Chapter Eighteen #2
Smuckers could not know what the future held for the world.
Perhaps the people of the next centuries might be donning wings to fly like a bird to their destination, rather than getting in a carriage.
Perhaps the Americans would come to their senses and submit to the king.
Perhaps panniers would be back on ladies’ dresses, as he really did find it an elegant look.
It was impossible to know. What he did know was that throughout it all, his recounting of heroics would be on a shelf in the viscount’s library.
He would title it: In Which a Certain Butler Foiled the Diabolical Plot of a False Baron, Saving the Ladies of the House, an Ormolu Clock, and a Patinir.
The beginning would explain how he came to write down the tale. It was not for his own glory, but rather a duty. It could not be ignored that a future duke of the realm had insisted on it. He must make that clear, as it gave the whole thing a certain gravitas.
Smuckers began to imagine the words he would put down for posterity.
As the Marquess of Hemmings, heir to the Duke of Kenilworth, has insisted that I, Tiberius Smuckers, document the events of a certain evening and the part I was privileged to play, here is my true accounting of the incident of the false baron for the edification of future generations.
He found himself very much cheered.
The months that followed that remarkable night when Poppy and Pansy Granger had stared dully at the Wilderman brothers only to have Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander turn up on the drive with peace treaties in hand had gone by in a dream.
The gentlemen stayed on while the solicitors did their part and the banns were read. It seemed impractical to go all the way back up north when they had so recently made a mad dash there and back.
Pansy and Lord Burkhart often rode out with a groom, sometimes to Pendleton Park, sometimes to the village, and sometimes nowhere and anywhere at all.
It was discovered that it was perfectly possible to kiss atop a horse as long as the horses liked one another and one did not mind what the groom thought about it.
Poppy and Mr. Lelander took gentle walks in the wood, trailed by somebody roped in to act as duenna.
They often visited the garden where they could reminisce about the moment Poppy had come close to falling on the ice but been held up by Mr. Lelander’s strong arms. They rested from these amblings with tea and biscuits in the drawing room or the library.
Those moments were not so closely supervised, but doors were to remain open at all times.
Nevertheless, open doors did not stop holding hands under cover of a fur throw.
During this time, word of the false baron and his associate’s fate was sent over from Pendleton Park.
Had the rogues only been caught with a painting off the wall and a clock nearby, they might have played it off in some manner.
However, the use of a pistol, attempting to kidnap the twins, and Miss Millthorpe’s six silver plate teaspoons discovered in panniers atop a horse they’d planned to use to get away had sealed their fate.
As Smuckers had feared, the lenient judge did not order them hanged.
They were put on a boat to go try their luck in the penal colonies.
Of course, once they’d arrived to that far-off location, the two men did have moments of wishing they’d been hanged.
Nevertheless, the will to live is strong and they did carry on.
Wagner gained a foothold for his ability to sound like the baron he’d pretended to be.
He managed to work his way into the Governor’s household, as the gentleman’s wife found she liked his manners.
As to what happened to his associate, the would-be baron had no idea.
After all, there is not much honor amongst thieves.
He’d managed as well for himself as he could, considering the circumstances. Anybody else was on their own.
In Oxfordshire, as the days ran into one another, the tension slowly began to rise.
The double wedding was to be at Chemsworth and it was to be the first real test of the peace treaty.
The Earl and Countess of Westport and the Viscount and Viscountess of Pepperdon would arrive and stay in the same house together.
A plan of attack was formed, led by Lady Mulholland. Every member in the household had a role to play.
The Earl of Westport was occupied by Lord Smythesdon and Mr. Weston, as the big draw for that gentleman was The Turk.
He was determined to acquire one of the foals sired by that horse and spent many an hour reviewing genealogies at Pendleton Park.
Marigold was a great help in that regard, as nobody knew about horses, or liked to talk about them, more than Marigold Weston.
Viscount Pepperdon was occupied by Lord Mulholland, as that fellow was deeply interested in estate matters.
They went out with Henry and Mr. Tidewater every day to see to something or other.
No two gentlemen could talk about drainage schemes more than those two.
Once they got on to the difficulty of growing pineapples, in which they were in total agreement, their friendship was cemented.
The ladies who accompanied these previously warring lords had not made it a habit to be friends with one another in the past. But on the other hand, neither one of them had ever been caught up in the Roses War debate.
Their first interactions were on the cool and restrained side, but once they landed on their shared interest in paper hangings, things warmed up.
They took to describing various rooms in their houses and the paper hangings that had been settled on, as of course neither one had ever set foot in the other’s house to see them.
Come evening, when everybody would be at the same table, the viscountess arranged for the two sets of parents to be seated as far from one another as was practicable.
If anybody sensed the conversation drifting into dangerous territory, they were to interject and take it somewhere else.
Even Teddy and Bertie were conscripted in it and they retold the tale of their marbles on the stairs hijinks several times.
It is best left to the imagination how much enjoyment either the earl or the viscount had over hearing of their son hilariously sprawled on the drive.
All in all, both sets of parents seemed on best behavior and willing to make every attempt to avoid an argument.
This was greatly helped by Poppy and Pansy themselves, as they were very charming young ladies and they did come with ten thousand each.
Both fathers had grown concerned about getting a grandson, had seen nobody in sight, and now they did. Nobody wished to rock the boat.
It might be thought that Poppy and Pansy would wish to choose the same destination for their wedding trip as they’d spent every minute of their lives together.
That was not the case, though. They were wildly interested in spending time alone with their new husbands, and even had those husbands been friends, they were very different men.
Pansy would travel with Lord Burkhart to his fishing lodge in Scotland.
The fishing was excellent, the riding was perfection, the walking through the wilderness was fascinating, the boating was exciting when they hit a fast current, and they returned each day exhausted.
That, it turned out, was just as they liked it.
The Yorkshireman and the Oxfordshire lady had brought sturdy boots and traipsed all over the countryside.
At times they were lost, at times they stumbled into a village, at times they picnicked on a mountainside.
Twice they wandered so far afield that a farmer had to bring them back in his cart.
Those two farmers had not known who they helped until they arrived at the lodge and were given a hefty tip and bottles of ale and foodstuffs to take home.
As is always the case in these tightknit places, word got around and they noticed men in carts out looking for them on occasion, in case they needed a ride home.
Lord Burkhart was an energetic and athletic gentlemen and Pansy appreciated it very much that even after all that activity during the day, he still had more to spare for the nighttime.
They spent over a month having a simple dinner, sometimes consisting of what they’d caught.
Afterward, they would take a bottle of wine to the terrace overlooking the river, listening to the splashing of the water and the last of the birdsong, before retiring to their own cocoon.
There, they investigated every aspect of married life in delightful detail.
Mr. Lelander went in another direction. He remembered Poppy’s penchant for lying around with a book, tea, and biscuits.
He liked it very well himself. They set off for a charming, rented cottage outside of Brighton where they lounged with a pile of books and bigger pile of biscuits.
It was not the right season for a trip to the coast and so they found themselves very much on their own.
When it rained and the wind whipped out of doors, it was deemed perfect.
Poppy had not known that her book reading and biscuit eating could be any better than how she’d always had it at Chemsworth Hall.
However, having waves crash on shore outside the window and a darling man lounging next to her with his shoes off and his hair mussed proved her wrong.
Mr. Lelander was a gentle and refined man, which suited Poppy very well. Her introduction to marital relations had unfolded slowly, in front of a cozy fire, after the house staff had been dismissed.