Chapter 9 #3
The roadster pulled up to the flat. George set the brake and killed the engine. A lamp had been left burning in the parlor window, thin marigold light brushing the curtains.
“Well,” she said, looking at her lap, looking up at him. “Thank you for this. Thank you for today.”
“Thank you,” he replied, serious, “for allowing me the pleasure of kidnapping you.”
She laughed a little, still feeling the heat of the wine buzzing through her, the heat of his look even warmer, even better.
“I came willingly, so it was hardly a kidnapping. More like—an unexpected adventure.”
“Might I tempt you into adventuring with me again, Inez?”
“Gladly.”
“Tomorrow, then. I’ll be here at noon.”
“Another concert?”
“No, no, that’s all done, at least for the next few months.
A picnic, I think. My cook packs an excellent basket.
Sandwiches and chutney, apple tarts. The most respectable courting food imaginable.
It wouldn’t hurt to follow some of the rules, in case anyone asks about this disreputable fellow calling on you.
You can tell your mama in all honesty that we’re as prim and virtuous as the Pilgrims. Some of the time, at least.”
“Are we courting?” she asked, audacious with wine.
He slanted her a sideways look. “It is my ardent ambition.”
MRS. CORBYN MET her at the door.
“Good evening, miss. You left so quickly this afternoon I wasn’t certain when you’d be back, but I’ve had your dinner kept warm for you. If you like, I can have the girl bring it to the table now.”
Inez was not imagining the undertone of disapproval in her housekeeper’s voice, she thought, but nothing could dim the happiness spreading through her.
“No need. I dined with Mr. Vernon. Why don’t you have it?”
Mrs. Corbyn forgot herself enough to raise an eyebrow. “The staff has already had our supper. Shall I tell the cook to save your plate for tomorrow?”
“If you like. I’m going up now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Oh, and Mr. Vernon will be calling again tomorrow afternoon. We’re going on a picnic.”
“Very well. What time shall I inform Della she is to chaperone?”
“No need,” Inez said again. She placed a hand on the railing, one foot upon the bottom step, then turned around.
“Mrs. Corbyn, I feel I should warn you that Mr. Vernon will be calling often from now on. I’m going to marry him, you see, so he’ll be here more and more. Chaperones are superfluous at this point.”
At last, she’d broken through the housekeeper’s iron facade. Inez turned back and began climbing the stairs, smiling to herself at the confounded look on the other woman’s face.
THEY WOULD DEBATE for hours the notion of love at first sight.
George, for all his worldly ways, was a firm believer in it.
Inez, the idealist, was more dubious. But neither could deny the strange and marvelous connection that had overtaken them both, rendering them both as helpless as babes, as George liked to say to anyone who was foolish enough to inquire how’d they’d met—
I was merely infatuated, Inez would cut in.
—helpless as babes, he insisted. Helpless to stop what was to come.
He was probably right. He was nearly always right, Inez was discovering, but instead of being irritated by this fact, she found it comforting.
George Vernon was handsome, he was cosmopolitan, he was intelligent and he was right.
He consorted with kings and knew the names of the staff at his favorite restaurants, and those of their children.
He’d sent her postcards so that she would not forget him, even when they were continents apart.
A bright new horizon spread before them. All their years to come spread before them, and sometimes Inez felt so suffused with joy she no longer recognized herself.
RITA WAS NOT so sanguine. Her tour was taking a weeklong midsummer break, and she’d arrived back in London even more glamorous, even more tempestuous and beguiling than when she’d left.
She filled the flat with a thrill of excitement, like a whirlwind whipping near enough to touch. Like lightning striking too close.
The parlor where she and Inez had spent so many hours plotting and laughing and arguing seemed too small and ordinary now to contain her.
The entire apartment seemed too small. But here they were again anyway, the two of them together, with daylight slipping rectangles of luminance across the rug, and the delftware teapot and cups Della had brought gleaming white-and-blue on the table between them.
Rita had draped herself along the chaise longue, heels kicked off, the pleated chiffon layers of her canary gown spread around her like translucent wings, spilling over the cushions in dramatic folds.
She rested her head back against a gray satin pillow and watched Inez through the fans of her lashes.
“Are you really sure, darling?”
“With every atom of me,” Inez swore, and meant it. “Every single one.”
“It only seems very sudden.”
“Not to me.”
Rita turned her head, rubbed her cheek lazily against the smooth satin, like a cat. “Two months of pitching woo. It’s not that long.”
“It’s been more than two months. More like eight, with all the cards and flowers.”
“And has Mr. Vernon been a perfect gentleman during your time together?”
“Absolutely!”
“That’s too bad,” she said, and laughed when Inez tossed a pillow at her, barely missing the teapot. “I only meant, sometimes a little naughtiness can lead to all sorts of fun.”
“What are you on about?”
“Nothing.” She sat up. “Please tell me that he’s kissed you, at least.”
Inez buried her face in her hands.
“He has, hasn’t he? Smashing. You can tell a lot about a fellow by how he kisses.”
