Kit had been listening in dismay—the more so, perhaps, because his father appeared to be asking rather than telling him. Another of the olive branches Lauren had spoken of yesterday?
“I would not wish to rush her, sir,” he said. “There will be bride clothes to shop for, and there are many other relatives she will want at her—at our wedding. The Duchess of Portfrey, her aunt, for example. The lady is to be confined soon—within the next month or so, I believe. We were thinking more of a winter or perhaps a spring wedding.”
“I just do not want your mother or your grandmother disappointed again,” the earl said.
Again? Was he talking about Jerome and Freyja? Of course, he must be. But no one had mentioned Jerome’s name since Kit’s return home. He could not mention it now. Neither, it seemed, could their father. They rode through the village in heavy silence and spoke with false cheer to the porter, who opened the gates for them and delayed them for a few moments while he squinted upward at the heavy clouds and speculated upon the likelihood of their lordships getting rained upon before they reached the stables.
“I would rather not have the idea of banns pressed upon Lauren too soon, sir,” Kit said as they rode onward into the darker shade of the deer forest. “She suffered a severe and humiliating disappointment last year. I want all to be perfect for her this time.”
“Hmm. The thought does you credit,” his father said.
God help him, but he really did want that, Kit thought. Absurdly, he believed he would gladly give his life to make something perfect for Lauren. Perhaps he would find pardon and peace if he could bring about her happiness. But he could do just that, he thought rather bitterly. He could set her free.
By the time they rode clear of the trees an occasional large spot of rain splashed down onto them. Pretty soon it was going to be raining in earnest.
“We had better make a dash for it,” the earl said, looking upward. He added rather stiffly, “It has been a good morning, Ravensberg. She is a true lady.”
Yes. It had not escaped Kit’s notice, either, that they owed this morning together, earl and heir together as they ought to be, to Lauren’s gentle maneuvering last evening.
He smiled ruefully as he urged his horse to a gallop and clattered over the bridge in his father’s wake.
The guests began arriving in the rain soon after luncheon. Lauren spent much of the afternoon in the great hall with the earl and countess, with the dowager countess and Mr. Sydnam Butler, and with Kit, receiving the visitors, being presented to all of them, trying to impress names and exact relationships upon her memory.
It was not easy. It might have seemed impossible if she had not trained herself long ago, when she had expected to spend her adult life as the Countess of Kilbourne with all the duties of a hostess. She would remember Lady Irene Butler, the late earl’s unmarried sister, because she was white-haired and frail and severely bent over. And she would remember Viscount Hampton, the dowager’s brother, because of his shiny bald head and loud laugh, and Mr. Claude Willard, his son, who closely resembled him. Then there was Daphne Willard, Claude’s wife, and their three not-quite-grown children, two sons and a daughter—three young people who were on their very best behavior, doubtless in the hope of being included with the adults rather than with the nursery group during the coming days. Then there was the placid and smiling Marjorie, Lady Clifford, the Earl of Redfield’s sister, and her florid-complexioned, wheezing husband, Sir Melvin. Boris Clifford, with the eyeglasses, was their son, the buxom Nell his wife. This latter couple had three infant children, who were whisked up to the nursery after a brief inspection by the dowager, their great-grandmama.
There was a lull in the arrivals before Lauren had to memorize more names and faces and relationships. Mr. Humphrey Pierce-James arrived next with his wife, Edith, their daughter Catherine and her husband, Mr. Lawrence Vreemont. The latter couple also had two infant children. Mr. Pierce-James, Lauren understood, was the dowager’s nephew by a deceased sister. Last to arrive were Mr. Clarence Butler, the earl’s younger brother, with his wife, Honoria, their daughter Beatrice and her husband, Baron Born, and their brood of unwed offspring, varying in age from Frederick, who must be Kit’s age, to Benjamin, who was eight. Doris, one of the daughters, had her fiancй, Sir Jeremy Brightman, with her.
Lauren did not promise herself that she would remember every name and face and relationship immediately—there were so many of them—but she thought she would within a day or so. She smiled with some relief when it seemed the last guest had arrived and disappeared upstairs to freshen up before tea. Everyone had been amiable. If any of them knew about the projected engagement to Lady Freyja Bedwyn, none of them looked as if they held a grudge.
She had not had a chance to ask Kit about his morning. But he had spent the whole of it with his father about estate business—a promising sign indeed. Neither of them had been at home to receive Lady Freyja Bedwyn and her two brothers, but they had indeed called and spent fifteen minutes with Kit’s mother and grandmother and with Aunt Clara. They had expressed their intention of riding over again before the day of the birthday celebrations. A permanent rift had been avoided, it seemed.
It must be time to go back upstairs to the drawing room, Lauren thought. But the butler, peering discreetly through a window, announced that yet another carriage was approaching across the bridge.
“Perhaps this time,” the countess said, speaking to the earl but smiling at Lauren. “Do have a seat, Mother. You will be exhausted from having been on your feet all afternoon.”
“I will not . . . sit,” the old lady said. “Miss . . . Edgeworth, let me . . . take your . . . arm again.”
But Sydnam Butler stepped forward and offered his instead. The newly arrived carriage was drawing up before the steps, and the butler himself had gone down with a large black umbrella to escort the gentleman who was alighting from it indoors. Two footmen held the doors wide open. Lauren shivered from the chill of the wet, windy outdoors. But she donned her sociable smile again and prepared to be presented to yet another member of Kit’s family.
And then the butler removed the sheltering umbrella and stood to one side while the visitor stepped over the threshold into the hall and looked about expectantly.
Lauren forgot her famous dignity in the surprise of recognition and the welling of joy. She hurried forward, both arms outstretched.
“Grandpapa!” she exclaimed.
“Lauren. There you are, my dear!”
She was enfolded in his embrace then and inhaling the snuffy, leathery scent she always associated with him. And swallowing and blinking her eyes and trying—in vain—to hold her tears in check.
He had come.
He had come!
“I did not know,” she said, drawing back from him and gazing into his lined, dearly familiar face. “I did not expect . . .” She turned to look with tear-bright eyes at the earl and at Kit. “Who did this? Whose idea was it?”
“Mine,” Kit said. He was grinning. “As soon as Mother and Father asked me which of your relatives should be invited.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at each of them in turn. “Oh, thank you.”
“Present me, please, Lauren.” Kit stepped forward and brought her back to a sense of duty.
She proceeded to present them all, her arm linked through Baron Galton’s—her very own relative—her heart brimming with happiness. They had invited him for her betrothal celebrations, and he had come all the way from Yorkshire. Just for her! Surely because he loved her. And it had been Kit’s idea to invite him and surprise her in this way. What a delightful surprise it was.