EPILOGUE
Their Wedding Day
Helena looked down at her left hand and the simple gold band shining in the sunlight. A rush of happiness sent a fresh stinging into her eyes, and she simply resigned herself to the fact that today she would be in a constant state of tears.
She couldn’t help herself. It wasn’t the wedding she’d originally hoped to have that morning five years ago in St George’s in Mayfair. It wasn’t even the wedding she’d hoped to have five days ago.
Yet for all its imperfections, her wedding had been simply perfect.
Helena sat back in her chair in the middle of the large table stretching the length of the new school building.
It wasn’t the orangery at Grangely Park with its bouquets of flowers and garlands.
No, this place was filled with small desks pushed to the sides to make room for the dining table, shelves stacked with books and slates, and a chalkboard on which someone had written Congratulations, Your Graces!
But it was dear to her, a special gift both to and from the village, and today’s celebration felt like the school’s christening as a place for the community to gather for special events…
although its true birth wouldn’t be until next month when the new schoolmaster arrived and classes began, all under Maggie Parker’s careful watch.
But today, there was no other place she would rather have celebrated than here, with the people who had come to mean so much to her.
The guests must have thought so, too, she decided as she moved her gaze across their gathered family and friends.
Thankfully, everyone had been able to join them for the wedding, although nearly a sennight after the original date.
But no one seemed to mind. Neither did Reverend Barlow after Gabe made a very large donation to the church’s coffers for the inconvenience of leaving him waiting before and for fitting their wedding ceremony into his schedule today.
In fact, Helena was grateful for the delay because it had given Gabe time to send to London for her father so that he could walk her down the aisle.
Drat it! Her eyes blurred again as she looked at her father across the room as he ventured deeper into conversation with Mr. Putnam.
A month ago, when he’d first told her that Gabe had proposed marriage to her via post, she’d felt stunned…
and betrayed. But her father’s wisdom in love had proved infallible, and they were all here today only because of him.
“Are you crying again?” Gabe murmured as he came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. He slid a handkerchief into her hand. “I thought weddings were supposed to make brides happy.”
“I am happy.” Yet she dabbed at her eyes and her voice cracked as she tearfully insisted, “More than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
With a knowing grin, he dared to place a kiss to her cheek, although no one would have thought twice about such an intimate gesture today of all days. Or how he lowered onto his heels beside her so he could stare out across the room with her and take in the entire celebration with her.
“Alice had a marvelous time.” He nodded proudly toward their daughter as she helped herself to a second piece of cake from the side table near the open door leading onto the village green where the party would continue until dark. “Alice,” he called out. “One piece of cake is enough.”
The little girl glanced up, an expression of guilt flashing across her face at being caught, only to beam as a sudden idea struck her.
She held up her doll, who was dressed in the wedding gift Helena had given to her that morning—a doll’s dress that perfectly matched Alice’s flower girl gown, right down to a small basket filled with tiny rose petals.
“It’s for Beatrice,” she explained. “She hasn’t had any cake yet.”
Helena bit her inner cheek to keep from laughing, then slid a look sideways at Gabe. “She’s going to be a handful when she’s older.”
Gabe let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know.” Then he squeezed her hand. “And I look forward to every day of it.”
Alice turned back to the triple-tiered cake with its pineapple and cherries decorating a sea of vanilla icing. A look of childhood longing glowed on her face, and then, as if coming to a grave decision, she nodded solemnly. “I should probably take a piece of cake to my pony, too.”
Gabe laughed.
“Oh, no you will not!” Lady Verity swept up behind the little girl to take the small cake plate from her and set it back onto the table. “Come with me.” Verity took her hand. “Mrs. Parker wants to ask you questions about the school.”
As Verity led her away, Alice gazed regretfully over her shoulder at the cake as if she were a prisoner being taken away to Newgate who craved one last glimpse of the sun.
Helena couldn’t hold in her laughter any longer and slumped back in her chair, wrapping her arms around herself as her laughs replaced all traces of tears. Gabe laughed with her, his deep chuckles rumbling through her and warming her from within.
“I want a dozen more just like her,” he told her, nuzzling her temple.
“How about three instead?” Helena suggested, only half-joking.
Maggie Parker knelt down when Alice approached, bringing her eyes level with the little girl’s.
Helena was too far away to hear what they were saying, but Maggie reached out to touch the ribbons on Alice’s dress.
In response, Alice proudly held out her doll, compelling Maggie to touch the doll’s matching dress in the exact same way.
Standing beside her, Caleb’s gaze drifted to Helena and Gabe.
He gave them a smile and lifted his glass in yet one more toast, this time in a private gesture to just the two of them.
He’d already made several toasts as Gabe’s best man, and he’d appeared nearly as nervous as Gabe when the two men had waited at the altar while Helena and her father walked down the aisle to join them, with Maggie standing as her matron of honor.
The Parkers were now both such good friends to Helena and Gabe that neither had said anything about the exuberant way Alice had flung rose petals every which way as she danced down the aisle before Helena.
Even now, stray petals clung to the clothes of several of their guests.
Only Adam’s absence dampened their day, and only then because so many of their guests kept asking about him.
He’d taken the inn’s horse and ridden toward Liverpool, exactly as Gabe said he would.
The last anyone had seen of him was boarding a ship bound for the Caribbean.
Helena and Gabe both knew they would never see him again.
The church bell struck the four o’clock hour, and the deep sound reverberated faintly across the village.
“I think it’s time to go home, Your Grace, and leave our guests to enjoy themselves,” Gabe said as he helped her rise from her chair.
Then he lifted her hand to his lips, and a wolfish gleam lit his eyes.
“But I think we should let Alice linger behind with her aunt and grandfather for a few more hours, don’t you? ”
A heated anticipation tingled through her. “What a wonderful idea.”
With a devilish grin, he looped her arm around his and led her toward the door of the school and their waiting barouche, its top down.
The guests followed them outside, and rose petals rained down upon them as they paused at the bottom of the front stoop to share a chaste but loving kiss while the tiger opened the carriage door.
Gabe took Helena’s hand and helped her up onto her seat, then joined her.
Before he turned to sit, he threw handfuls of coins to the village children gathering around them on the green, then sank onto the seat beside her.
Helena looked down at her bouquet of red roses, and sadness crept into her chest, her smile falling, as she mumbled wistfully, “I wish my sisters could have been here today.”
“I know.” He slipped his arms around her to comfort her. “But they’ll be here to visit soon, and our home will always be open to them. We’re all family now.”
Family…very much so. Gabe had saved the Sinfells, but she wanted just as much love and happiness for each of her sisters as she had finally found for herself.
Whispering a prayer for just that, she impetuously tossed the bouquet high into the air behind them as their barouche drove away, sending with it hopes that whoever caught it would find true love just as she had.
For one moment, it sailed high into the air and seemed to pause right there at the top of its arc, its scarlet red framed against a sky of robin egg blue, as if impishly daring someone to catch it…
Perfect.