Chapter Four
The next month was a whirlwind. Grace’s mother dragged her to the modiste, the perfume shop, the jeweler, and a half dozen other places in London.
Grace had to stow all her worldly possessions into trunks.
She wasn’t finding time to work on her pottery, so she packed up her wheel and her other supplies one afternoon.
Everything was to be sent via coach to Wales, so when Owen’s men came to take all but her essentials, Grace sacrificed some her dignity to emphasize to the men that the large crates contained her most prized possessions, including several ceramics, and they were to be treated with utmost care.
Still, she feared the crates would arrive in Wales with her finished works smashed to pieces.
Grace’s mother took charge of the errands and the wedding planning, but there was something oddly rote about it.
Sometimes Grace stopped and thought, This is a wedding.
When it’s over, I’ll be living somewhere else entirely.
Mother was treating this like any other series of errands.
Whenever Grace opened her mouth to talk about how all of this made her feel, Mother shut her down.
So Grace found herself overwhelmed, and the only person she could talk with about it was Penny, who had no experience with marriage and couldn’t entirely relate to her.
Grace had hoped the advent of her wedding would be a way to become closer with her mother, but Mother remained as distant as ever, which was frustrating.
Was Mother not upset Grace would soon be leaving the house? If she was, she showed no sign of it.
Owen was apparently also busy, because he rarely stopped by. But he did call on her a few days before the wedding wearing a very stylish black coat. The fabric looked so fine that Grace wanted to run her hands over it.
“I apologize for being scarce, my lady,” he said, eyeing the open door. They were alone, but Grace’s mother was just across the hall in the other sitting room.
“We have both been busy.”
“I wanted to tell you of my plan for after the wedding. Your father has offered to host the wedding breakfast here. After that, we shall begin the journey to my property in Wales. Unless something unusual happens, the journey takes five days.”
“Five days!”
Owen nodded, looking chagrined. “I know it’s a distance, but I know the route well. There are a series of inns I usually stay at. The sooner we get on the road after the wedding, the better so that we can travel the first leg before it gets too dark.”
Grace was alarmed by how perfunctory all this sounded. “As romantic as five days in a carriage sounds, can we slow down for a moment?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She led him over to a sofa and gestured for him to sit beside her. He complied, his expression blank, likely evidence of confusion.
“We’re going to be married, my lord, and yet I can count the number of conversations we have had on one hand.”
Understanding dawned on his face. “All right. What would you like to know about me?”
She had no idea where to begin. “Well, all I know about you so far is that you are an earl, you are Welsh, you have two or three homes depending on whom you ask, and you intend to whisk me off to Wales the moment our wedding is over.”
“You said you wanted to spend time in the country.”
“I did, that is true. And I had prepared myself for this eventuality. Would it be all right if my friends came to visit me after I am settled?”
“Of course. You may invite anyone you wish. You will be the lady of the house.”
“Do you have more than one home?”
He smiled. “I have a townhouse here in London. It is modest but suits my purposes. The estate in Caernarfon will, I think, be to your liking. My ancestors built the place, but I’ve made some modern embellishments.”
“Is it true you own a castle?”
He laughed. “I do, yes. Well, the family does.” He leaned back on the sofa. “Do you want the whole history?”
“Perhaps the abridged version.”
“Caernarfon Castle was built by Edward I when he was going about hammering Welshmen and Scots. Edward II was born there. One of my ancestors acquired the property and the title through circumstances too complicated to bother with. Some good deed the Crown wanted to reward during the time of Queen Anne, is how I recall it. So we Thomases have been responsible for the castle’s upkeep ever since. Currently, my aunt oversees it.”
“So you don’t live in the castle?”
“No, I live in the estate. The castle is not really habitable. Too drafty, no modern conveniences. We can visit it when we arrive, though. I haven’t seen it in quite some time.
Oh, and I just purchased a cottage on the coast. It’s in a little seaside town.
There’s not much of a beach there, as the coast is quite rocky, but there is a lovely view of the Irish Sea.
