Chapter Fifteen
He and his brothers, along with Duncan and Hartley and Kepper, spent much of the day together, while his brothers’ wives and Lady Freya, as well as a half dozen servants prepared the dower house for Lord and Lady Thompson’s wedding night.
Miss Whitchurch would spend the night before the wedding in the dower house, away from her betrothed, and likely away from temptation on both the bride’s and groom’s part, and Thursday morning, she would travel to the church in her decorated carriage.
Tomorrow, she would return to Thom Manor as Lady Thompson, Benjamin’s countess.
After the wedding breakfast, they would retreat to the dower house to consummate their marriage.
“Are you prepared for tomorrow?” Aaran asked once he and Benjamin were alone.
“Absolutely,” his brother declared. “I have been counting off the days since the beginning of the new year. Tomorrow cannot come too quickly as far as I am concerned.”
Aaran poured them both a splash of brandy. “I am jealous, you know,” he admitted as he handed off one of the glasses to Benjamin.
“You should be,” Benjamin declared with a good-natured chuckle. “It is as if God’s finger etched Victoria and blew the breath of life into her lungs—a breath that matches mine perfectly.”
“Save me from happy soon-to-be husbands,” Aaran said as he sat across from his brother.
They both sipped their drinks. “Anything else I need to know about tomorrow’s ceremony?
” he asked before Benjamin could again praise his bride to be.
It was not as if Aaran did not admire Miss Whitchurch, it was just that he never thought upon how lonely he could be in a house full of people.
“Nothing I can name,” Benjamin responded. “After this evening’s meal, I have arranged for a round of fireworks. Victoria and her maid and my mother will stay at the dower house this evening. The ceremony is tomorrow at ten. You already have the ring, correct?”
“In a box in my quarters,” Aaran replied. “Should I assist in supervising the fireworks this evening?”
“No, Mr. Boone and my land steward have everything planned. It is nothing grand, but I wanted it to be memorable for Victoria while not wishing the noise to frighten the boy.”
“You are quite infatuated with the child,” Aaran noted.
“He is a true miracle, Aaran. God’s miracle.
A child is God’s brilliance. One can see the perfection of God’s mind in the many animals that inhabit this world; yet, when one stands witness to the growth of a child’s mind, he is observing the greatest of the Lord’s creations.
Our sweet Ethan already has a distinct personality.
A bit stubborn, but so loving a person can never hold him guilty of being anything but adorable.
Not a year old and he has nearly seven baby teeth.
Therefore, Mrs. Sullivan is leaving us at the end of the month, though I despise seeing her go.
The lady has proven a good friend to Victoria.
“Our Ethan is beginning to crawl, can roll from his stomach to sit up and is already attempting to stand. He can hold onto rattles and the like by pinching together his thumb and his fingers.”
“You are assuredly quite taken with the child,” Aaran observed again with a grin.
“It is the first time I have felt contentment since the passing of my father,” Benjamin admitted.
“I do not actually recall the look of my father,” Aaran admitted, “though I can compare the similarity of our countenances based on the two portraits of him hanging on the walls of my manor houses.” Aaran sighed his envy.
“Like it or not, I am more of a product of Macdonald Duncan’s tutelage than a product of my heredity.
Perhaps you will one day say the same for young Ethan. ”
Thompson said sagely, “Duncan’s values pepper all our personalities. Aristocratic fathers are not known to teach their children personally. They pay nannies and tutors to do what should be a privilege. My own father taught me about humanity, but Duncan reinforced those characteristics.”
“How will you raise the boy?” Aaran asked. “How will you speak to his heritage?”
“Victoria and I have decided to wait until Ethan is older before we address something of the truth of his birth. The story you and Duncan managed to create for him will be the one he is told. However, we fear Lord Betts may eventually approach the child. That will be a difficult time for all of us, but we will trust that God has a better plan for our young lad.”
“Perhaps the current Lord Betts will die before His Lordship learns his true connection to the boy, and the barony will pass into other hands before your Ethan knows manhood,” Aaran suggested.
