Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
Dearly Beloved
The question of the wedding gown settled itself the next day when Madame Delacroix descended on my morning room, a contingent of assistants trailing in her wake.
I had written to her apologizing for the upheaval to her shop and offering to pay for any damage she’d incurred. She’d declined my offer. But maybe she’d changed her mind.
As it turned out, she’d come on a different purpose altogether.
"Lady Rosalynd. You are to be married to the Duke of Steele. I offer my warmest felicitations."
"Thank you." I didn’t wonder how she knew. All of London knew, if the mountain of correspondence we’d received was any measure, every letter clamoring for an invitation.
Most would be disappointed. The wedding breakfast had been fixed at one hundred guests and not one more.
For the ceremony itself, only family and the closest of our friends would be present.
The answering of the letters had been delegated to Grandmother's secretary and Steele's, both of whom had my sincere and lasting sympathy.
Of course, we had sent an invitation to Her Majesty.
I had not expected her to accept, and she had not.
What arrived instead was a note in a hand I recognized from Windsor, three lines long, regretting that she could not attend and offering her congratulations. Grandmother planned to have it framed.
"When is the wedding, my lady?" The modiste asked.
"In two days."
"Then there is no time to be lost."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Your wedding gown. It must be magnifique." She snapped her fingers, and two assistants came forward with boxes. "Behold, Lady Rosalynd."
The wrapping came away, and a shimmering splendor was revealed.
"The tissu is silk, of course, with tiny pearls worked into the bodice. The sleeves are adorned with fleurettes." Another snap, and the second assistant stepped up. “Silk roses sewn down the length of the train and its hem, as well.”
Speech deserted me altogether. "But how? When?"
"I am a romantic at heart, my lady. How could I fail to anticipate where your romance with the Duke of Steele would end?
" She indicated the gown, and then the train, with the air of a general displaying captured colors.
"So I took the liberty of designing the most beautiful wedding gown in England for you. Splendid, is it not?"
"Yes." It was the most beautiful gown I had ever laid eyes on, and I said so. She accepted the tribute as no more than her due.
In the next breath, Madame Delacroix became all business. "Now. It is made to your measurements, but adjustments will be required. Two days. We have not a moment to lose."
Chrissie arrived at a run, skirts gathered in both hands. "I heard Madame Delacroix was—" She caught sight of the gown and stopped as though she had walked into glass. "Oh, Rosie. It's stunning."
"I have not forgotten you, Lady Chrysanthemum. You are to attend your sister, n'est-ce pas?"
"I am."
Another snap of the fingers, and a third assistant unveiled Chrissie's gown.
Chrissie's hands flew to her cheeks. "I am going to cry."
"You will not cry on the silk."
"No, madame."
A small figure appeared in the doorway, lips trembling. "What about me?"
"I have not forgotten you either, Lady Petunia." Madame Delacroix carried the last box forward herself, which was, I understood, the highest honor she had to bestow. "What do you think?"
Petunia's gown was a smaller version of Chrissie's, down to the last ribbon. She put out one finger and touched the hem as though it might dissolve. "Ooh. It's so pretty."
"There are gowns for your other sisters as well. All made, all waiting."
"Petunia." I crouched to her level. "You must keep Snowball away from your gown, sweetheart."
"Snowball?" Madame Delacroix asked.
"My cat."
"Oh. No, no, no, no, no. No cat comes within a mile of my creations."
Petunia blinked up at her. "I'll keep her in my room and make certain she doesn't escape."
As opposed to the dozen times a day Snowball escaped. But Petunia said it with such solemnity that I did not have the heart to argue.
"Now, Lady Rosalynd, we shall require space. A great deal of space."
"The nursery, Rosie," Chrissie suggested. "It's standing empty."
"Parfaitement."
I sent word to Mrs. Bateman to have the nursery cleared and cleaned. "Shall we take refreshment in the drawing room while we wait?"
Madame Delacroix, her assistants, and every sister I possessed settled themselves around the tea things.
"I have closed my shop," the modiste announced while sipping her tea. "I have brought all my girls. For two days, we do not sleep, we do not eat, we do not stop until every stitch is perfection." She turned to her retinue. "Is it not so?"
"Oui, madame." A chorus, delivered without hesitation, from six young women who clearly knew better than to disagree.
Madame Delacroix and her seamstresses worked a miracle in the nursery. She even produced shoes—white silk, sized to my foot, appearing out of nowhere on the second afternoon in the manner of a conjuror producing a dove.
So when my wedding day arrived, I was as magnificently dressed as any bride could wish.