The cottage is just a short ride from the estate. ”
“Do you speak Welsh? I’ve heard it spoken. It sounds nothing like English.”
“I do. My mother thought it was important to teach us the language, since it is beginning to die out.”
Grace took a moment to absorb everything she’d just learned.
She hadn’t meant to administer an exam to Owen, but she’d wanted to clarify some of what she’d heard through her friends.
In truth, she wasn’t certain how spouses were meant to speak with each other.
Her own parents were closed off and formal at nearly all times.
Grace loathed that level of formality, found it stuffy and old-fashioned, and she wanted her own marriage to be less stiff, but she had no idea where to begin to make that happen.
Even now, things with Owen felt awkward, something Grace wanted to fix.
She wanted to feel comfortable with him, like she would with a friend.
They weren’t quite there yet, but perhaps they would be.
It occurred to her that a little cottage on the coast might make an ideal location for her pottery studio. She decided to keep that in mind.
“Is your intention to deposit me in the country and then turn around and come back to London?” she asked.
“No. I do actually have some business to attend to in Wales, and I want to check on the cottage. I hired a fellow to oversee some repairs and want to see how well they were done. But I do not intend to stay overlong. A month at most. Parliament is currently in recess, but I will have to return soon enough.” He paused.
“Is that…is it dastardly of me to whisk you off to parts unknown and leave you there?”
She smiled, because it was in fact what she most desired. “I’ve told you I loathe London. It will be difficult to be so far from my family, but I will adjust.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.” She was not, in fact, especially broken up about leaving her parents. “All I want is a place to make my pottery.”
“Well, that you shall certainly have. We can find a room in the house somewhere, if that suits you.”
“I’d love to build an outdoor kiln.”
Owen tilted his head. “I am not certain what that would entail, but I imagine we could make that happen.”
Grace studied him for a moment. He really was quite striking; pale skin, dark hair, a strong body.
She liked the timbre of his voice, the slight burr in his accent.
She knew something of relations between men and women and could see herself kissing this man, and…
more. Even now, he was close enough to touch and her fingers itched to do so.
She felt a brief pang as she considered that she would only have this man a few weeks out of the year.
But this was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?
She’d have room and privacy in the country to develop her craft.
She’d already spoken to her dealer, and he had an office in Anglesey, not far from Caernarfon, and he was willing to dispatch an agent to pick up her pieces to ship back to London for distribution.
Her future husband, of course, had no idea that pottery was anything more than a casual hobby for her, and she wasn’t ready to enlighten him just yet.
This was her plan. This was everything she’d been wanting for years.
“What about me?” she asked. “What do you want to know about me?”
“The crates you packed. Pottery…equipment?”
“Yes. A wheel. Some clay, although I’ll have to acquire more in Wales. I know the shop I use in London gets supplies from Staffordshire. That’s not far from Wales is it?”
“No. Closer than London.” He tilted his head. “Beresford says you’re pretty good. You take this seriously.”
“I suppose he did buy a few pieces from me. But yes, I love it. When I was a girl, I had a governess whose family made pottery, and she taught me how. I find the process of making pottery soothing to my nerves. Until recently, I had a potter’s wheel set up in the kitchen here, which is not ideal.
I always felt like I was in the way. And I fire my pieces at a studio a few blocks away.
But having my own kiln would allow me to experiment with how heat affects the clay, to try different glazing techniques, to really explore the craft. ”
“I don’t know what any of that means, but I can promise I have plenty of space. But surely your life is not just pottery. What else do you like to do?”
She smiled. He didn’t even know her, and he was ready to give her everything she ever wanted. “I have a few close friends I socialize with. I’m useless at needlepoint. I like to read.”
“Any good books lately?”
“There’s a lady writer who publishes anonymously who writes the most delightful comedies.
I just read one called Emma about a woman who acts as a matchmaker for all her friends but becomes too arrogant and gets her comeuppance.
In the end, she finds her perfect match with a childhood friend. Charming, no?”
“It sounds it.”