“We can only wish, though I am confident God would not be pleased that I hope for another’s man’s passing before he attempts to destroy a child I adore,” Thompson said with a sad shake of his head. “All we can do is be prepared if and when that day comes.”
Freya had never enjoyed herself more than she had this afternoon.
She had laughed. Wept. Smiled. And claimed her first real taste of family since she was a child.
Since before her mother had been declared a failure because Lady Maeve Cunningham had not produced an heir for the earldom.
Freya had not been happy since those days before both Imelda, and now her, were bartered away to increase the Cunningham wealth for a generation none of them would know.
“I cannot dwell on such sadness,” she quietly warned her stubborn nature. “Claim these memories, for soon there will be nothing but misery everywhere you look.”
A deep-pitched laugh from Mr. Whitchurch pulled Freya from her thoughts of the misery awaiting her when she returned to London. “Excellent meat pie, but not as good as yours, Victoria,” the man declared.
Miss Whitchurch blushed. “I used my grandmother’s recipe. You simply miss your own mother and father, Papa.”
“Aye, I do,” Mr. Whitchurch said with a smile. “I miss all my family. More every day.”
Miss Whitchurch’s lips quivered in sentimentality, and Freya knew more sadness at the idea that neither she nor her own father could speak of anything which resembled tender feelings.
Such emotions were foreign in the Cunningham household, whereas, in Lord Macdonald Duncan’s family, though not blood relations, they loved the people in their lives with a loyalty difficult to describe.
They were committed to each other and to a code of honor that had them serving the United Kingdom, even when others would disagree.
How was it that Lord Duncan did not permit his own lack of an heir to destroy everything and everyone around him, while her father’s bitterness permeated everything he touched?
Freya had come to realize Lord Duncan had loved his wife with every fiber of his body.
Her father could not say the same of her mother because their marriage had been a legal contract, not a coming together of two souls to live together as one.
She glanced to Lord Graham, who was, generally, too serious for his own good, though Freya knew the man possessed an easy smile, when he chose to display it.
He just did not use his most powerful weapon often enough.
What she adored about him was how His Lordship put his family first, not just the men with whom he shared this meal, but even how he worried over Lord Boyde Graham, though, in her opinion, his brother did not deserve Aaran Graham’s attention.
The younger Graham had been coddled too long.
Freya studied the man she adored. She imagined some women only viewed his reported wealth or even his damaged leg, depending on whether said women wished his attention or thought him below them.
Some might call him reclusive and think his frequent disappearances from society as odd or even something more depraved.
Freya, however, had always been too curious for her own good, and she long ago began to see a connection in the successes reported by Lord Duncan’s division of the Home Office and the unexplained disappearances of Lord Aaran Graham.
She did not know what duties he performed for the government, but Freya held no doubt the man was essential to Lord Duncan’s success.
Ironically, Freya could not imagine anything more attractive about a man than one who placed his family first in his life.
The woman who won His Lordship’s heart would be blessed.
Lord Graham was a man who noticed every little detail.
He was a man who loved deeply. A man who did what was necessary to make the world safer.
No fuss. No complaints. What she heard spoken about him was always praise for his kindness.
His thoughtful gestures. His philanthropy, which, to her, was all the more reason to admire the man.
His family needed him. His countrymen needed him.
Therefore, she did not have the right also to need him.
After supper, they all gathered their wraps and gloves to join Lord Thompson’s staff on a low rise, perhaps a quarter mile removed from the house.
Freya thought it beautiful and wished she had time to explore the glade in the daylight, but she was set to return to London tomorrow.
The glade was lit with lanterns, reminding her of tales of the Sith who were known to live underground in mounds and who loved music.
There was a ring of trees surrounding the area and a folly with statues of Roman soldiers and the like.
Some of the villagers had walked up the long drive to the rise so as to watch the spectacle of the fireworks and claim their share of the good tidings raining down on Lord Thompson.
Aaran watched carefully as Lady Freya assisted in handing out flower blooms to all the ladies in the crowd. “Save them or throw them at the happy couple tomorrow,” she repeated often while presenting each of Thompson’s tenants, as well as the villagers, a smile.