Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“So.” Mame smoothed her gloves, a pair borrowed from Cerys, and laid her hands in her lap. She strove for a serene expression despite the jouncing of the carriage on its way back to Cheltenham’s High Street. “He’s made you an offer.”
“Of marriage.” Cerys voice came out a high squeak, against her will. “I believe. Actually, he asked if I would share his house with him. But I presume he meant marriage.”
Dot widened her eyes. “Aye, you’re made then.”
“I haven’t yet given my answer,” Cerys said.
Rhoda gave a snort. “And why wouldn’t ye?
The answer’s going to be yes.” She widened her eyes to mimic Dot, her expression comical.
“Ye don’t have any reason not to shackle him dreckly.
Gor, don let’ im dangle too long! Along’ll come another and snap up his tether, quick as she please. ” She snapped her fingers as emphasis.
“Bathsheba Baeccon would like to,” Tryphenie said. “You fancy ’im, Cerys?”
“I do.” She smoothed the fabric of her day gown over her knees. It was crowded in the carriage, with the three younger girls sharing the seat, and she felt stifled all of a sudden. Her chest ached.
Dante had made her an offer. Of marriage.
Or so she presumed. He had shown her his house, the nearest thing he had to a full expression of himself.
He had shown her the conservatory and what would become the terrace and gardens.
He had shown her the morning room, the domain of the lady of the house.
He had kissed her in the library, just as she’d wanted him to do that afternoon in Suffolk House.
She rubbed the buttons on her jacket, trying to ease the tightness around her heart. She couldn’t properly take a breath, not after that soul-searing, delicious kiss.
It was so different from their other kisses, which had been full of passion and teasing. This was want and a promise. An ache and its fulfillment both.
“And you like’im better than anything else ye might find,” Tryphenie said. “Though I s’pose as you might change your mind if a better offer comes along.”
“Tryph, you featherbrain,” Rhoda said genially. “The high folk don’t work like that. They have to make an awful ruckus to get a divorce, and Parliament gets to have a say an’ all. It ain’t like us, where we can jest walk out on a bloke.”
Mame’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t comment.
“’Sides, the high ones make less of a fuss when their wives run about on ‘em,” Dot remarked. “On account that they’ll have done their runnin’ about also.”
“Dante—Mr. Manelli is not one of the high. He’s not even a gentleman,” Cerys said.
This time Rhoda’s eyes rounded with genuine surprise. “You saw his house, din ye? He’s a genmum alright.”
“Rich,” Tryphenie clarified. “He’ll keep ye well. If you’re silly enough to say no, Cerys, I want a crack at him.”
“You do?” Tryphenie had not, in all the time Cerys had been with the company, had much to do with any man outside it, neither to flirt nor to tease.
“You’ll break poor Fred’s heart flat if you run about with a genmum,” Rhoda observed.
Tryphenie stuttered and looked out the window. “Fred ain’t—I don’t—don’t go foolin’ with me, Rhoda.”
“This is about our Cerys, at any rate,” Mame said. “He’s not already stashed a wife somewhere, has he?”
“I’d be surprised if he did.” Trust Mame to raise suspicions of bigamy.
“What about sideslips? Any mention of them, where they live, who has their keeping?”
Cerys choked. “He’s made no mention, but I can ask, if it’s of concern to you.”
“Ask about mistresses too,” Mame advised. “Make him cut ’em all loose before he takes you. Don’t let another woman be first in his heart.” Her lip flickered into a brief sneer. “And don’t let him bring ’er into your house, neither. Look what happened to the Duchess of Devonshire.”
Cerys didn’t know what had happened to the Duchess of Devonshire, who had died a handful of years ago. She would ask Gwen, when she saw her next.
Her chest tightened further. What would her family, her friends say if they knew Cerys had received an offer of marriage?
A real one, not the drunk and foolish proposition of a young blade who had come to the theater for a night of entertainment and imagined he lost his heart.
Marriage to a man of means. A man of substance, in every way.
Her body burned from the press of his against her, though he’d held her so lightly. Her heart skipped and trembled in her chest like a hare run to ground.
It was that house. She must blame it all on that house.
So majestic from the outside, mounted on its swell of land like a lion overlooking its pride.
