmas day they had no more than Lord Oglethorpe added to their party, and a poor addition he was, in Clara’s opinion. A tall, gangly, silly fellow who fortunately spent most of his waking hours in secret conclave with Prissie in various dim corners, clutching her hand, her arm, shoulder, or waist, and whispering in her ear of the bliss awaiting them.

Clara and Lady Lucker, too, were ready to crown him, but as there were no outside visitors to see how foolishly he behaved, they tried to ignore him. Sir James, who was a collector of Roman coins, remained all unaware of the hubbub around him. He had picked up a piece of bent metal in his pasture and was busily shining it to look for traces of a head or a date, thinking he found an addition for his collection. Its size and smooth edges suggested an English crown to Clara, but she didn’t tell him so.

She and Lady Lucker soon turned their attention to the more pressing matter of arranging a place in the pantry for the wedding feast that was arriving in bowls, on platters, and in boxes from all corners of the diocese. It was Clara’s job to keep a list of items, along with their receptacle and owner, for the purpose of sending thanks and returning the container. She helped her hostess decide which comestibles to serve before the wedding, lest they perish into inedibility.

It was a huge, full-time task that left very little freedom to consider the unknown Miss Muldoon. A room for her had been found under the eaves, and if she did not like it, Lady Lucker said bluntly, she could lump it. She was becoming irritable from nervous exhaustion, and even said, though she didn’t mean it, that she was sorry she had ever decided to “do” Prissie’s wedding herself.

Clara, privy now to all the family secrets, was sent scrambling through bare linen cupboards and even ragbags to find a set of sheets for Miss Muldoon and a clean pair of towels. It was necessary to unpack the latter from Prissie’s trousseau. Clara was asked to remind Lady Lucker to have them laundered and returned before the trunk left. She made a note of it and added a splinter of dislike in the fence she was building around Miss Muldoon.

When finally the twenty-sixth came, Clara was fagged with work and worry, but she was aware all the same of a coil of excitement that had nothing to do with the approaching wedding. A nervous agitation seethed within her while she went about her duties with an outward calm. Not since her childhood birthdays had she felt this mingled anticipation and apprehension, wondering if she would get the gift she craved or some well-meaning substitution. It was childish and unworthy of a grown lady, she told herself, but nothing calmed the feeling. This was the day Allingcote was to arrive, and she was on tiptoe to see him again.

Chapter Three

None of the promised guests arrived early on the twenty-sixth of December. If the guest lived nearby, he would come on the day of the wedding. The guests from afar would leave their homes in the morning and arrive late in the afternoon. Lady Allingcote and her daughter, Lady Marguerite, arrived at four o’clock. Clara was curious to see Allingcote’s family. The ladies were both exceedingly stylish. The mama was not unlike Lady Lucker in appearance—tall, dark hair and eyes, full-figured, and jolly, but perhaps less talkative than her sister. Marguerite was handsome and gave some idea how the older women would have looked thirty years before, with a smooth cheek, a firm chin, and a larger, clearer eye than they could now boast.

Mother and daughter bustled in, full of good wishes and questions and a great eagerness to meet “him,” Baron Oglethorpe. No sooner were their capes and bonnets off than they went to seek him out. They soon ran him to earth in the study, sitting before a blazing grate, his fingers entwined in Prissie’s.

Clara observed their expectant smiles dwindle to a polite parting of the lips as they ran their eyes over his rangy figure and unprepossessing countenance. By the time bows and curtsies were exchanged, the ladies had uttered their congratulations and good wishes, and Oglethorpe had civilly thanked them.

Prissie then bestirred herself to ask whether it was very cold out. Lady Marguerite said not so very and asked her if she was nervous about the approaching wedding. Prissie exchanged a secret smile with her beloved and said “a little.” When this ceremony was complete, there seemed little more to say. The groom said and then repeated that he was very pleased to meet them he was sure, as though the matter had been in doubt. Having established his pleasure, his talk dried up.

