Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The church bells were still ringing as Tamsin stepped out into the cold Christmas morning air. She paused beneath the stone archway, one gloved hand gathering her deep blue cloak, and looked toward the road.
Lady Emily Eastwood stood a dozen paces away, ready to be handed up into the carriage, to sit beside her husband.
Her husband. The thought brought a smile to Tamsin’s lips.
Lyness didn’t seem aware of the crowd surrounding him—which, considering the number of guests attempting to congratulate him, was no small accomplishment.
Emily said something Tamsin could not hear and Lyness bent his head to listen, his expression softening in a way she had seen several times since becoming acquainted with him, always near his beloved.
Emily smiled up at him, and that was that. The whole world narrowed between them.
“Rather indecent, is it not?” Roman’s voice sounded beside her.
Tamsin turned to her husband. “What is?”
“Being that pleased with oneself in public.”
She followed his gaze to his brother. “I believe he is pleased with his bride.”
“Precisely. He has done nothing to earn that expression.”
Tamsin looked at Roman. His face was perfectly solemn. “You stood beside him through the entire ceremony.”
“I did.”
Oh, her husband was most confusing sometimes. “Yet you remain unconvinced that marrying the woman he loves is an accomplishment.”
His expression remained steady. “His now-wife did most of the difficult work.”
The laugh escaped before Tamsin could stop it and Roman’s mouth twitched. There had been a time, not long ago at all, when she would have wondered whether she had imagined it. She did not anymore. “That is a dreadful thing to say about your brother on his wedding day!”
“It most certainly is not,” Roman remarked. “Today I am exercising remarkable restraint.”
“You are a model of brotherly affection.”
“So I have always maintained.” There was the slightest tilt of his chin that made him appear all the more handsome.
Someone called Roman’s name from the churchyard and his attention shifted. Mr. Kettlewell, the one her husband often pretended did not amuse him, though he was invited to dinner a great deal of late.
Roman lifted one hand in acknowledgment. “I ought to see what he thinks is important enough to raise his voice in a churchyard.”
“Of course.”
He took two steps, then stopped. It was such a small thing Tamsin nearly missed its significance. “Are you coming?”
For an instant she merely looked at him.
Not because she wished to avoid Mr. Kettlewell’s conversation—she rather liked him—but because Roman had asked with the expectation that they belonged in the same place.
He required naught from her. Nor would she be useful to smooth the conversation or remember someone.
He was going somewhere and expected that she might like to come too.
Tamsin slipped her arm through his. “I should like to, yes.”
They crossed the churchyard together.
An hour later, the wedding breakfast was precisely as crowded as Tamsin had expected and twice as cheerful.
Emily’s family occupied one portion of the room, the Eastwoods another, while the rest of York Society appeared determined to fill every remaining space.
Tamsin spoke to people she had known for years and others she had met since her marriage.
Roman vanished twice and reappeared both times within her line of sight without either of them having arranged it.
The second time, he caught her watching him and lifted his brows. Tamsin looked pointedly toward the plate in his hand.
Roman looked down at it, back at her, and crossed the room. “You disapprove.”
“I am quite certain you have taken the last lemon tart.”
That brought a playful frown from him. “I did not know it was the last.”
“You examined the tray most carefully.”
“Ah, but I did not. There were several people around the pastries. I feared for my safety if I did not remove myself with haste.”
Tamsin stared, biting her lip to keep her laughter from startling anyone near them. Roman handed her the plate, picked up the tart, and broke it neatly in two. He held the larger half out to her. “Peace, my lady wife?”
She accepted the pastry. “Hmm. I think a temporary armistice suffices, for this occasion.”
Roman’s eyes sparkled. “You are most generous, my lady.”
Tamsin bit into the tart and looked across the room.
Matilda Elgin stood near Emily, listening to something Frances, Lady Hartwell, was saying.
Matilda looked especially pretty today, Tamsin thought, her mourning attire set aside months ago and now in deep green with a row of tiny pearls at her throat.
She was smiling, though her attention shifted immediately when a gentleman approached the group.
Mr. Sterling. Mr. Arthur Sterling, Tamsin corrected herself—there were altogether too many Sterlings present for surnames alone to remain useful. He bowed to Frances first, then Emily, then Matilda.
Matilda’s smile altered, turning brittle. Tamsin frowned.
