Remember me, p.31
Remember Me, page 31
Lucas went with his grandparents and their personal servants and enough baggage for a month’s stay. They were received at Stratton House like visiting royalty. Lucas stood in the hall watching his mother-in-law lead Her Grace slowly upstairs while His Grace followed between Stratton and the countess. Each of them had one of his arms, but he had insisted upon making the ascent upon his own feet.
“Do you think I will be just as stubborn an old man as my grandfather if I should live as long?” Lucas asked young Stephanie, who had remained at his side instead of following the procession.
“Oh, I hope so,” she said, turning her head to smile brightly at him. “I adore your grandpapa. So does Pippa.”
“She takes no nonsense from him,” he said. “And he loves it.”
They both laughed.
Somehow His Grace had enough breath remaining when he reached the first landing to call down the stairs. “Go home to your bride, Luc,” he said. “I do not need either a jailer or a nursemaid. This is a big day for her. Make a fuss of her. Tell her how lovely she looks. Take her flowers. Roses. At least two dozen. Red. How many more stairs?” That last question was directed to the Strattons.
“I have been given my orders,” Lucas said, setting a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder and kissing her cheek. “We will see you later.”
“You will not recognize me,” she said. “I have the most gorgeous gown.”
“But the golden coronet will remain?” he asked, glancing at her hair. “You will be gorgeous from head to foot, then, and I will recognize you.”
“Flatterer.” She laughed with girlish glee.
He hurried home, though he did stop along the way to purchase a single rose for his wife. He had not seen the gown she would wear tonight, but she had described its colors as a mixture of blues and turquoise and sea green. The rose was white.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A dinner at Stratton House for the members of both families preceded the ball, though the Duke and Duchess of Wilby dined privately in their suite, which His Grace declared to be too spacious and too comfortable to be abandoned just yet. Indeed, he told the dowager countess and his daughter when they called there, he might even forget to go home for a few days after tonight’s ball. The elderly were expected to be forgetful, after all.
It was an informal dinner in the sense that there were no speeches and no toasts.
“We got all that out of the way on your wedding day,” the Earl of Stratton explained to Philippa and Lucas. “Tonight is for relaxation and enjoyment.”
There probably had not been a great deal of relaxation in the household all day, though, Philippa thought. The dining room looked like a work of art, and the food and wine were sumptuous. There would be a lavish supper later for all the ball guests as well as light refreshments throughout the evening. The ballroom, which she had always considered a bit dark and gloomy and neglected and a waste of space, now looked breathtaking. She and Lucas had taken a quick look inside upon their arrival earlier. There was greenery everywhere. Who knew that nature was capable of providing so many shades and textures of the same color? There were a few pots of flowers too—all of them white. But predominantly it was a green paradise.
How very clever Gwyneth had been in thinking of a way for her ballroom to be distinguished from all others in London with their profusion of blooms and color. The chandeliers had been cleaned and filled with candles, and the floor had been polished to a high gloss. Velvet upholstered chairs had been arranged about the walls for the convenience of those who wished to sit and watch the dancing rather than participate in it. Two high-backed chairs with arms and footstools had been placed halfway along the wall inside the doors.
“For King Percy and Queen May, no doubt,” Lucas had said for Philippa’s ears only, nodding in their direction.
It was going to be a magical evening, Philippa thought as dinner ended and she turned her thoughts to the ball. Guests would begin to arrive within the hour. She and Lucas would stand in the receiving line with her mother and Devlin and Gwyneth. They would lead off the dancing. But tonight she was not wearing virginal white—how inappropriate it would be anyway. Tonight she was wearing the most beautiful gown she had ever seen. At first glance it was not very different from the fashionable gowns all women wore these days. It was high-waisted with a low neckline and short, puffed sleeves. The skirt fell straight from bosom to hem, in classical Grecian lines. It looked blue or green or turquoise, depending upon the light and the angle from which one looked at it. In reality, however, the lightweight silk and gauze of which it was made disguised the fullness of the skirts, which swirled and billowed about her when she moved, revealing too many shades of blending colors to enumerate.
Lucas had stood in the doorway of her dressing room earlier, one shoulder propped against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He had been looking gorgeous, of course, all in black and white, his hair glowing dark red. “That gown was designed for a woman who might not otherwise be noticed,” he had said. “On you it has failed miserably, Phil. Your own beauty quite overpowers it.”
His eyes had smiled at her when she burst out laughing.
“Do you lie awake at night composing these pretty compliments?” she had asked him.
“Er . . . do I lie awake at night?” he had asked her. “It seems to me that when I am awake, I am far too busy exerting myself to be mentally composing any compliments at all.”
Philippa had been very glad she had already dismissed her maid.
She rose now from the dining table when Gwyneth did. The ladies would withdraw to make any minor repairs to their appearance that were necessary. The men would not linger at the table, Devlin promised.
