Chapter 12
12
CHAPTER 12
D ecember 24, 1826
St. James Square
Home of Lady Camilla Bowles Attington Carrington Whitby
Derek and the rest of the men in temporary residence at Lady Camilla’s had retreated to Lionel’s billiards room in the hope of avoiding the frantic activity associated with this morning’s wedding. The St. James Square townhouse was fair to bursting with people. However, when Lady Camilla declared a wedding would be held in her home and issued invitations to very specific guests, said guests attended en masse.
In fact, most of those in attendance had been staying with her for the past week. The misadventure with the blackmailer and the now deceased viscountess, as they all had taken to calling the last several months, was over. Yet, for some reason, they’d all congregated here at St. James Square to watch over Dickie Jones and then to supervise the squashing of gossip as well as to plan Derek and Cassandra’s wedding.
He and the other gentlemen had enjoyed each other’s company and even the company of their wives and the company’s children. When it came to wedding plans, however, other than securing the special license for the marriage and allowing the Duke of Chelmsford to help Cassandra change her name by royal license from Rebecca Simmons to Cassandra Collins, Derek had done his best not to interfere. Not that he needed to worry. His five former mistresses had taken Cassandra in hand and with free rein of his bank accounts had bought her the finest, most expensive, and most beautiful trousseau in London.
“You do realize,” Atherton said. “Having not one, not two, but five former mistresses in attendance at one’s wedding is not the done thing.” He handed Derek a cup of coffee and dropped into the chair next to him, throwing his leg over the arm of the chair.
“Playing highwayman, kidnapping one’s bride, and carrying her off to Gretna Green is not the done thing either, but you managed quite nicely as I recall,” Carrington-Bowles said as he walked by and knocked Atherton’s leg off the chair arm.
“Fuck you, CB,” Atherton shot back.
“Not bloody likely,” Charpentier said. “That one’s mine.”
“You’re the only one who can afford him,” Barker-Finch said. “CB spends more on clothes than my wife, and she’s in the theatre.”
“And you two barristers don’t?” Obadiah said as he took his shot at the billiards table. “Fuck!” he muttered. “I’ll never get the knack of this game.”
“I resent that remark,” Forsythe said. “My wife purchases most of my clothes.”
The conversation soon turned into a series of insults about each gentleman’s sartorial splendor. Derek grinned at Archer Colwyn and allowed the warmth of good friends and good-natured jests to fill him. In the space of a few months his entire life had changed. He’d feared it would be for the worse, and yet here he was surrounded by old friends, some new friends, and about to marry the love of his life.
“Have either of you heard from Viscount Daily?” Nathaniel asked as he came to sit on the Nelson chair between them.
“Yes, actually,” Col said. “They found his mother’s body. He had her interred in the family vault next to his father. No funeral. But he has a new hostess. His mother had been performing those duties since his wife died which had been a nightmare from what I understand. Heart of stone, that one.”
“Who is the new hostess?” Derek asked.
“Miss Bathsheba Rushton, his niece. He has taken her in, is seeing to her education, and when the time comes, they say he will dower her handsomely.”
“Good for her,” Derek said. “Cassandra will be pleased to hear it.”
“Bloody hell,” Dickie announced as he slipped into the room and collapsed against the closed door. “Crying babies. Servants everywhere. Women up and down the corridors nattering on and on. How’s a man to think? Are those my raspberry tarts, Joshua Norcross, you thieving musician? Never knew a musician who wasn’t a thief. Hey!”
Norcross set his plate of tarts on the mantel out of Dickie’s reach. Doctor Douglas strolled by, filched a tart, and handed the treat to Dickie.
“Physicians are worse thieves than musicians,” Norcross grumbled.
“Staying on Dickie’s good side is conducive to a man’s good health,” the big Scot replied. “Is it my shot?”
Derek sipped his coffee and made a careful study of the faces in the room. Fate had taken his parents away from him before he had the chance of siblings. Yet here he sat with more than a dozen brothers once Will and John arrived. Old friends and new friends, men for whom he would die and he knew would die for him. Their spouses were as dear to him as any sisters life might have given him. An odd thing to say about one’s former mistresses, but he knew no other way to describe the feeling he had for these women who had looked after him, worried about him, who had used their skills to help solve a mystery and now surrounded his Cassandra with love and sisterhood.
He had a family. He would soon have a beautiful wife he adored. He had everything. Yes, life might take people from him at any moment. But he had learned from Cassandra not to waste time worrying about people he could be loving and living his life with every day.
The door opened and every one of them straightened and leapt to their feet.
“What a handsome group of gentlemen,” Lady Camilla said, her face wreathed in her beatific smile. “The Duke and Duchess of Chelmsford are here and have taken their seats in the ballroom. They brought the vicar so I suspect we are ready to begin.” They all set to adjusting their neckcloths and smoothing their clothes. Dickie tugged at his collar until Lady Camilla fixed him with her don’t-you-dare glower.
“Come on, gents,” he said as he followed Lady Camilla out of the room. “The sooner we have Framlingwood leg-shackled, the sooner we can eat and get out of these bloody clothes.”