As I stood before my looking glass staring at my reflection, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
I had truly never expected to wed. And yet, in a short while, I would be marrying the most maddening, autocratic, beautiful man in all of England.
Downstairs, my entire family waited. All but Grandmother, who had effectively taken up residence at Steele House and had been supervising its staff for three days with a thoroughness that I suspected Milford was privately enjoying.
Tilly fastened my mother’s pearl necklace at my throat. "It's time, milady."
"Yes. Of course." I turned to face her. "Thank you, Tilly. I could not have done any of this without you. You'll be there, won't you?"
"I'll be waiting in the duchess's chambers after the ceremony, milady, to help you change."
Madame Delacroix had thought of that too. She had produced a silk gown for the wedding breakfast the exact shade of my eyes. She had presented it with the observation that a bride ought to be splendid on her wedding day more than once.
"At the ceremony as well,” I said to Tilly. “You, and Honeycutt, and Mrs. Bateman. I wrote the invitations myself."
Tilly's chin came up, and her eyes were bright. "Yes, milady."
“Go,” I said to her. “You need to arrive at Steele House ahead of me.”
She curtsied and rushed out the door.
I drew a breath, walked out of my bedchamber, and took hold of the banister at the top of the stairs. While going down, I prayed I would not pitch forward and land at Cosmos's feet, which meant I missed every expression on the faces below me.
"The duke is going to perish when he sees you," Chrissie said when I reached the bottom.
"I hope not. I rather need him to live.”
Chrissie took command, as she had recently done.
"Everyone out. The carriages are waiting.
" All five of my sisters would ride together.
William and Fox would accompany Claire and cousin Julia, in case anything went amiss with either of them.
What earthly help a bachelor and an eleven year old boy might render two expectant women, one of them eight months along, was a question no one had thought to ask.
But mercifully, the drive would be short.
Claire, at least, was much recovered. Cosmos had concocted a tonic for her—ginger and some secret ingredient he refused to name—which had worked so well that Claire had told him to bottle it and make his fortune.
And then the hall was empty except for Cosmos and me.
"Come, Rosie," he said. "It's time."
I curled my hand around his elbow and walked out of the house I loved.
Oh, I would return to it. I would be living across the square, after all.
But I would visit as the Duchess of Steele, and never again as Lady Rosalynd, who had raised seven children in these rooms. At the door I turned for one last look down the hall, and held my tears where they were.
The crowd outside undid the work in an instant.
The entire Rosehaven staff, sans Honeycutt, Mrs. Bateman, and Tilly, stood ranged along the steps and down the pavement, every one of them, in their Sunday best. As I came down the steps a cheer went up, and after the cheer a chorus—God bless you, my lady, and Congratulations, my lady, and from somewhere near the bottom, in a young maid's voice, We're that proud of you.
I did cry then. Only a little. Cosmos handed me his handkerchief without comment and without looking at me, which is the kindest thing a brother can do.
A larger crowd waited in front of Steele House, so large that police had been brought in to manage it. An array of footmen lined the steps. Inside, a contingent of maids curtsied as we passed. Dear Milford bowed us through the hall with an expression I had never seen on his face before.
My sisters stood outside the drawing room door in matching gowns, ribbons in their hair, each ribbon a different shade of blue.
"Breathe, Rosie," Chrissie said. "That is the whole of what you have to do."
That much I could manage.
She put into my hands a bouquet of red and white roses with a spray of baby's breath, white ribbons trailing from it, and drew the veil down over my face. "Ready?"
I nodded, which was all I had.
Two footmen opened the doors. The music swelled.
I walked into the drawing room on my brother's arm with all five of my sisters behind me.
If anyone asked me afterward who was present, I could not have named a single soul.
There was only Warwick, at the far end of the room in a morning suit, watching me come to him, a world of love in his eyes.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."
"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"
"I do," Cosmos said, his voice not quite steady. And then he put my hand into Warwick's and stepped back.
"Repeat after me. I, Warwick Aloysius Thornburn—"
"I, Warwick Aloysius Thornburn, take thee, Rosalynd Heliotrope Rosehaven, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."
His hand tightened on mine at the last of it. He had said those words once before, in another ceremony, to another woman, and he had buried her and their daughter within the year. He said them now without looking away from me. I held on to him until his grip eased.
"I, Rosalynd Heliotrope Rosehaven, take thee, Warwick Aloysius Thornburn, to my wedded husband."
The ring went onto my finger.
"I pronounce that they be man and wife together. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." A pause. "Your Grace, you may kiss your bride."
Warwick lifted the veil. Before he could kiss me, I whispered, "I love you."
Warwick's eyes twinkled. "I know."