Roman followed her gaze. “What has offended you so, Lady Hartwell? Need I write a sternly worded article for the York Herald?”
Her lips twitched. “Nothing offended me, we need not bother Mr. Hargrove with another of your well-written lengthy letters.”
“You made a sound, my dear.”
Did the man have to be so observant? “I did not.”
“You did,” Roman insisted.
“What sort of sound?”
He thought about this. “A considering sound, I do believe. A single, low-note that could signal displeasure.”
Tamsin’s cheeks warmed with delight. “That is a rather detailed translation of a small, inconsequential sound.”
“I often concern myself with small details, my lady. They are too often overlooked.” Roman glanced toward the group including his mother and their new sister-in-law.
Arthur Sterling said something; Matilda answered with perfect politeness, then turned her shoulder just enough to exclude him from the conversation.
Tamsin took another bite of lemon tart as her nose wrinkled.
“Ah.” Roman watched her from the corner of his eye. “I believe I understand the sound now.”
She nearly choked. “You are inventing things!”
“Not in the least,” he protested, expression nearly bland. “But we need not discuss this now. There is a tart to enjoy.” He took a large bite of his half of the tart.
That made her laugh again. Roman smiled outright this time, and the warmth of it caught her off-guard. It still happened that way sometimes. Perhaps it always would. The warmth it kindled in her heart would always be welcome, though.
Someone approached Roman and Tamsin shifted automatically, prepared to turn her attention elsewhere while he conducted whatever conversation was required of him. But the newcomer was Mr. Salmond and her husband put a hand on her elbow, gently signaling he wished to keep Tamsin beside him.
“Lord Hartwell. Lady Hartwell.” Mr. Salmond bowed. “A pleasure to be here on this fine, happy day.”
“It certainly is, Mr. Salmond,” Tamsin said politely.
They spoke briefly about the wedding, then a paper someone had sent from Leeds regarding a cave filled with old bones.
Tamsin understood little of that portion and asked a small question, and Roman paused to explain rather than allowing the conversation to pass over her head.
It cost him perhaps ten seconds. No one seemed to mind.
Tamsin asked a question; Mr. Salmond answered it; the conversation continued.
A few moments. One question. She wondered how many marriages were built of things so small no one outside them would ever think to notice.
Tamsin saw Mr. Conyers in attendance; he kept his distance from Frances but looked in her mother-in-law’s direction often, and she looked back with a knowing tilt to her lips.
The first instance might have meant nothing.
The second was interesting. By the third, Tamsin had stopped pretending she was not curious.
Mr. Conyers had come to dinner, twice. He was pleasant, well-spoken, and not much older than Frances. Tamsin knew little else about their relationship, except that it was blossoming.
Apparently, she knew more than her husband did.
Tamsin and Roman drifted apart in the room quite naturally.
Roman stood with Lyness near the windows, the brothers engaged in conversation with such similar expressions of concentration no one could have doubted their relation.
Emily had been drawn away by an elderly aunt.
Frances stood several yards distant from all of them with Mr. Conyers who said something quietly.
Frances’s eyes warmed—not a polite smile, not the Dowager Lady Hartwell’s gracious expression for Society.
It was a joyful, gentle smile of a woman quite taken by the one she turned it toward.
Mr. Conyers offered her his arm. Frances took it. Tamsin looked at her husband—still speaking to Lyness—then back at her mother-in-law. Her companion bent his head closer to hear her and Tamsin’s eyebrows rose.
“Oh,” Matilda’s voice said beside her.
Tamsin turned. Mrs. Elgin had appeared carrying two glasses of punch and handed one to her friend without asking whether she wanted it, who accepted it with equal ease. “You see it too.”
Matilda raised her chin, expression mockingly superior. “My dear, I saw it the moment they arrived.”
“Did you indeed?” Tamsin’s lips twitched.
“Mr. Conyers looks at your mother-in-law most pointedly. He is perfectly polite to everyone, of course, but he is attentive to her.”
Tamsin pressed her lips together, nodding her agreement. “I think it is lovely.”
“So do I.” Matilda sipped her punch. “She has been without that kind of love long enough.” Coming from another widow, the comment was especially tender and understanding.
They watched for another moment before Arthur Sterling crossed in front of them. “Mrs. Elgin.”
Matilda’s expression turned exquisitely bland. “Mr. Arthur Sterling.”
“I am told you have exceptional taste in furnishings.”