Chapter Twenty-Four
Christmas did indeed come.
Heavy clouds, blustery winds, and more than usually chill temperatures settled over Bath, and indeed much of southern England, during the second half of December, threatening heavy rains or even snow to disrupt holiday travel.
Many a would-be traveler, eager to join his family for Christmas, kept an anxious eye upon the skies, wondering if the roads would become a quagmire before he could reach his destination or, worse, be buried under a few feet of snow.
The rare occurrence of a white Christmas was all very well if one could watch the magic of white fields and lawns and frost-laden tree branches from the warmth and safety of a dwelling hung with holly and ivy and a kissing bough and fragrant with the smells of mince pies and plum pudding and roasting goose and spiced wassail and other culinary delights.
It was not all very well if one faced a lengthy journey or a Christmas spent unexpectedly at home without company or supplies or, horror of horrors, marooned at a country inn with other such unfortunates, all of them in a morose mood.
“Provided it does not snow six feet and prevent Nick from getting here,” Owen remarked cheerfully. “A wedding without the groom would be a bit of a flat affair.”
His mother was too fearful of just such a disaster to appreciate his humor.
“Owen!” she chided, a hand over her heart, while Matthew set one arm about her shoulders and grinned at his stepson. “Do not even think such a thing.”
“But I’ll wager you will think of nothing else for the next day and a half, Mama—and the night between the two,” Owen said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Enough, Owen,” Stephanie said crossly. “If you must tease someone, let it be me. I have broad shoulders.”
It did not snow six feet or even six inches, and Nicholas rode into the hotel stable yard exactly when he was expected, in the middle of the afternoon of his wedding eve.
He had applied for and been granted a leave of two weeks despite the time off he had taken during the summer.
He had not wanted to waste one moment of his time off by leaving his work before he had to.
He ought to have been exhausted by the long journey.
But after hugging all his family members and answering all their questions and asking a few of his own, he hired a fresh mount and rode up into the hills, a setting he had imagined a thousand times.
It lived up to all his expectations, though it must be even more impressive under a blue sky and warm sunshine.
No matter. He had not come to admire a view or even a large house, perfectly situated for maximum access to the view.
Someone must have seen him coming. The front doors of the house crashed open as he approached, and a missile hurtled out of it and down the steps and across the gravel in what seemed like a suicidal attempt to have herself ground to pulp beneath the hooves of his horse.
“Nicholas!” Winifred cried, the very antithesis of dignified, disciplined, genteel ladyhood. “At last!”
He dismounted quickly and threw the reins to a groom who had trotted into sight from somewhere behind him.
“Win!”
He gathered her into his arms and felt again—at last—the familiar slender lines of her body, taut with eagerness.
He gazed into the bright, eager face she lifted to his and he thought, Yes, just so she looked.
Sometimes it was annoyingly difficult to bring an absent face to one’s mind, complete with animation and blinding inner beauty.
“Win,” he said more softly, closing his arms more tightly about her as she twined her own about his neck, heedless of the exposed place where they stood. He wondered idly how many people were lined up at the windows inside, enjoying the show.
But to the devil with them if they chose to be shocked.
He kissed her.
“Ahhh.” She sighed against his lips and moved her head back far enough that she could gaze into his face. “That is what you look like and feel like.”
“Complete with cruel mouth?” he said.
“Oh yes,” she said, sounding enraptured. “Complete with that. Grandmama warned me that you might not come all the way up here today and I must not be too disappointed. But I knew you would. You said so in your last letter. It was the only thing you said.”
“Promise me that I will not have to write one more letter after tomorrow,” he said.
“What?” she said. “Never?”
“Never,” he said. “And even that will be too soon. How do you do it, Win? Your letters are always so long and so interesting, though I must confess to having found some of the descriptions of potential wedding gowns a bit of a yawn.”
She laughed gleefully and linked her arm through his. “Come inside,” she said. “It is freezing out here.”
“Just for a short while,” he said. “My family are all expecting me back at the hotel for dinner.”
He patted her hand on his arm.
—
Winifred bounded out of bed the following morning and threw back the curtains from her window, half fearful of what she might see outside.
Snow would not be the disaster it might have been before yesterday.
