The Escape Page 31

  “S-spare me,” Flavian said faintly.

  Hugo had a tankard of ale in his hand. “We must not keep Ben from his beauty sleep tonight of all nights,” he said, “and we will not try to get him foxed. But we will drink a toast to you, Benedict. That all your life your heart will dance as your person did in that alcove before Christmas.”

  “Oh, the devil!” Flavian said, getting to his feet and holding aloft his glass of port. “Marriage is t-turning Hugo embarrassingly poetic. But he has the r-rights of it, Benedict, my boy. M-may you be happy. It is all we have ever w-wanted for one another.”

  “To you, Benedict,” Imogen said, lifting her glass of wine. “And to Samantha.”

  “To your happiness, Ben,” Ralph said, “and Mrs. McKay’s.”

  “To you, brother,” Calvin said. “I always admired you greatly. You knew what you wanted and you went after it and did superbly well. It almost killed me when you were so badly hurt so soon after Wallace was killed. But then I learned to admire you more than I ever had. And I still do even if you do cause me worry when you won’t come home and let me look after you and when you insist upon walking and even dancing, for the love of God. To you, brother—all the happiness in the world and to Samantha too.”

  Ben, smiling at him, felt rather as if he were seeing his brother for the first time.

  “And may you always ride your wheels as fast as we can run, Benedict,” the duke said.

  They all drank, and Ben laughed.

  “If you do not want to see me turn into a watering pot,” he said, “and if you do not want to find the doors of Cartref locked against you, you had better leave. I will see you all in the morning.”

  “One word of advice, Ben,” Hugo said as they were taking their leave. “Get your valet to tie your neckcloth looser than usual tomorrow. There is something about being at the front of the church when you are a bridegroom waiting for your bride to arrive that makes the neck expand.”

  “And he is not lying, Ben,” Calvin told him.

  Samantha’s half brother arrived the day before her wedding. She had already moved into the big house and greeted him there on his arrival. They shook hands and conversed politely. She asked about her sister-in-law and nephews and nieces. He asked her about her home and her connections in the village. He shook hands with Ben and conversed politely with him.

  But it was all done in company with others. Samantha was touched that he had come so far and at the worst time of the year for her sake. But he seemed more like a stranger she had once known than someone who was close to her. She hoped he would not regret coming. But she supposed he would not. He had come out of a sense of duty to their father, not out of any fondness for her.

  Ah, life was difficult sometimes.

  It was not until the following morning that she finally saw him alone.

  She was dressed for her wedding. She had chosen a simply styled dress of warm white velvet with a gold chain and locket about her neck and gold earrings. A small gold-colored bonnet hugged her head. Her heavy cloak, which was flung over the back of a chair in her dressing room, was also of white velvet with gold frogged fasteners at the front and fur lining.

  She had considered various bright colors but had rejected them all in favor of white. She wanted simplicity. She wanted just herself on display to her bridegroom, not the brightness of her clothes.

  “Ooh,” Gladys said when she had fitted the bonnet carefully over Samantha’s curls and tied the ribbons in a bow to one side of her chin, “you were right and I was wrong, Mrs. McKay. White is your color. Every color is your color. But you look perfect today. The major is going to eat you up, he is, when he sees you. Not that he’d better do it, mind, not when—”

  But her monologue was interrupted by a knock on the dressing room door and she went to see who was there.

  “Thank you, Gladys,” Samantha said. “That will be all.”

  She smiled at John. She had thought everyone had left for the church by now.

  “You look very fine,” he said, his eyes moving over her. He was frowning. “I have always thought of you, you know, as your mother’s daughter. I would never think of you as my father’s too. But you were—you are. You look like your mother, of course—well, a bit like her, anyway. I was always thankful about that, for I am like my father. I can see it when I look in a glass. But you do too. Not in obvious ways. Just sometimes in a turn of the head or a fleeting expression—not anything I can put my finger on exactly. But you are his daughter. Not that I ever doubted it. I just ignored it.”

  “John.” She stepped forward and extended her right hand. “You have come all this way and I am touched. I know it was hard for you when our father married my mother.”

  “You are my sister,” he said. “I had to come and tell you that, Samantha. Not that you did not know it, but … Well, everyone needs family, and I know you have always been denied half of yours and didn’t know about the other half until recently. I am glad you have discovered that half. Bevan seems a decent sort as well as being as rich as Croesus.”

  “John,” she said hesitantly, hoping she was not about to introduce a discordant note into their meeting, “why did you keep his letters from me and all of Mr. Rhys’s except the one you sent soon after Papa’s death? Why did I not know about the money my aunt left me or all the gifts my grandfather sent?”

  He frowned. “I knew nothing of any gifts or money,” he told her. “I do know that when our father was dying he had me find two bundles of letters and burn them while he watched. He told me your mother had not wanted you to have anything to do with her Welsh relatives, that they had treated her badly and must not be allowed to bother you. He wanted to honor her wishes, especially as you had made such an advantageous marriage. All I ever had was letters asking what you wanted to do about the cottage. Father had said it was just a run-down building, not worth anything. I sent the one letter on to you after answering it myself—I thought perhaps you ought to see it so that you could send an answer of your own if you wanted. You did not write back, and your husband was in a bad way, and I didn’t bother you with the other few letters that came. But they did not mention any money, Samantha—only the cottage. I had no idea it was the house it is.”