Lady Lucker tried to prolong the meeting by mentioning the honeymoon in the Highlands and the fear of a cold climate. Her sister already knew the reason for this destination, but asked anyway and was told by Lady Lucker that Oglethorpe’s grandma wished to meet the bride. Once it had been added that Oglethorpe’s parents would be arriving the next day, ingenuity gave way to impatience and the hostess suggested a nice hot cup of tea for the travelers. It was with a sense of relief that they escaped, and the visitors were forced to exert their wits to find a compliment on the groom.

“He seems very nice” was the best they could do. Lady Allingcote, being a sister, felt free to add, “He is quiet, is he not? A little shy of strangers, I daresay.”

“He will open up when he gets to know you. He has a sense of humor,” Lady Lucker assured her. His reputation as a jokesmith was based on his having once put on Prissie’s bonnet for a prank. It looked well on him.

Clara, temporarily free from duties, tagged along with them to the gold saloon. Lady Lucker explained in a meaningful way that Clara was Oglethorpe’s cousin, which had a restraining effect on the anticipated coze. Not another word about the groom was uttered. “Has Benjie arrived yet?” Lady Allingcote asked instead.

“No, but he comes today, and do tell me, Peg,” Lady Lucker asked eagerly, “is he engaged to Nel Muldoon?”

“Indeed he is not!” the mother said vehemently. “Anglin is trying to push him into it. He has Benjie there three days out of four, but it has not come to a match.”

“I see. Then pray, why is he bringing her here for the wedding?”

Lady Allingcote did not swoon. Her reaction was rather an increase of spirits than a fading away. “You never mean the minx has convinced him to bring her here!” she declared noisily. Then she turned to her daughter. “Maggie, did I not say when his carriage turned off at the crossroad that he was going to say good-bye to her? It was Anglin’s he was headed to certainly, and not daring to say a word to me, the wretch. To bring her here, uninvited—and at such a time! He knew I would stop him if he told me. That is why he kept silent. This is some of Nel’s jiggery. Ben isn’t on to half her curves. What a trick to play on you, Charity.”

“We will be happy to have her,” Lady Lucker said. She was not so much happy as extremely curious to see why an objection was being raised to a pretty young heiress of good birth.

“No, you will not!” Lady Marguerite laughed. “Nel will have the place in an uproar the whole time she is here.”

Lady Lucker asked what was wrong with the girl, and Lady Allingcote gave her an ocular hint that it would be discussed later, when they were alone. Clara would have liked very well to hear all the details, but was discreet almost to a fault and excused herself at once.

“Why don’t you run along with Clara, Maggie?” Lady Lucker suggested. “She will show you your room.” She was a little ashamed at the way Oglethorpe’s cousin was being used. If Clara was to dig in and work like family, she ought to be given the family privilege of gossip.

Lady Marguerite, already aware of Miss Muldoon’s history, went along with Clara. She liked what she had seen of Miss Christopher thus far. “So you are Oglethorpe’s cousin,” she mentioned. “You don’t seem much like him.”

“Thank you,” Clara replied, and laughed lightly. “I think that was meant for a compliment.” To disassociate herself from this person who had failed to find favor with the Allingcotes, she added, “We are not at all close.”

“He seems very nice,” Lady Marguerite said dutifully.

“Prissie thinks so in any case.” It was a relief that she was not the only one with an objectionable relation.

“She would,” Lady Marguerite replied with a conspiratorial twinkle. The farce of politeness was over with and they could get down to becoming properly acquainted.

“Cousins can be so horrid,” she continued, “and only because they are cousins, one is expected to like them, and be forever visiting them and writing letters. I adore Aunt Charity, the old Tartar. Prissie must take after Uncle James. In fact, all the children do. Emily, the older sister, is another oyster, and Charles, the son and heir, cannot tear himself away from Parliament for his own sister’s wedding, so that gives you some idea.”

“He has been set the task of drawing up some bill or other, Sir James says. I have been here six weeks and have not seen him yet.”

“Count your blessings.”

