Chapter Thirty-Eight
The morning sunlight glinted off the carriage door as Barrington handed Mrs. Bainbridge inside. Gabriel followed, pausing to rest one gloved hand on the frame before looking back toward the portico.
Leticia stood there beside her aunt, skirts stirring in the crisp air. “It is an honor,” she said, “that His Majesty himself wishes to see you both and offer his blessing.”
Mrs. Bainbridge leaned out the window, laughter bright as a bell. “A royal summons and a wedding blessing in the same week, can you imagine? Do try to keep Kenworth from strangling the florists while we’re gone.”
“I make no promises,” Leticia replied, smiling despite the knot in her chest.
Gabriel met her eyes for one heartbeat longer than was proper. “We’ll not be long.”
She inclined her head, but her hands folded at her waist as the carriage rolled down the long lime-lined drive, raising a storm of golden dust and fluttering leaves. She stayed where she was until the wheels vanished behind the hedge, and even the faint rhythm of hooves was gone.
Only when she stepped back inside did her breath leave her in a soft rush.
The house had not rested for a moment since Tresham’s capture.
As if in gratitude, it had flung itself wildly into motion.
Unsurprisingly, Barrington’s home had become a hive of effort for his and Mrs. Bainbridge’s wedding, not hers.
Florists arrived with bolts of palest peach ribbon and armloads of half-closed ivory roses.
Crates of china were taken to the Sommer Castle.
The housekeeper muttered about guest rooms and bed linen, while the discreet tray of subtle gossip passed between underfoot-men like a torch.
Kenworth, who had already proven himself unflappable under explosions, kidnappings, and aristocratic scandal, now faced his greatest adversary, wedding chaos. He had traded his pistol for a notebook the thickness of a small brick and stalked the corridors with relentless purpose.
“I warn you, my lady,” he told Leticia in the hall one afternoon, “if even one more person enters this house with a floral sample, I shall personally lock them in the potting shed.”
She laughed before she could stop herself, the sound startling in its freedom.
In her absence, Mrs. Bainbridge had pressed Leticia into the role of surrogate hostess with breathtaking boldness, insisting that a future baroness ought to stand at the helm and learn to wield diplomacy as deftly as placing a cut-glass decanter.
So Leticia smiled at each arrival, accepted compliments on plans that were not truly hers, and learned the necessary art of making directions sound like gentle suggestions.
By mid-week the house had swollen with counts, countesses, colonels, and at least one near-deaf dowager accustomed to speaking at cannon volume.
Trunks filled with gowns thumped against carved banisters.
Maids whispered, footmen hurried, and once a frantic shriek erupted when a spider was discovered in the chapel at the back of the property.
Her aunt remained calm and watchful through it all, seated on a settee as though poised for a hunt, her embroidery never once missing a stitch while her gaze took the measure of each guest. On Wednesday afternoon, when Leticia managed five blessed minutes of peace in the morning room, her aunt entered and closed the door behind them with finality.
“We must speak,” her aunt said. There was no refusing that tone.
Leticia set her teacup down carefully. “Yes?”
Her aunt surprised her by sinking down on the sofa beside her, not opposite, and after a moment of silence, folded Leticia’s hand into her own. The gesture was unfamiliar and unbearably tender.
“There is something I have not told you, and I cannot let you marry, or begin your life anew, while I still keep it clenched like a thief hoarding sorrow.”
Leticia’s pulse skipped. “What is it?”
“The brooch,” her aunt said on a sigh, sounding tired beneath her determination.
“Years ago, the summer after Robbie died… a man came asking questions. A man claiming he was writing a history of minor jewels. He wanted to know if Robbie had ever purchased an unusual sapphire piece, and if I knew where it might have gone.” Her brows knit.
“Even then, I suspected he was not what he claimed. I promised I had no idea. And I begged your mother to destroy it, or sell it, for safety’s sake.
She assured me it was gone.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I believed I had kept you safe.”
“She gave it to me as a gift before she died,” Leticia said softly. “She never said a word of danger.”
“I think she believed love protected more than secrecy,” her aunt replied. Tears gathered but did not fall. “I watched you walk into that soiree with it at your throat, and all my guilt came roaring back. I should have told you long before. I should never have left you ignorant of the risk.”
Leticia turned their hands and squeezed her aunt’s fingers gently. “There was nothing cowardly in wanting to keep me safe. You tried to remove the threat without stealing my mother’s memory. I cannot condemn that.”
Her aunt’s relief was quiet but immense. “Do you forgive me?”
“With all my heart.”
They sat so for a long moment, palms warm, before the bells rang for luncheon and the world bustled forward again without mercy.
*
The days that followed blurred beneath a sweeping tide of ribbons, deliveries, and the sharp scent of rose oil.
Barrington’s home grew steadily more crowded and chaotic.
Mrs. Bainbridge’s seamstress arrived with armfuls of lace and trim while Kenworth trailed behind with the expression of a man who has stared too long into hurricane winds and begun to catalog the debris with grim determination anyway.
Kenworth paused beside her, scanning the arrangements with the air of a general surveying a battlefield he did not entirely trust.
“The ribbons are staging a rebellion, my lady,” he said quietly. “They refuse symmetry.”
