Chapter Twenty-Eight
By half past nine on the morning of his wedding, Gabriel had received three invitations addressed to the Duchess of Alderbury, two addressed to Lady Montague, and one note from Lady Lemonwood describing Viva as “a lady of uncommon spirit whose presence lends distinction to any gathering.”
Gabriel read the last line twice.
Then he handed it to his father.
They stood in the library of Alderbury House in Grosvenor Square, a room so large and expensive that traversing the distance from door to hearth might require a golden curricle.
Shelves of leather-bound volumes rose almost to the ceiling. More than one ladder of polished mahogany waited upon brass rails. The hearth was carved marble, the carpet thick enough to swallow footsteps, and the tall windows looked out toward the square with generations of certainty in every pane.
It was beautiful.
It was also unsettling.
A week ago, Gabriel had been a solicitor with a respectable office at Lincoln’s Inn, an opinionated father, a solid reputation, and a growing suspicion that his life had been arranged too narrowly around caution.
Now he possessed a dukedom, a house in Grosvenor Square, estates he had not yet seen, a staff who addressed him with alarming deference, and a wedding that required an archbishop.
The practice would be placed in capable hands once every client had been properly provided for, though Gabriel suspected he would never entirely cease thinking like a solicitor.
His father adjusted his spectacles and read Lady Lemonwood’s note. “Uncommon spirit,” he said.
Jason Pemberton, who stood near the mantel, made a low sound. “That is a swift revision.”
“It is Society remembering its principles only after consulting the rank of the person involved,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.
Nicholas Archer looked up from the book he was perusing. “Then Society is behaving precisely according to habit.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
He would have handed the note to Poppy himself, but Lady Viva, Georgie, and Bea had formed a temporary alliance with tradition and forbidden him from seeing his bride before the ceremony.
The rule struck him as absurd under the circumstances.
He had seen Poppy in laughter, in courage, in love, and in very little at all.
Yet this morning she was upstairs somewhere in Alderbury House, dressed in ivory silk, surrounded by women who loved her, and he was reduced to sending notes through Jenkins like a schoolboy with illicit correspondence.
He folded Lady Lemonwood’s note. “Jenkins.”
The butler appeared in the doorway with immediate and grave attention.
He had moved from the Montfort house to Alderbury House with Poppy and Lady Viva, and although Gabriel suspected the grandeur of the place offended Jenkins less than the disorder it was about to contain, the butler had borne the transition with admirable steadiness.
“Your Grace?”
Gabriel still disliked the address. He suspected he would dislike it for some time.
“Please take this to Miss Montfort.”
Jenkins accepted the note. “Very good, Your Grace.”
“And wait for an answer, if there is one.”
A faint pause followed. “Given the present company upstairs, Your Grace, I shall prepare myself for several.”
When he had gone, Gabriel looked toward the library door.
His father’s expression gentled. “You will see her soon.”
“Not soon enough,” Gabriel replied.
Pembroke smiled into his coffee. Nicholas had the charity to turn a page of the book and pretend not to notice.
Alderbury House had received the Montfort party with far more ease than Archer House ever could have done.
It had space enough for everyone and then some: a drawing room with silk walls the color of pale cream, a music room that seemed to have been designed for sopranos, a dining room capable of seating forty people without strain, and a staircase that descended into the marble hall with all the confidence of a coronation procession.
Lady Viva had taken one look at it and said, “Darling, one could make dreadful decisions here in perfect comfort.”
Poppy had laughed, then gone quiet.
Gabriel had understood. The house was magnificent, but magnificence was not the same as home. Not yet.
Still, the place had begun to change under the invasion.
One of Freddie’s ribbons now hung from a bronze satyr at the foot of the stairs.
Lady Viva’s flowers had multiplied in every room.
None of them wilted. Jenkins had established a favorite spot near the front door.
Bea had reduced the wedding arrangements from impending spectacle to something that might plausibly be called intimate, though Lady Viva continued to dispute the term.
“Ten,” Lady Viva had pleaded last week from the blue drawing room, where she had draped herself upon a satin sofa with Freddie in her lap and a list in one hand.
“Six,” Bea had replied. As Poppy had appointed Bea her official wedding negotiator.
“Nine, and one of them very quiet,” Lady Viva had countered.
“Six,” Bea repeated.