Clara showed Lady Marguerite to her room. The maid was busy unpacking her trunk, so they went along to Clara’s room to talk. “Good gracious! Are you sleeping in this little cubbyhole?” Lady Marguerite exclaimed.

“Just for the time being, while the wedding guests are here.”

“It is really too bad of Benjie to bring Nel, landing in here at such a time, but I suppose he didn’t know how crowded it would be.”

Clara, keenly interested in this line of talk, said, “It will be an excellent time for him to introduce Miss Muldoon to the family, will it not? If he is to marry her, he will want all the family to get to know her.”

“I suppose so.”

“Your mama does not favor the notion at all, I gather?”

“No. Mama already knows her.”

“What—what exactly is amiss with her?” Clara asked quietly.

Lady Marguerite rolled her eyes and said, “You’ll see.”

Clara was inclined to seek further details, but as her new friend immediately ran into a new and equally interesting line of gossip, she did not try to divert her. Lady Marguerite told, without a bit of prodding, how much nicer all Benjie’s other flirts were. A whole raft of Miss this and Lady that and Cousin so-and-so flew from her tongue, till Clara’s head was spinning. What a fool she had been to think Allingcote meant a thing by his attentions to her. He was a gazetted flirt, who spent his days flitting about from house to house, visiting any family with a nubile daughter.

They talked for thirty minutes, at the end of which time Lady Marguerite went to her room to clean up after her trip, and Clara went belowstairs to see if she was needed and to see as well, of course, if Miss Muldoon and her escort had arrived yet.

Clara had been gone scarcely half an hour, but during that short interval many carriages had arrived and unloaded the occupants, who swarmed about the entranceway, the gold saloon, and even up the stairs. Many of the visitors were strangers to Clara, but Oglethorpe’s relations were hers also, and she knew them. She had spent time in many of their homes and had to seek these relatives out for a friendly word explaining what she was doing here at Branelea. She was introduced to the Lucker relations—the names familiar to her from writing invitations, as well as various lists.

Accustomed to meeting many strangers as she was, Clara enjoyed this free-for-all. Her mind was quick to fit a name to a face, and with a leg in both the Lucker and Oglethorpe camps, she was soon busy making introductions of her own. So busy that she failed to remark the gentleman in the far corner of the room, observing her every move and trying to catch her eye.

She didn’t even know Lord Allingcote was there, while his gray eyes first widened in disbelief, then crinkled at the edges in a smile, and finally narrowed in impatience. Till he rose and lounged toward her at a familiar gait, with his well-shaped head preceding his shoulders a little, she didn’t even see him. But as soon as Lord Allingcote was seen, he was recognized, and she stopped dead in the middle of welcoming her Cousin Esmeralda to stare at him, as if he were a ghost.

In two paces he was at her side, bowing and saying in his familiar offhand way, “Fancy meeting you here, Miss Christopher!” The warmth of his voice removed any casual air from the trite remark. That, and his remembering her name after two years.

“Oh, Lord Allingcote, you remember me,” she said, and dropped a curtsy.

“Remember you!”
he exclaimed, shocked. “But of course! Well, well, small world, isn’t it?” he said, then emitted a laugh that was a little too loud and sounded almost nervous—so unlike his usual social polish. “Have I left out any of the customary banalities?” he asked her with a smile. “We’ve had ‘fancy meeting you here’ and ‘small world.’ I had no idea you would be here. I didn’t realize you were a friend of Prissie’s.”

“I’m not. That is—I am now I hope—but I am here because of Oglethorpe. He is my cousin.”

“Is he indeed? No one told me that. What a pleasant surprise this is, seeing you again.” He put his hand on her elbow and continued, “Won’t you join me in that quiet little corner there between the palms, that I have usurped for myself? Quite a tropical oasis in the desert of Auntie’s saloon, with a good bottle of claret standing by. You don’t remember, I suppose, my predilection for claret at the Bellinghams’, but I remember
you
always preferred sherry, and shall procure you a glass if you’ll join me among the palms.”