Likely thanks to Her Grace’s influence with the Deity, the day of the wedding brought the most glorious spring weather London could offer. The Windham family had gathered en masse, including even the Northern contingent, represented by St. Just and his increasing coterie of female dependents—two daughters and one countess, plus a happy gleam in the man’s eye that presaged further developments.
As His Grace eyed the packed pews of St. George’s on Hanover Square, he reflected that a father better versed in the essential parental art of self-deception might be telling himself he was relieved to be seeing his youngest, smallest daughter off into the keeping of an adoring swain.
The organist took his seat while the crowd in the pews and balconies exchanged their final tidbits of greeting and gossip.
His Grace was not relieved. He himself had been the most adoring of swains once upon a time, and yet Her Grace had had her hands quite full with him, for at least the first ten or twenty years of their union.
Possibly more.
Marriage—a good, loving union such as the Almighty contemplated and sensible people longed for—was a damned lot of work, and much was going to be asked of Evie and her swain before His Grace could aspire to anything approaching relief on his daughter’s behalf.
He turned back to the small chamber where Eve stood in her finery, and the sight caused something like a small seizure in his heart. Evie was so petite, but she’d been a fighter since she’d surprised them all by showing up several weeks prior to her expected birth date.
“Daughter, you are the most beautiful sight in the realm today.”
She glanced up from her bouquet, an odd little gathering of pink and white heather, orange blossoms, and a few sprigs of hawthorn—for solitude, loveliness, and hope, if His Grace’s memory served. Her expression was more anxious than radiant.
“Thank you, Papa. How much longer?”
He turned back toward the nave. “Not long. Your mother has taken her place.”
Her Grace had been subdued in the carriage, but the duke suspected he understood why: they’d lost Eve in some sense seven years ago. Losing her again today revived the old aches, old doubts, and guilt. Since that long-ago day, there had been a chasm of bewilderment between Eve and her parents, one they all possessed enough love to want to breach, and yet the chasm remained.
His Grace turned his back on Polite Society in all its spring finery and once again surveyed his daughter. “Tell me something, Evie.”
She set the bouquet aside and offered him a painfully brave smile. “Papa?”
“Why are you marrying Deene? Is it because I was wroth with him for trespassing on your… for taking liberties?”
She blinked, looking very like her mother after His Grace had made some inelegant remark before the children. “I was not comforted to think of either you, my brothers, or Deene coming to harm on your idiot field of honor, but that wasn’t the entire reason.”
His Grace closed the door to the chamber, signaling, he hoped, that he’d have an answer, and Polite Society could go hang until he did. “I should wish regard for your intended played some role. Deene’s not a bad fellow.”
“Lucas is a good man, and I esteem him greatly.”
He crossed his arms, as that little recitation wouldn’t fool the most dense of fathers.
“I’ve seen Deene’s racing stables in Surrey, you know.” She picked up her bouquet and started fussing the little sprigs of hawthorn. “It’s a lovely place, very peaceful. We’ll be there for the next few weeks, possibly through the Season.”
Which His Grace took for a bit of genius on Deene’s part. The newlyweds would get no peace in Kent or in Town. “What has this to do with marrying the man, Evie? And don’t think to bamboozle your old papa. I was young once, and I know marriage is a daunting business even when you’re entirely besotted with your intended.”
She frowned. She did not smile hugely and assure him with a mischievous wink that she and Deene were quite besotted, though His Grace suspected, hoped, and prayed they were.
“When I was with Deene in Surrey last time, I helped birth a foal. The colt had a leg back, and the mare was small. I was best suited to aiding her, and Deene says the foal is thriving.”
What this had to do with anything was… His Grace tried not to show his surprise. Eve had recently started driving out. That signal fact had contributed to her being unchaperoned at Lavender Corner, but it had also given Her Grace the first glimmer of hope Eve was “putting that whole sorry business behind her.” Hope was a welcome if anxious burden for both of Their Graces.
“You always enjoyed foaling season, always enjoyed the stables.” He made the observation cautiously, pretending to make a final inspection of the ducal regalia in the mirror while he instead studied his daughter’s reflection.
“If I hadn’t been there, Papa, the mare and foal both might have perished, or they’d have lost the mare for sure and tried to save the foal. But I was there, and Lucas allowed me to help her.”
Lucas. That Eve thought of her prospective husband as Lucas was encouraging. Only Her Grace called His Grace by name, and likely conversely.
“I’m to name the colt, Papa, but it’s as you used to say: you can’t just slap a name on an animal willy-nilly, you must first learn who the beast is. I want to learn who that little, bucking, playing, gorgeous beast is.”
He cracked open the door and peered into the church, lest he interfere with whatever point Eve was leading up to. “And you needed to marry Deene to do that?”
“Horses can live a long time, thirty years or more with luck and good care. Someday, I want to walk down to that colt’s paddock with my granddaughter and feed the old boy some apples. I might tell her tales of his races and his sons, tell her how magnificent he was when he swept across the finish line, or what heart he had in the hunt field.”
What on earth was she saying?
“I often enjoyed taking you children to the stables on fine summer evenings. You would talk to me then. I could have you to myself one or two at a time.”
He’d forgotten this. It was a dear, dear memory, and he’d forgotten it.
Now she smiled at him, perhaps not radiantly, but genuinely.
“I have not forgotten those fine summer evenings, Papa. And when I take my granddaughter down to see my old friend, I will tell her he had to struggle very hard to come into the world and make his way here. I will tell her… he could have given up, but he didn’t—he fought and struggled and eventually prevailed, and I did not give up on him either. Not ever, not for a single moment.”
Good… God.
Mercifully for His Grace’s composure, the organist chose that moment to begin the fanfare, sparing the duke from any reply. As he led his dear daughter up the aisle, past all the curious smiles and doting acquaintances, all he could think was that on her wedding day, Eve had talked to him of never giving up on a loved one, and of horses.
It had been seven years since she’d spoken to anybody of horses, and she’d chosen to start with her papa—which only made it harder today, of all days, to give her away.
No thunderbolt had stopped the ceremony at the last minute; no messenger of God had spoken up to state a reason why the union should not go forward. Eve Windham had been pronounced a wife, though the bishop’s voice had sounded as distant to her as the hunting horn blowing “gone away” on a far, windy hill.
“Eat something, Evie.”
Deene bent close to her, his smile doting though concern lurked in his blue eyes.
“I couldn’t possibly.”
His smile slipped, and Eve wondered if they were to have another bad moment. They’d already avoided one when Deene had realized Mr. Dolan had been present at the wedding, little Georgina dutifully turned out in her finest, the governess looking a good deal more spruce at her side than when Eve had met them in the park.