But the ladies were fated not to leave the room so quickly after all. For someone else entered it unannounced. He was immaculately clad for the evening even though he had not been invited to either the dinner or the ball.
There was a loud scraping of chairs from those who were not already on their feet.
“George!” the Dowager Countess of Stratton exclaimed. She hurried toward her brother.
“Uncle George,” Philippa murmured as Lucas’s hand enclosed hers and squeezed tightly.
Noise surged and died away almost immediately.
“Victory,” George Greenfield said. “And Nick is safe and unharmed.”
He was merciful enough to give with terse brevity the two key pieces of news for which they had all waited seemingly forever. He went on to mention Waterloo, a small village south of Brussels, as the scene of the battle, and the fact that it had been no grand victory but what the Duke of Wellington himself had apparently described as a very near-run thing. But it was a victory nonetheless. Nick had been in the thick of the fighting all day long but had come through it with barely a scratch, though he had had a horse shot out from under him.
Philippa scarcely heard the details her uncle was giving to reassure his listeners. She had turned into Lucas’s arms and was weeping uncontrollably on his shoulder. She had not even realized until that moment how very anxious she had been all week. She, along with her family. Yet here they all were this evening, preparing to dance the night away, as though they had no care in the world. How was it possible for people to do that? To carry on with the business of living even while the world was coming apart and their hearts were ready to shatter?
What if the news her uncle had brought in person had been different? It would be different for hundreds and thousands of other families, both in Britain and in France.
“How did we manage to retain our sanity during those years when Devlin and Ben as well as Nicholas were in the Peninsula and fighting battle after battle?” she asked, raising her head and gazing at her husband.
“Because it is what people do, Phil,” he said, and kissed her on the lips. “People endure and carry on living.”
And then she was hugging her mother and Stephanie and her brother and sister-in-law and the other Ware relatives, and everyone was talking at once. And laughing too. But not heartlessly, Philippa believed. They were very well aware that no battle was cause for rejoicing, whether it had been won or lost, for so much was lost on both sides when violence became the only answer to a problem.
Devlin managed to make himself heard after a while.
“Our first guests will be arriving soon,” he said. “I believe a number of us need to wash away the marks of our tears before we greet them.”
But, oh, there was something over which to rejoice with unalloyed happiness, Philippa thought as Lucas took her by the hand again. Nicholas was safe. And unharmed—though there were those words of Uncle George’s: with barely a scratch.
England was safe from invasion.
She would dance tonight with her husband. The man she loved. And life would continue.
* * *
—
As he stood in the receiving line with his wife and her mother and brother and sister-in-law, Lucas could not suppress an inner tremor of laughter over the fact that he had ended up with this of all families. He had spent so many years, from the age of fourteen until very recently, hating the very name Stratton, making it sound in his mind very similar to Satan.
The former bearer of the title was dead. So was his own mother. The memory of the suffering they had caused themselves and their families had faded from his mind, never to be forgotten, of course, but never again to blight his own happiness. Or Philippa’s, it was to be hoped. And he was happy. She was sparkling at his side, beautiful in that incredible gown, her blond hair, dressed in its usual smooth, simple style, gleaming in the light from the chandelier overhead. The marks of her tears had been sponged away. The damp patch on the shoulder of his new black evening coat had dried.
He could only imagine how she had felt earlier when she learned—from a firsthand account—that her brother had survived with no more than a few scratches the great battle that had been fought close to Brussels this past Sunday.
He remembered too, as he shook hands with male guests and bowed to the ladies and occasionally raised a gloved hand to his lips, that he had avoided London and all these people for years. Even this year he had been reluctant to come, knowing as he had that he would probably be married before the ton dispersed to their own homes for the summer. And he was married—to the woman his grandparents had picked out for him. He had never really had any choice. But he ought to have trusted them more than he had. He glanced at Philippa, who was laughing at something Lord Edward Denton and another young man were saying to her as they passed along the line. For of course his grandparents’ choice would never have been made with a cold disregard for sentiment. They would only have chosen someone they loved, someone they assumed he must love too.
And dash it all, they were right.
“I believe it is time to begin the dancing, Dev,” the Countess of Stratton said at last. “You will lead off the opening set with Pippa, Lucas. Oh, my first ton ball as hostess is beginning and I am consumed with excitement.”
She was a total contrast to Philippa, dark haired and vivid in royal blue, the skirt of her gown carefully designed, he noticed, to disguise the rounding of her figure.
Stratton mounted the orchestra dais, though he did not immediately announce the opening set. He waited politely while the Duke of Wilby made his entrance, the duchess on his arm, Cousin Gerald hovering on one side of them, Sylvester on the other, but neither one actually touching them. Lucas was amused again by the smattering of applause that rippled through the ballroom as they took their places on what he thought of as their thrones.
