Chapter 17 #2
“Oh, the beds at Rosemere are always so comfortable, Louisa. We’ve stayed at some lovely inns but nothing could ever be as good as Aunt Beatrice’s feather mattresses. Does she still have her mattress turning days?”
“First Monday of every month,” Louisa confirmed with a laugh, turning to face her cousin. “Every mattress in the house is still aired, turned and re-stuffed if needed. There are no lumpy or lopsided beds in this house. Oh, how I love Rosemere!”
This happy thought turned to sadness almost immediately. It was not as though Louisa would have to leave Rosemere after the wedding – Benedict had made it quite clear that he would be happy to leave her behind and return to London – but nothing could ever be quite the same again as it had been.
Seeing Louisa’s face fall, Seraphine sat up and looked at her with compassion.
“Now, you must tell me exactly what has really happened, Louisa,” she said seriously.
“How on earth have you come to be betrothed to the Duke of Northwick in so short a time? Between Benedict’s rather cryptic letter and the brief and breezy announcement by Aunt Beatrice, we hardly knew what to think. ”
“I hardly know myself,” murmured Louisa as she sat up too, but her cousin had not finished talking.
“Well, I was ready to set off for Rosemere immediately after the first letter, but Damien persuaded me to wait for you to write and explain. We even wondered if it might be some peculiar joke…”
Louisa shook her head silently. How she wished it was all a joke and they could just laugh about it and start over again!
“When Aunt Beatrice’s letter arrived the morning after Benedict’s, but still nothing from you, I had our bags packed immediately,” continued Seraphine before pausing expectantly. “I knew that whatever had happened, we should be here.”
“I’m sorry to have made you cut short your trip, but I’m glad you’re here,” Louisa told her before giving a very long sigh at the thought of explaining everything that had happened.
Where should she start? Where did it all begin? Furthermore, where did it all end?
Trying her best to maintain a coherent narrative, Louisa outlined their travels to the north and how a confusing relationship had sprung up between her and the Duke of Northwick, despite Aunt Beatrice’s efforts to discourage it.
She assured Seraphine that nothing whatsoever had passed between them of an inappropriate nature.
“I still cannot really believe Benedict a rake,” Louisa paused her narrative to comment, “but perhaps that is how I got into this mess…”
“Go on,” instructed Seraphine patiently, sensing that the main part of the story was still to come.
Louisa moved on to the unfortunate night in the drawing room and how she had literally fallen into Benedict’s arms. Then she told her cousin of the encounter with Lady Huxley in the breakfast room and Benedict’s steadfast defense of her as his betrothed.
“He never even proposed!” she realized aloud, aggrieved now, even though at the time she had been in no position to object to his statement of their engagement as a fact. “He just began referring to us as being betrothed, and then, when we walked in the rose garden…”
Scarlet-faced now, she told Seraphine of Benedict’s vision for their married life, including his outlandish and utterly unromantic suggestion that they schedule child-producing appointments if Louisa wished to be a mother.
“Oh Louisa!” exclaimed Seraphine at the end of the convoluted tale, taking her cousin in her arms and hugging her for a moment.
Then, as she sat back, shaking her head, Louisa was surprised to see a widening smile on Seraphine’s face. Despite any efforts to hold it back, the Duchess of Wexford burst into laughter. After a very brief moment of incomprehension and affront, Louisa joined in.
“How is it so funny now that you are here, Seraphine? It is a terrible thing that both Benedict and I should be forced into a marriage neither of us wanted.”
Seraphine wiped a tear of laughter from her eye.
“I’m not laughing at either of you, dear cousin. It is only that the whole thing is so absurd. If you read it in a book, you wouldn’t believe it, would you? You’d think that the author had let her imagination run away with her.”
Just as she seemed to be recovering her composure, Seraphine dissolved into laughter again at a new thought.
“Dear me, Louisa, it’s like the most ridiculous sequel to that book you used to love so much – the one with Sir Benedict, the noblest and truest knight that ever lived. The coincidence of the name is funny. Do allow me that much.”
Louisa’s laughter was bittersweet, even as she nodded. She had thought about that book so often since she met the Duke of Northwick, although most recently only in terms of the dreams she had lost.
“Remind me, what did Sir Benedict look like in the book?”
Opening and then closing her mouth, Louisa was amazed to find that she could not quite remember a description that had once been burned on her memory. There was only one image of a man who came to her mind now, whether she wished it or not.
“He was tall and strong, with dark hair,” Louisa began, reasonably sure that the two Benedict’s had this in common, and then took refuge in platitudes. “He was very handsome and had kind eyes.”
“One green and one blue?” suggested Seraphine, with a gently teasing smile. “Perhaps you have got what you wished for, Louisa.”
Louisa turned away, shaking her head as tears threatened to fill her eyes. The Duke of Northwick might well be tall, dark and handsome, and she knew from experience how kind he could be. Still, how could her romantic hero ever be a man self-admittedly known to half the ton as as rake?
“I can never have what I wished for, Seraphine,” Louisa told her cousin. “I can never have what you and Damien have. It is not really Benedict’s fault, but it feels like my heart is broken.”
Seraphine hugged her again and stroked her hair.
“This may not be the exact dream you dreamed as a young girl, Louisa, but just think, it might be the start of something even better. You will be a duchess after all.”
At this suggestion, Louisa gave a mirthless laugh. Despite the earnestness of her cousin’s face, she supposed the words were largely spoken for comfort rather than from actual conviction.
"I do believe you'll be happy together, Louisa,” insisted Seraphine. “If you both allow yourself to be happy, that is. Have you spoken to Benedict about how you’re feeling? He is not a bad man, you know. Perhaps he would understand.”
“I tried, that day in the rose garden, but then he began on scheduling our future children…”
At this recollection, both women fell about again in laughter all over again. Louisa marveled at how a situation could be simultaneously absurd, comical and tragic.
“Talk to him,” Seraphine recommended once more. “It really is the best way.”
Louisa nodded her agreement although such efforts felt futile. Benedict might be understanding and reasonable and kind, but he would still not be her dream man and her heart ached for that loss.