“Language, Richard Jones,” Lady Camilla called over her shoulder.
“Yes, my lady.”
Derek and the others elbowed each other and snickered like schoolboys as they went down the stairs to the first floor and headed for the small ballroom where the wedding was to be held. Feminine voices and slippered feet sounded on the landing above them. A hoard of beautifully dressed ladies met them at the first-floor landing. The front door opened down below in the foyer and ushered in a blast of cold air.
“Margot! Gabrielle!” Derek and the other men were nearly bowled down the stairs as the ladies rushed to greet the latecomers. The level of squealing and shouts echoed to the high ceiling of the cavernous foyer.
“There are self-respecting banshees that would have nothing to do with that noise,” Hamish Douglas declared. The others nodded in agreement, some with their hands over their ears.
“If they wake Captain Atherton’s son, we’re all in for it,” Dickie declared. “He could give Limehouse fishwives a run for their money.”
“Glad you made it,” Derek said as Will Bullock and John Kenton, Gabrielle and Margot’s husbands, escaped the din of the ladies and made it to the first-floor landing. He shook their hands, and the group of gentlemen turned toward the ballroom.
“You should have sent for us sooner,” John chided. “When Margot and Gabrielle found out what happened at Waterloo Bridge, they were ready to beat you senseless for keeping them in the dark.”
“It may have been safer for them to stay away,” Will said. “Wasn’t safer for us once they found out. We’ve had an earful from both of them the entire journey back to London.” His pained grimace made them all laugh.
Once they entered the ballroom the men dispersed to find their seats, and their wives soon joined them. Lady Camilla’s exquisite taste meant the room was beautifully decorated with Christmas greenery, ribbons of silver and gold, and yards of delicate lace. Derek and CB strode to the front of the room where the vicar awaited them. They both offered their bows to the Duke and Duchess of Chelmsford, seated in the front row.
“You’ve had quite the autumn, haven’t you, Framlingwood.” His Grace said. “But you’ve come through unscathed and with a lovely bride, so I’d say you’ve done well for yourself.”
“Better than I deserve, Your Grace,” Derek replied. He glanced up as Sophia Norcross struck the first notes of a Handel’s Water Music Suite on her harp. The company seated before him turned as one. The Rutherford boys had arrayed themselves before the ballroom doors. Tall Rutherford andYoung Rutherford opened the double doors to reveal Cassandra on the arm of Toplofty Rutherford.
“Remember to breathe,” CB whispered as he nudged Derek with his elbow. “If you swoon, she might take the idea you don’t want to marry.”
“Not a chance,” Derek growled back though he knew CB had a point. Cassandra was breathtaking in a dark green gown trimmed in gold. Her hair had been piled on top of her head in curls, braids, and ringlets to frame her face perfectly. His mother’s diamond and emerald tiara rested atop her coiffure and winked in the morning light streaming in the ballroom windows. She smiled and he thought his heart might crack open with the love she sent to him in that single gesture.
Toplofty, dressed in an impeccable butler’s uniform, escorted her with his chest puffed out like any proud papa. Once they reached the place where Derek and CB stood, Cassandra kissed the elder Rutherford on the cheek. The man actually blushed bright red.
“You do right by her, my lord,” he said to Derek. “Or you’ll answer to the Rutherfords.”
“And the Grosvenor Street ladies,” Adrienne Lassen said as she stood behind Cassandra and adjusted the short train of her dress before taking her place across from CB. Apparently his five former mistresses had decided Adrienne, the first of them, should stand up with his bride.
“Shall we begin?” the vicar asked.
“About time,” Dickie said from his place between Lady Camilla and Nathaniel. “I’m starving, and we all know she could do better than Framlingwood.” He gave Derek a wink and a cheeky grin.
“That won’t stop me from making her mine.” Derek turned to the vicar. “You heard the lad. Step to before she gets away.” Cassandra threw back her head and laughed the full, husky laugh he loved so much.
“Can’t any of you have a nice, civilized wedding?” Captain El asked.
“Says the Pirate Queen who married a duke after drubbing him right smart.” Dickie’s remark set the entire room to laughing. Even the Duke of Chelmsford had to grin. The vicar cleared his throat and they settled down.
Derek would remember every word of his vows. He would remember how beautiful Cassandra was and the way she looked at him when she vowed to love him forever. Unlike many men, he knew he would remember every moment of his wedding to the woman who had set him free. Most of all, however, he would remember the laughter, the smiles, the faces of those in the room when he vowed to love Cassandra forever. He bound himself to her, and because of her he bound himself to a family made up not of blood and connections, but of shared sorrow and joy, shared laughter and love, and shared lives lived to the fullest in each other’s company.
“Thank you,” he murmured as he kissed her at the end of the ceremony.
“For marrying you?” she teased.
“For everything, my love.” He glanced around them as their friends surrounded them to wish them well. “For all of this.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, “my darling husband, but I think we’ve both won the prize.”
“I’m the prize?” he asked with a grin as he wrapped his arms around her.
“You always were, Derek.” She gave him a long lingering kiss to the applause of their guests. “You always were.”
“For the love of King George’s corset, can we eat now?”
- THE END -