That sweep of pasture running down to the gentle river, the fields blooming with wildflowers and skimmed with butterflies, the fish puddling the blue stream, the birds thronging the limbs of the trees in the river meadow beyond.
That scoop of blue sky stretching to the rims of the hills beyond—it was almost like Wales, but quieter, more rounded and polished and docile.
It was a place of rest, of ease and serenity.
And the house itself, with the entrance like a small Greek temple, the entrance to a sacred realm.
She’d stepped inside, and her heart had been hooked and pulled up through her throat.
Everything was so unbearably lovely. Graceful sweeps of space, so many tall windows, rooms so well-proportioned, and the whole of it solidly built and lovingly crafted, sure in itself and its ability to shelter and please.
She’d never seen a place where she so immediately felt she belonged, that it invited her in and held her.
Standing in that house was like being enfolded in Dante’s arms. She was sheltered, protected, safe. She knew her every need would be attended, her every want fulfilled. There she would have a solid platform to rest, and there she would have a firm foundation for wherever she wanted to fly.
It felt made for her. Waiting for her. Hers.
If she married Dante, she would be the lady of that house.
They passed the small gatehouse marking the turnpike road to London, and Cerys tried to pull her mind from the spell of enchantment that Dante and his house had cast over her.
Marriage was a lifelong pledge. Dante was a man she had only recently met.
She knew nothing of his family, little of his background, next to nothing of his past and the life that had shaped him.
She only knew what she found standing before her, and she liked the shape of that man very much.
He was proud. Strong. A man of decision and insight.
A man who did not share himself easily with the world.
A man who could build houses like that one, whose imagination was vast and grand and capable of such breathtaking beauty.
A man who, for all his bulk, was light on his feet and skilled with a sword.
He was not a man who would fribble or mince or say things if he did not mean them.
When she was with him, the restlessness that plagued her went quiet. She felt calm and certain.
She felt like he was what she’d been seeking, beyond adventure and excitement and the new: the promise that the world had a place for her.
And when he kissed her, she felt like she was the sun at the center of his universe, and he was the anchor that could hold her to solid ground.
She twisted the tassels of her jacket around her fingers, wincing as the carriage bounced and Tryph’s elbow dug into her side. She was attaching a great many fancies to a man that, as her loved ones would remind her, she knew very little about, and knew little of her.
But her instincts about people had always been sound. It was a canniness she had inherited from her mother. She could trust Dante Manelli not to hurt her. She could trust that, if he promised to love and cherish her lifelong, he meant to do it.
She only needed to be certain of her own heart.
Dot fell into a study of the passing scenery as they entered the end of town and the houses sprang up along High Street. Mame watched Cerys.
“What answer will you give him, child?”
“I know it may seem foolish that I haven’t said yes already,” Cerys said. “But I cannot help thinking marriage as a whole is a great risk. Staking one’s happiness on a man. Only look at those of us in this carriage. The odds are small for lasting contentment.”
Her mother’s first husband had died after only a few years together, leaving her widowed and with a child to raise.
Mame’s husband had turned cruel. Dot’s mother had found out she was not the first wife and had run away with Dorsey for solace.
Rhoda lost her sweetheart to war, and Tryphenie had never been treated with tenderness.
Mame shrugged. “Whatever in the world lasts? Not youth, not beauty, not riches. Take what joy you can have now, child, and savor the fine meal as long as you may.”
Pledge her heart and hand to Dante, live in that house, learn to be a wife, and enjoy what happiness she could find. Be held and loved by him. Turn and catch him watching her with that small smile, the fire in his eyes.
Dot tapped on the window as they passed a gravel path. “That’s the chalybeate spring there. We haven’t tried that one.”
“Oh, we ought to,” Cerys said, eager to turn the conversation from scrutiny of herself and her heart. Normally it pleased her to be the center of attention. But she wanted her feelings about Dante Manelli to be something she could hold and study for a while, for herself alone.
“I could use a dose of medicinal water,” Mame said. “The food at Suffolk House is far richer than I’m accustomed to.” She pushed up the window beside her seat. “Coachman, turn back and take us to that pump room at the chalybeate spring, if you please.”