  “Me neither,” she said, smiling at him. “As it has turned out, John, it is a good thing I knew nothing, but discovered the truth only when it would mean most to me.”

  “You are marrying a good man,” he said, “even if he is half a cripple.”

  “There is no one less crippled than Ben,” she said. “But thank you, John. I wept, you know, when I knew you were coming.”

  “You did?”

  “I did.” She smiled and looked beyond his shoulder.

  Her grandfather had come to fetch her. He was beaming at her and then smiling genially at John.

  “The bridegroom will have heart palpitations if we are late,” he said. “Bridegrooms always do. It is a hazardous thing to be.”

  “I know.” John smiled at him and looked so much like their father that Samantha’s heart turned over. “I see enough of them. And I was one myself once.”

  He turned back and took a step closer so that he could kiss Samantha’s cheek.

  “Be happy,” he said. “Our father loved you very dearly, you know.”

  “I do know,” she said softly. “Just as he loved you.”

  He hurried away, and Samantha looked at her grandfather.

  “Oh, dear God, girl,” he said, “but you look like my Esme. Except that I never saw her in white. It was a color she never wore. You are beautiful. And what an inadequate word that is. Come, let me help you on with your cloak, and we will go rescue the major from death by heart failure, shall we?”

  “Oh, by all means, Grandpapa,” she said. “But I must not forget my muff.”

  It was her wedding day, she thought, and felt a flutter of almost unbearable excitement in her stomach.

  It had been decided at Christmastime that Ben would take three months during wh
ich to get married and enjoy a wedding trip and a stay with his fellow members of the Survivors’ Club. After that, as Mr. Bevan’s grandson-in-law rather than simply as his employee, he would gradually take over the running of the mines and ironworks while Bevan himself relaxed into a semi-retirement. The newly wedded couple would live at the cottage, though the invitation to take up their residence at Cartref was an open one. There would be homes in Swansea and the Rhondda Valley too.

  All of which was satisfying, even exciting to consider, Ben thought as he sat beside his brother at the front of the church in Fisherman’s Bridge while his family and friends and Samantha’s murmured in soft conversation behind him. But in the meanwhile there was today.

  His wedding day.

  He had not really expected to be nervous. How could one feel any anxieties when one was so entirely happy? But he knew what Hugo had meant about his neckcloth. And he could not stop himself from fearing that he would drop the wedding ring just when he was about to slide it onto Samantha’s finger. Indeed, he had woken up more than once during the night with just that fear. He would have to let someone else crawl around on hands and knees to retrieve it, and then he would have to go through the ordeal all over again.

  “You are in pain, Ben?” Calvin asked, his voice full of concern.

  “No.” Ben looked at him in some surprise, but he realized he had been rubbing his hands over his upper thighs. “Make sure I have a good grip on the ring, Cal, before you let it go.”

  His brother grinned at him. “No one ever does drop it,” he said.

  Now he was in for it for sure.

  And then the Reverend Jenkins, gorgeously clad in his clerical robes, was telling the congregation to stand and the pipe organ was striking a chord.

  It seemed to take Ben forever to push himself to his feet with his canes, but when he had done so, she was only just coming into sight at the end of the nave, on the arm of a proudly beaming Bevan.

  Oh, Lord God, Ben thought with reverence rather than blasphemy, had there ever been such beauty? Could she possibly be his? His bride?

  And then she looked along the nave, and her eyes came to rest upon him, and she smiled. He was quite unaware of the slight little sigh that rippled through the congregation as he smiled back.

  And then she was beside him, and they both turned toward Mr. Jenkins.

  “Dearly beloved,” he said in his lovely Welsh accent.

  And just like that, all within a few minutes, the world changed.

  They were married.

  And not only did he not drop the ring, but he did not even think about the possibility as he took it in his hand and slid it over her finger while he spoke the words the clergyman recited ahead of him. He did not even think about how he was to manage without his canes for a few minutes.

  They were married.

  And then they signed the register and it was all done up right and tight.

  They were man and wife.

  They made their slow way back up the nave. Ben did it with one cane. Samantha’s hand was through his other arm, holding it firmly without appearing to do so. In her other hand she held her white muff. He felt no pain from the walk as he looked to left and right, acknowledging their guests with nods and smiles while Samantha did the same.

  And then they were outside, and a chill wind cut at them and they turned their faces toward each other and laughed.

  “Lady Harper,” he said.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Your friends are not holding what I think they are holding, are they?”

  There were a number of villagers in the street beyond the church, come to see the show and cheer the bride and groom. But in their midst, sure enough, were Flavian and Ralph, who had obviously slipped out of the church early. Where they had found flowers in January, the Lord only knew. There must be a hothouse somewhere. But those were unmistakably flower petals clutched in their hands and then raining over bride and groom as they made their slow way to the carriage that was waiting to convey them back to Cartref.