“Eight, but I count Freddie as clergy.”
“Six.”
Nicholas had finally looked at Gabriel and said, “You see what marriage to a wallflower entails.”
Jason, standing beside Georgie, had added, “You are getting the mild version. No one has threatened an escape.”
This morning, Lady Viva had made one final attempt to include Mr. Loxley.
“He wrote a poem for the occasion,” she said.
“That is not an invitation requirement,” Bea replied.
“It proves interest,” Lady Viva argued.
“Six,” Bea had said with finality.
Upstairs, Poppy stood very still while joy moved through her in trembling waves, so vast she could scarcely tell where her nerves ended and happiness began. Today she would cross a room, speak a vow, and step into her new life.
All that remained was to be married. The men had made their way to the largest drawing room of Alderbury House. The archbishop had already arrived, the special license had been produced, and champagne waited in the enormous dining room.
The moment Poppy stepped into the room with Georgie on one side, Bea on the other, and Mama close behind her, the sight of it all took her breath away.
It had been designed for consequence. Gilt-framed mirrors reflected the pale winter light.
Tall arrangements of white roses and greenery stood before the mantel.
A chandelier glittered overhead, all crystal and restraint, while two short rows of carved chairs had been arranged upon an Aubusson carpet so fine that Lady Viva leaned near Poppy’s ear and whispered, “I hope no one cries on it.”
It was, by Lady Viva’s standards, a tragically modest ceremony.
By Poppy’s, it was perfect.
The people she loved were there.
Mama. Gabriel’s father. Bea and Nicholas. Georgie and Jason. Jenkins stationed near the door, solemnly prepared to defend the occasion from canine mischief. Freddie sat beside him, supposedly under supervision, with an ivory ribbon around his neck for decoration.
She had not seen Gabriel all morning. Bea had declared it improper.
Georgie had supported Bea on the grounds that romance deserved some ceremony.
Mama had agreed because separation, she said, made reunions more theatrical.
Poppy had accepted the verdict with as much patience as she could manage, which was to say very little.
But there he was.
He stood beside the archbishop in a dark coat, impossibly handsome and more moved than his controlled expression wished to reveal.
Duke or solicitor, Alderbury or Ashby, he was still Gabriel.
The man who had stood in hotel parlors and stripped libraries, the man who had chosen her before inheritance transformed his world, the man whose hands had taught her that being cherished could feel like both shelter and fire.
His gaze met hers.
Everything else quieted.
For all the grandeur of Alderbury House, for all its marble, gilt, crystal, and ancestral finery, the room became simple the moment he looked at her.
Lady Viva took Poppy’s hand and led her forward. At Gabriel’s side, she paused just long enough to look at him.
“She is the best of us,” Lady Viva whispered.
Gabriel’s voice was low. “I know.”
Then Poppy placed her hand in his.
The vows were simple.
That surprised her, somehow. So little language to alter so much. She promised herself to Gabriel, and the promise had nothing to do with the house around them, the title he had inherited, or the miraculous security that had arrived after she had decided to follow her heart.
Gabriel’s voice remained steady as he made his vows, but his fingers tightened around hers.
Poppy felt that small betrayal of emotion more deeply than if he had trembled.
Then came the ring.
Jenkins shifted near the door.
Freddie shot forward in a blur of ribbon and triumph.
The spaniel reached the archbishop, shook the long ivory ribbon from his own neck, and wrapped it neatly around one episcopal shoe with his snout, before sitting down, pleased with his contribution.
For one suspended breath, no one moved.
Then Georgie laughed.
“I taught him that,” Jason said proudly.
Bea covered her mouth. Nicholas looked toward the ceiling, visibly appealing for divine patience. Lady Viva clasped her hands and whispered, “Symbolic.”
Poppy laughed too, helplessly.
Gabriel’s face remained solemn. His eyes did not.
The archbishop looked down at Freddie with remarkable composure. “I take it the creature approves of the match.”
“He rarely withholds an opinion,” Gabriel said.
Jenkins retrieved Freddie with flawless composure. “Your contribution has been noted, sir.”
Freddie wagged his entire body with every sign of approval for the official record.
The ceremony resumed and Gabriel retrieved the ring from the ribbon and slid it onto Poppy’s finger.
A plain gold band, warm against her skin.
His wife.
Her husband.