She managed to pat his arm gingerly and advise him to breathe.
The guests arrived in elegant rolling waves, carriages bearing ladies in dove-gray and pale pistachio, gentlemen with stiff collars and sharper tongues.
They offered compliments on the ‘upcoming wedding,’ meaning, of course, Lord Barrington and Mrs. Bainbridge, and told Leticia what a splendid future hostess she herself would be one day.
She thanked each one politely, though some deeper part of her smiled to think how little they knew.
Her aunt, newly at peace, presided over everything with a kind of calm majesty.
She floated from room to room, correcting place cards, soothing ruffled dowagers, and yet managing to place her fingertips lightly on Leticia’s shoulder each time she passed, as if anchoring them both in this moment rather than the harrowing nights they had already survived.
Leticia worked without complaint or hesitation, taking on the quiet burdens that Mrs. Bainbridge had left behind in her haste to London.
Others remarked upon it with pleased approval.
Leticia herself, between the bustle and sleepless flickers of wondering if Gabriel had arrived safely, if he was eating, if he had caught a chill, rarely had a moment alone that did not ache with longing.
On the sixth evening after Gabriel’s departure, she could not sleep and wandered outside. Fog clung close to the grass, silvering everything it touched. In the distance, an owl called once. Her heart reached across the miles toward London like a lantern trying to catch fire in another man’s hand.
Come back to me, she prayed. And quickly.
The house rose on the morning of the wedding to find Sommer Castle alive with preparation.
The autumn sky beyond the windows was pale blue, but within the walls, the staff moved with brisk efficiency, carrying tiers of cake, arranging champagne flutes, and stringing garlands of ivy and roses along the carved beams of the great hall.
The vast hearth blazed at either end, throwing warmth across the polished floor as tables were laid with linen, silver, and crystal.
Leticia, dressed in lavender silk to stand with her aunt and welcome guests, smoothed her skirts and ignored the way her pulse skipped every time a carriage rattled up the lane.
The next coach delivered a familiar laugh before its door even opened.
Her cousin Felicity spilled out in a flutter of dove-gray silk, cheeks pink from travel.
“Did you think I would miss Barrington’s grand wedding?
” she asked as she reached Leticia and kissed her cheek.
Her gaze swept the garlands being carried past and the footmen struggling under crates of roses.
“Heavens, if the flowers multiply any further, they’ll need their own pews. ”
Late morning bled toward noon. Guests filled the pews in the chapel, their whispers and laughter rising like the hum of an orchestra tuning before a performance. Some speculated on delays, a misplaced reticule, a lame horse, but Leticia’s nerves wound tighter with each quarter hour.
At last, the sound of hooves on gravel reached her ears.
She turned sharply. At the crest of the drive, a small traveling carriage and two mounted riders were visible.
Lord Barrington rode tall and composed. The other rider was Gabriel, looking dusty, windblown, and more beautiful than any creature had a right to be.
Mrs. Bainbridge waved enthusiastically from inside.
Relief shot through her so swiftly her knees went weak.
The carriage halted. Barrington dismounted first. Gabriel handed Mrs. Bainbridge down with exaggerated gallantry. They approached to stand before the assembled guests. Murmurs stilled. Fans fluttered.
Lord Barrington stepped forward, composed and clear-voiced, as the hush of the chapel deepened.
“My esteemed friends and family. Thank you for gathering so loyally on such short notice.”
A few obliging chuckles met the understatement.
“Before I speak to personal matters, you know we were called to London by the king. I am proud to deliver news of official import.” He paused, letting the silence settle before he continued. “His Majesty has authorized the creation of a permanent military post near Sommer-by-the-Sea.”
A ripple of excitement moved through the crowd.
“The post will be led by Major Felix Townsend, whose character and service are beyond reproach. I have no doubt he will safeguard the region admirably.”
Townsend inclined his head in acknowledgment as murmurs of approval spread.
“Brave hearts have broken the Order of Shadows.” Barrington’s gaze swept the room, pausing on each of his six men.
“I am honored to have led you, worked beside you, and to call each of you my friend. Now, the Brigade has earned its rest. Still, keep a weather eye. Should trouble rise again, you may find a gold coin on your doorstep when you least expect it.”
“To the Brigade,” came a shout from the guest.
“To the Brigade,” came the thundering answer.
When the quiet returned, a faint smile touched Barrington’s lips.
“And now to matters dearer to me. While in London, we paid a visit to His Majesty. Upon learning of our intentions, he made a request, rather firmly, that the archbishop marry us at once.”
A low hum of astonishment rippled through the pews.
“He delivered the order to my lady directly, before I had time to object.”
Laughter bloomed.
“It is, therefore, my great pleasure to introduce my wife, the Duchess of Barrington, Honoria Bainbridge Barrington.”
Honoria curtsied, radiant and composed. Her dimples were shameless.
A collective gasp flew through the chapel like birds startled from a hedge. Leticia’s mouth fell open. Even her aunt emitted a thoroughly inelegant sound. The guests exchanged stunned looks, and then, all at once, burst into delighted applause.
Leticia had just enough sense to turn her wide eyes toward Gabriel.
He lifted one brow in answer, as though the true surprise was yet to begin.