  “I think the answer was yes,” Ben said, laughing as he climbed in after Samantha. “And I think what is trailing behind the carriage is what I think it is too.”

  The church bells were ringing. The crowd was cheering. The congregation was beginning to spill out of the church.

  “Here,” Hugo said, “I’ll close the carriage door for you.”

  Which he did—after tossing another great handful of petals inside.

  Ben sat back on the seat and laughed. And he took Samantha’s hand in his as he turned to her.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Words are ridiculous sometimes, aren’t they?” he said.

  She nodded again.

  He dipped his head and kissed her while the crowd beyond the carriage cheered more loudly and there were a few piercing whistles.

  The carriage lurched into motion.

  Noisy motion as it dragged numerous pieces of metal hardware behind it.

  “Ben,” Samantha said, gazing into his eyes, “I forgive you.”

  “For?”

  “For calling me woman,” she said, “and for uttering a whole arsenal of foul words in my hearing and Tramp’s.”

  He smiled slowly at her.

  “I suppose,” he said, “I have just married that wretch of a hound too, haven’t I?”

  “For better or worse,” she assured him.

  “Damned dog,” he said and kissed his wife somewhat more ruthlessly than he had done a minute before.

  Turn the page to read Mary Balogh’s delightful and heartwarming novella

  THE SUITOR

  The story of a clever and headstrong young lady who clings to the power of true love and plots to claim her one and only.

  1

  Philippa Dean was sitting sideways on the padded window seat in her bedchamber, her very favorite spot in the town house her father had leased in London for the spring months so that she could make her come-out in society. Her feet were drawn up before her; her right hand, in which she held one of her opened letters, draped over her knee. The other letter lay forgotten in her lap. She was gazing out the window to the garden below, though she was not really seeing either the flowers or the grass and trees.

  She was seeing a future filled to the brim with happiness.

  And this, now, this moment, was the beginning of that future. This was the happiest day of her life.

  She raised her hand and looked at the letter again, though she had it by heart already after at least a dozen readings.

  Julian was coming to London.

  He would be here in a week’s time, perhaps a little longer. Certainly no more than two.

  And when Papa saw him again, he would discover the changes two years had wrought, and he would have no further objection to him as a suitor for her hand. Julian would be allowed to court her openly, and after a decent interval he would offer for her and then marry her, and they would live happily ever after.

  For a moment she felt a twinge of anxiety, for this desirable outcome had not yet been achieved, of course, and, as her grandmama was fond of saying, there was many a slip twixt cup and lip. But she refused to allow a silly old adage to lower her spirits. She had waited two long years for this moment, or rather for the moment that was now within her reach.

  Nothing—surely!—could or would go wrong.

  Julian had changed. He was also undeniably eligible. And she was eighteen now rather than sixteen. She was of marriageable age. Indeed, she had been brought to London for that very reason. It was the Season, and she had been brought here to find an eligible husband.

  Papa loved her, as did Mama. They wanted her to make a good marriage, of course. She was the eldest of five children, all of whom would need to be suitably settled within the next few years, and Papa, though comfortably well off, was not vastly wealthy. But equally important to her parents was that she make a marriage in which her affections would be engaged, a marriage in which she would be h
appy. They had said so repeatedly.

  Philippa tipped her head sideways to rest her temple against the glass of the window. She sighed deeply and happily.

  Julian was coming—all the way from Cornwall. She would see him again. She closed her eyes and remembered his tall, lithe figure; his handsome, vital face with the slightly crooked smile; his dark, often intense eyes; his brown hair always attractively disheveled as though he had just been running in a wind. Had she remembered him as he really was? She sometimes wondered. Two years was an awfully long time. Had he changed? What did he look like now?

  Would he think her changed? She hoped so, for she had grown up since he saw her last. She had been a girl then. She was a woman now.

  She looked down at his letter, read it once more, and folded it small, as it had come to her inside Barbara’s letter. Barbara Redford, Philippa’s closest friend in Bath, was Julian’s cousin on his mother’s side. It was through her that the two of them had met and then kept up a correspondence for two years, a clandestine, guilty exchange between a single gentleman and a young girl who was not even out of the schoolroom when it started.

  Philippa hoped that when she was the mother of daughters grown beyond childhood but not yet quite to adulthood, she would remember that it was possible to fall in love with a steadfastness of devotion that would continue unabated through a lifetime. Her love for Julian had not wavered in two years. Neither had his for her. He had written to her faithfully every month of those years, though everyone knew that men were not the most constant of letter writers—or of suitors.

  She drew her feet a little closer to her body and clasped her arms about her knees. She gazed down at the spring flowers blooming in the garden with a more conscious appreciation.

  Her court appearance two weeks ago had dazzled her with its splendor, and her come-out ball had been wonderful beyond imagining. She had danced every set, and she had received no fewer than eight bouquets of flowers the morning after. It could only have been more perfect if Julian had been there, but he had thought it wiser to wait a short while before coming. Mama and Papa might be a little suspicious if he appeared too soon, he had written. Indeed, they might not even have invited him to her ball, since Papa had been very vexed with him two years ago.