Everyone who was expected had arrived. But driving down from the hills into Bath over snow-covered roads could be perilous, and drive down they must this morning—a whole cavalcade of carriages to convey everyone who was staying at the house.
“Oh,” she said when she looked out. Clear blue sky with not a cloud in sight. Sunshine. Hoarfrost winking and dancing on the grass and turning the bare branches of the trees into a magical wonderland.
“Oh!” she exclaimed again at almost the exact moment there was a tap on her bedchamber door and her mother opened it quietly and peered in.
“Ah, you are up,” she said. “And I can see you have looked out. What a wonderful omen, Winnie. This is the first time we have seen the sun in all of two weeks. Just look at the frost. Could anything be more awe-inspiring?”
She had crossed the room to set an arm about Winifred’s shoulders.
“What a happy, sad day this is,” she said.
“Mainly overwhelmingly happy, of course. But sad too that after today this will no longer be your primary home. Tomorrow I will not be able to come in here like this to hug you and wish you a good morning. How we are going to miss you, Winnie. You are such a wonderful daughter. I would not be able to bear it were I not convinced that Nicholas can and will make you happy.”
Winifred turned and hugged her mother close. “He will,” she said, no doubt in her voice. “And I will make him happy. But I will miss you too, Mama. All of you. How wonderful you and Papa have been to me.”
“How could we not be?” her mother said. “You are our daughter. And always will be. You will remember that?”
“I will not forget for a single moment,” Winifred assured her.
“Come down now for some breakfast,” her mother said. “Before we know it, it will be time to get dressed and leave for the abbey.”
“I could not eat a single morsel,” Winifred said.
“Then it will have to be two morsels,” her mother said. “You do not want your stomach growling with hunger in the middle of the nuptial service, surely.”
“Oh dear,” Winifred said, and they both laughed—with tears in their eyes. “I will try.”
This was her wedding day, Winifred thought. Her wedding day.
—
Nicholas wore full dress uniform to his wedding.
He had not brought his valet with him, but his brother Ben had offered his services.
He heaved the heavy scarlet coat snugly over Nicholas’s shoulders and straightened the gold epaulets and draped the various gold chains just so.
He rubbed a faint smudge off his highly polished black boots and made sure there were none on the brim of his shako, which would replace the bearskin he had worn at Trooping the Colour.
Fortunately, that was worn only on ceremonial occasions.
He straightened out the feathers and arranged the chains correctly over the crown.
“If she is not impressed now,” Ben said, standing back for a final, critical look at his brother, “you are in trouble, Nick.”
“She is likely to turn tail and run anyway,” Nicholas said. “When she first saw me in my uniform she saw a killer with a cruel mouth, all that was visible of my face below my bearskin.”
“Who told you that bouncer?” Ben asked. “Women love a man in uniform, as I seem to recall.”
“Winifred is not women,” Nicholas said. “She is one individual woman. Very individual.”
Ben grinned. “Then why is she marrying you?” he asked.
“You may ask her yourself later,” Nicholas said. “But not until after the wedding, if you please, Ben. It would be a bit of a humiliation if she abandoned me at the altar.”
“Speaking of which—” Ben pulled a watch from his pocket. “It is almost time for you to think of going. I hope Owen is ready.”
Owen was to be Nicholas’s best man. But even as Ben spoke, there was a knock on the hotel room door, and it opened to reveal their youngest brother, looking half throttled inside an elaborately tied neckcloth.
But he was not alone. And that was the trouble with spending the night of one’s wedding eve at a hotel large enough to accommodate all one’s family members, Nicholas thought over the next several minutes as his hand was wrung and his epaulets were slapped by the men and his whole person was hugged by the women.
“Oh goodness, Nick,” Pippa said. “You seem twice as large in uniform.”
“And twice as gorgeous,” Stephanie said, grinning at him.
“Not possible, Steph,” Gwyneth said, and they both laughed.
His mother sniffed back tears.
But it was indeed time for at least some of them to go. The disaster of arriving at the abbey after the bride was not to be contemplated.
“You have the ring, Owen?” Devlin asked.
Owen patted a pocket. But even at such a solemn moment he could not resist playing the clown and whacking at himself wherever there might be a pocket, muttering a panicked “Now, where did I put it?”