Jenny had a cluster of persons about her chair, Lucas saw, both male and female. One of the latter was young Stephanie, wearing a flattering gown—as she had informed him she would—of light muslin with narrow lemon and white vertical stripes. She was beaming happily, her round cheeks shining in the candlelight.
And then the dancing began, and for almost half an hour Lucas forgot everything and everyone except his wife, with whom he danced. The figures separated them and brought them together as they paced out stately measures and executed more vigorous twirls, acknowledging their fellow dancers as they were brought together but somehow never losing their focus upon each other.
They took other partners for the following two sets but came together again for the first waltz—which Lucas had made clear he would dance with no one else but Philippa. And yet again they discovered the magic of moving about a ballroom floor in each other’s arms, dancing in sweeping twirls until the candles overhead and the gowns of the ladies and the sparkle of their jewels swirled into a kaleidoscope of light and color and sheer joy.
He smiled at Philippa and she smiled back, and for the moment all was right with their world. For the moment. Life was made up of moments, following endlessly upon one another throughout a lifetime. One must grasp those that were good and face those that were not as they came. It was the nature of the ebb and flow of life. Like a dance. This was one of the good moments. Ah, but no. This was one of the very best moments.
“I will always remember tonight,” she said, echoing his thoughts, and he realized they were the first words either of them had spoken since the music began.
“For good reasons, I hope,” he said.
“For the very best,” she assured him. And she was not just smiling tonight, he realized. She was glowing from deep within.
“We will reminisce about it when we are old and gray,” he said. “We will recall it as one of the happiest of many happy memories we will have accumulated over the years.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I do love you, Phil,” he said. “It must be very obvious to you, of course, but I believe women like to be told, do they not?”
She laughed with what sounded like a gurgle of glee. “Oh yes,” she said. “We do indeed like to be told. Don’t men?”
He thought about it and grinned at her. “I suppose we do,” he said.
“I love you too, Lucas,” she said. “To the moon and the sun and the stars.” She laughed again. But the laughter faded as he swept her into a wide twirl and another couple moved sharply out of their way.
“Lucas,” she said more softly. “I do love you. With all my heart.”
“Which is just exactly as much as I love you,” he said. “How fortunate that our feelings for each other are in such harmony.”
* * *
—
The Duke and Duchess of Wilby did not stay for very long. They withdrew to their suite of rooms before the supper dance began, a move that was quietly applauded by all their family members, who from the start had feared a repetition of what had happened at Almack’s, but perhaps with a different outcome this time.
Lucas and Philippa accompanied them, though they could not stay away long from the ball. They must be present for the supper since it was in their honor and would involve a few speeches and some cake cutting, Gwyneth had admitted when Philippa had questioned her closely.
But they did wait while His Grace settled in a comfortable chair in the sitting room of the suite and sighed with relief that the sound of the music was more distant from here and the noise of conversation and laughter quite obliterated.
“The time was,” he said, and paused as Her Grace poured him a cup of tea, upon which he frowned with some disgust though he knew better now than to grumble and demand a glass of port or claret or ale or . . . anything but tea, May. “The time was when I would have danced the night away, but now I must leave that to the two of you. Come and kiss my cheek, Philippa, and tell me this is one of the happiest nights of your life, and then we will keep you no longer. I intend to be tucked up in my bed before another hour has gone by, after which Her Grace may sneak out to dance away what remains of the night if she chooses.”
“I will be tucked up right beside you, Percy,” the duchess said. “How very kind your brother and his wife and your mother are, Philippa dear, to make these rooms available for our comfort even though we live scarcely more than a stone’s throw away.”
Philippa sat down on a stool beside the duke’s chair and took his hand in hers, though she did not immediately kiss his cheek.
“I was intending to wait until tomorrow,” she said. “Until after I had talked with Lucas tonight. But somehow the time seems appropriate now, and why should not the three of you hear it from me at the same time?”
His Grace looked sharply down at her. The duchess sat down with her cup and saucer in her hands. Lucas, standing before the fireplace, raised his eyebrows.
“I am not perfectly sure,” Philippa said. “I have not consulted a physician yet. But I do believe I am with child.” She felt her cheeks flame with heat—and probably with color too.
The duke’s hand closed more tightly about hers. “Well, of course you are, Granddaughter,” he said. “You have been married to my grandson for almost a month, have you not?”
Lucas’s eyes were very intent upon her.
“It might be a girl,” she said.
The duchess had set aside her cup and saucer in order to clasp her hands to her bosom.
“It would not dare,” His Grace said. “He would not dare.”
“I would love her,” Lucas said, “with everything that is in me.”
“And so would we all,” the duchess agreed. “Including Grandpapa, Philippa. We love Susan every bit as much as we love Timothy and Raymond, after all. Girls are in no way inferior or less welcome to a family despite the fact that they cannot inherit ducal titles and properties. You and Lucas have all the time in the world to produce a boy. There always has been one in this family for generations past. There will be another.”