“I know you’re only trying to shock me. It won’t work.”
“Then why are you blushing? You’re pink as a flamingo.”
Inez flung down her hands. “Yes, we’ve kissed. More than once, and it was—it was astounding. Transformative. I—I never knew I could feel such things.”
Rita’s teasing expression sobered. Her gaze lowered; she began to rearrange the bunched chiffon, smoothing it flat against the cushions.
“No,” said Inez, recognizing the look on her face. “No, don’t try to deflate this, or make it less than it is. Don’t doubt my heart.”
“I don’t doubt your heart. I merely—”
“No.”
“Have you considered it all the way through, is all. Where will you live? How will you live? Will you travel with him around the world, willy-nilly into the hinterlands of Russia or North Africa, or—or the jungles of the equator? That doesn’t sound like you at all. You like being at home.”
“I will be at home. Because I am at home in his heart.”
Rita sighed and shifted. If she actually carried any lightning with her, Inez imagined it would be crackling along her fingertips right now.
“What about Maman and Papa? I can’t imagine they have nothing to say about this.”
“George is on his way to Provence right now. He’s going to do all properly, he says. Ask Papa for my hand in person.”
“Commendable. Are they actually expecting him?”
“I wired yesterday.”
“Well, then.” Another sigh. “It seems like you have it all figured out.”
“I hope so,” Inez said, fervent. She rose and crossed to her sister, sat down on the floor before her and put her head in her lap. Rita’s fingers lifted, lowered, ran lightly over her hair, the barest touch, then came to rest against her nape.
“A concert singer,” her sister said, musing.
“And an importer’s agent. Not a spy.”
“Hmm. I told you not to fall in love with him, remember? Back at the party? I told you, and you went and did it anyway.”
“Perhaps some of your wild rubbed off on me.”
“Oh no,” Rita laughed, “I’m not taking the blame for this. You fell head over heels all by yourself.”
“I did,” Inez murmured in agreement, closing her eyes. “Head over heels.”
That was exactly how it felt. A turning tumble, the earth and stars spinning above and below at once, and she could hardly catch her breath.
She never caught her breath.
THE WEDDING TOOK place inside the Orangery at Kew Gardens, only a few miles from Winter Queen, on a brisk November afternoon that was already tilting into twilight.
They said their vows beneath a canopy of flowering vines, looping tangles of pink and vermillion blooms that lent the humid air a tropical sweetness.
Outside the high, arched windows, crystalline clouds raced across the blue, and the branches of the cedars growing near the building twitched and bobbed.
To the east, the world was fading into violet.
Candles had been lit, dozens of snowy white beeswax tapers.
There were lords and ladies in attendance, and George’s American relatives (his parents at least, subdued but smiling), and the Jolivets’ far more boisterous French relatives, and an emissary from the king himself.
The hall was filled to the brim with elegant, pastel people chattering in all sorts of languages: German, Serbian, Dutch and Afrikaans, Italian and Arabic and Hindi.
A few languages she couldn’t recognize at all, but they sounded as splendid as the rest, poetic and powerful.
(Inez tried not to wonder who among this rarified crowd owed her soon-to-be husband certain favors, and vice versa.)
The tsar and tsarina of Russia had sent their congratulations to George via messenger, along with a gift for his bride: a diamond brooch in the shape of a swan, with ruby eyes and outstretched wings. The center stone had to weigh at least seven carats.
Rita stood as maid of honor. She mentioned she’d had do some fast talking (silver-tongued, indeed) to win another week away from the tour, but fortunately, she was missing only three performances.
Her understudy, a Yorkshire lass who was normally one of Lady Capulet’s ladies-in-waiting, almost wept with happiness when Rita had told her she was leaving on a temporary holiday.
“But I can’t linger, as much as I’d like to. Poel threatened to replace me permanently if I’m not back by Friday.”
“He never would,” Inez protested, appalled.
“No,” Rita had said, pulling her into a light embrace. “Don’t worry, sissy. He never would.”
How fortunate Inez was to have all of her family surrounding her on this blessed day, this glorious day, blustery cold outside and perfectly temperate inside, and George sliding the simple gold ring on her finger and then she doing the same for him.
And everyone in the Orangery applauding, just as they would after Inez would play her violin or George would sing.
Only now it was a celebration of them both, together. For their legal union, and no one had to sing or play. They simply had to appreciate the sorcery of this moment, gold and flowers and twilight, as all of her dreams were manifesting.
“I love you,” she said up to him at the altar, before everyone bearing witness. “And I promise to keep falling in love with you every single day.”
“Then I am the luckiest man in the world,” he’d responded. “And with you at my side, I always will be.”
Mr. and Mrs. George Ley Vernon.
Inez rose up on her toes for his kiss, her first kiss as his wife, and his lips were warm and tender, and her heart was a dove, flying from her chest.
His hands closed around her waist, drawing her closer.
What a beautiful moment. A beautiful day, with the most beautiful life ahead of them.