Chapter 15
Cecilia, You’re Breaking My Heart
Damian handed his hat to Howard with a rueful smile. “Good morning, Howard.”
“And to you, Lord Rivington.”
“Well, what is amiss today? Need I go dig up potatoes for the wedding feast, or muck out the Augean stables, perhaps?”
Howard chuckled, which Damian felt to be something of a triumph, as the fellow had wanted to carve out his heart with a spoon just a couple of weeks ago.
“Several minor catastrophes,” he confided, rather to Damian’s amusement. “But nothing truly dreadful. I believe the Dowager Duchess of Langley is, er, a lady of strong opinions.”
“What you are tactfully trying to tell me, Howard, is that my grandmother-in-law is a pain in my arse and is causing trouble again.”
“I could not possibly comment,” Howard replied gravely, though there was a twinkle in his eyes. “Lady Cecilia is in the dining room, if you would like to follow me. We are readying things for the wedding breakfast. It is a rather… delicate procedure.”
Damian thought he detected a note of strain to even the indomitable Howard’s voice and sighed.
He did not doubt the fellow was unused to people sticking their oar in when he oversaw the arranging of the table.
Though he suspected Celia’s grandmother was compensating for her worry over her granddaughter’s future by controlling every aspect of the wedding, he did not know how to reassure the wretched woman when he was just as anxious as she was.
“The sooner this blasted wedding is over the better,” he grumbled as he followed Howard, and then wondered what he was saying. If he thought things were complicated now, how much worse would they get when Celia was his wife?
Last night she had lured—yes, lured—him into saying all sorts of rash things because she had wept so piteously, damn her eyes.
He’d felt as low as if he’d been caught murdering kittens.
That she could manipulate him so easily was terrifying.
Except it was worse than that, because she hadn’t manipulated him at all, she’d not even tried. He’d volunteered!
Today, he must do better. He would explain calmly and rationally that he would always be her friend, that he would not leave her by herself for months on end, they… they would find a way to… to share a house but not their lives.
The idiocy of that idea was not lost on him.
With a groan, he stiffened his resolve and entered the dining room, which was unrecognisable from the last time he’d seen it.
The place was bristling with servants, so many that he could not at first make out his fiancée.
She gave him a little wave before she disappeared again behind a phalanx of footmen.
Flowers—some of which he thought he recognised from the monstrosity bouquet—decorated the table, filling the room with perfume.
The Dowager Duchess of Langley stood at the head of the table, commanding half a dozen maids who looked as if they were being run ragged.
“Grandmama, I really think Cilly—” Hetty began, only to have her opinion waved away as the dowager barked at a footman. “No, no. Where are the large candelabra?”
The footman, looking mildly panicked, darted a glance at Damian. “These are the large candelabra, your grace.”
Her face fell. “Oh.” Turning, she looked at the Dowager Duchess of Hawkney, who was sitting in a comfortable chair in the corner of the room, sipping a cup of tea and looking thoroughly entertained. “Are they the biggest you have, Maria?”
“They are the biggest silver ones,” the wretched woman replied calmly. Howard stilled, glancing at the perfection of the silver cutlery arranged with military position on the eye wateringly white tablecloth with a wince. “But the gold are larger.”
“Oh, well, in that case…”
“No.” Damian’s voice rang out, and several servants stared at him, hands clasped to their chests as if praying. “Celia, my dear. Silver or Gold?”
“Silver, please.”
He did not see her, but it was definitely her voice, which was good enough. “There we are. Silver. Carry on.”
Howard let out a breath and nodded his thanks.
Damian strode through the throng and grasped his betrothed’s hand.
She looked around at him in surprise, and her smile… her smile lit up her face. She looked happy.
“Come with me.”
“Oh, but… the napkins, I was just deciding on swans or—”
“Swans. Yes. Very good. Come along,” he said briskly.
She said nothing more but hurried after him and he led her out of the room, through the house to the music room, out onto the terrace, and then out into the garden. He didn’t stop until he reached the pretty fountain they had stood beside once before, what seemed a lifetime ago now.
It was dry today, though the skies remained stubbornly grey. A chill wind rustled through the gardens, sending autumn leaves tumbling down and skittering over the paths.
Cilly crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. Damian cursed himself.
“Forgive me, I was so eager to escape the chaos I didn’t stop to get your coat. Here.” He shrugged out of his and settled it around her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said, and there was that look in her eyes again, one that spoke of admiration and affection and… and things he was not ready to contemplate.
“It’s lovely and warm,” she added with another shiver, but of pleasure this time.
It did odd things to him, that shiver, the knowledge that his body heat warmed her.
Tomorrow, they would be married, and she would belong to him in every way that mattered.
His to keep, to take to his bed… that was the usual way of things, obviously.
When one married there was a wedding night.
Which was what he needed to speak to her about. Before she got… ideas.
“Come and sit down,” he said, guiding her towards a stone bench that overlooked the fountain.
“Very well.”
She settled beside him, her hip pressed to his. He ignored it stoically, for there were important things to discuss. “We need to talk, Celia.”
“Very well.” She gazed at him expectantly.
Damian nodded and cleared his throat. “About… About….”
“The future?” she suggested.
“Yes. That. Precisely. The future. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He hesitated. “I want you to know that… that what I said, well, I meant it.”
“What you said?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
He frowned at her. “Oh. Yesterday. What I said yesterday, I meant it, about… not letting you live alone.”
Her lovely face creased into a smile and she leaned into him. “I am so glad, Damian. I should miss you dreadfully. I’m rather used to you being around now, you know.”
Damian gazed at her, getting lost in her eyes for a long moment before clearing his throat. “Thank you. I’m… used to you too.”
Her smile grew broader.
“But there are practical things, rules, I think, that we need to establish.”
“Rules?”
Damian nodded. He’d lain awake all last night trying to figure out a way they could be together without being together, and the only thing that would keep his sanity intact was if there were rules.
Celia considered this for a moment, absently taking the sleeve of his coat and rubbing it against her cheek, like a cat seeking a caress. For a moment, Damian was absurdly jealous of his own coat sleeve. He told himself to get a grip.
“Like, not smoking a pipe in the dining room?” she suggested. “Grandmama said Grandfather smoked a pipe and it drove her mad, especially around food. She hated it.”
“I don’t smoke,” Damian replied. “But… well, I suppose a bit like that, yes.”
“Very well. I shall not smoke a pipe at the dining table,” she said solemnly, pressing her hand to her heart.
“Funny,” he said, shaking his head at her. “Most amusing. This is serious, Celia.”
She bit her lip and sat up a little straighter. “Sorry. Do carry on. Rules.”
“Yes, rules,” he said crossly. “We need them.”
She used his coat sleeve to make a ‘go on, then’ motion. “Please elaborate.”
Damian sighed. “We will not live in each other’s pockets, but I shall ensure that I take you out at least once every week. If we are in town—”
“We are to have a townhouse?” she asked, apparently thrilled at the prospect. “You mean, you don’t intend to bury me in the countryside?”
He stiffened, a little indignant at the idea. “Well, obviously not. I’m not such a brute as that. I mean, I assume you enjoy the theatre and gallery visits and balls and—”
“Oh, very much. Or at least, I never really enjoyed balls before now, but I shall with you.”
Damian opened his mouth to protest this was not at all what he was getting at, and closed it again, uncertain what argument he could make. “Anyway, if you would let me get back to the point—”
“The point, yes,” she said, gazing at him like she expected pearls of wisdom to fall from his mouth.
“The point,” he said tightly, “is that we shall keep a calendar of the days when we are to see each other and the days—”
“We don’t,” she suggested, though her eyes had dimmed now, the teasing light gone.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“How many days?”
“I….” Though he had worked this all out last night, he found he couldn’t tell her, could not bear to see her expression grow more despondent. “We can figure that out later,” he said rashly, and immediately cursed himself for being a coward.
“Very well. What other rules are there?”
Damian reached into his pocket for his notebook and scanned it.
“You wrote them down?”
He nodded, holding the book out of her reach when she tried to take it from him. “Nothing is set in stone; they are merely things I did not wish to forget.”
“Such as?”
He peered at his untidy scrawl, all the worse for having been produced at three in the morning by candlelight.
“Ah, yes. You are not to go weeping and enacting a Cheltenham tragedy over sweet peas, for the love of God. If there is a problem, you will tell me the problem, not create another problem to cover it up. Is that clear?”
She blinked at him. “That’s a rule?”