Mary Balogh - A Summer to Remember

If he won!

She was still getting her arms and legs organized when he was nonchalantly treading water right under the waterfall and grinning despicably.

A wedding eve ball had been the tradition at Newbury Abbey for a number of generations. It seemed rather strange to Kit when the bride and groom might be expected to want as much sleep as they could get the night before their wedding night, but perhaps the Newbury bridegrooms who had allowed the tradition to develop had not been particularly lusty men. Or perhaps it had been a clever ruse of Newbury brides to take the edge off their lust.

However it was, his own wedding eve ball and Lauren’s was in full swing. The abbey was packed to the rafters with Kilbourne and Redfield family and friends. The dower house too, and the village inn. Even by the standards of a London Season, the gathering in the ballroom, on the balcony beyond the French windows, and on the landing and winding stairs beyond the ballroom might be called a very creditable squeeze. How everyone was expected to fit inside the village church tomorrow morning he could not begin to guess.

Lauren, with whom a mere bridegroom was expected to dance only once—and he had already been allotted his quota—was flushed and looking radiantly happy. She was also many times lovelier than the next loveliest lady in the room. She literally shimmered in a satin gown of such a deep violet that some might call it purple. The diamond necklace his mother and father had given her as a wedding present sparkled in the light of hundreds of candles. His ring—the diamond was so large and many-faceted that he had distinctly overheard one of his least favorite females, the former Lady Wilma Fawcitt, more recently the Countess of Sutton, describe it as vulgar—his ring glinted on her finger.

“You cannot get close enough for another dance, Ravensberg?” Lord Farrington asked him.

“An abomination, is it not?” Kit said cheerfully.

“Does the delectable Lady Muir dance?” Farrington asked. “One would hate to risk a faux pas when she has that limp.”

“She dances,” Kit said.

Farrington, it appeared, had escaped the clutches of the ambitious Merklingers during the spring. He was footloose again, his roving eye intact.

“I’ll go and try my luck with her, then,” he said, “and see if I can charm her away from that great handsome Viking.”

“Ralf Bedwyn?” Kit grinned—and then turned his attention to a footman who had touched his sleeve. There was a gentleman newly arrived and waiting downstairs. He had requested a word with Lord Ravensberg.

Yet another guest? Kit strode off in the direction of the staircase.

The new arrival was a very young man. He was tall and overslender as if he had not yet quite grown into his body. He was also fresh-faced. If he shaved at all yet, it was clearly not a daily necessity. He was a good-looking boy, though. Kit assessed him in one quick glance, as he had once been accustomed to doing with scores and even hundreds of new recruits.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Ravensberg?” The young man strode toward him, his right hand outstretched. “I read your invitation less than a week ago. By that time the notice of your wedding was in the papers. I came as quickly as I could.” He flushed when Kit regarded him blankly. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I am Whitleaf. Viscount Whitleaf.”

“Whitleaf?” Kit took his hand. “The invitation was to my betrothal celebrations at Alvesley Park. My grandmother’s birthday party, actually.” He had sent it off at the same time as he had sent one to Baron Galton, before Lauren had arrived at Alvesley, before he had known of her total estrangement from her father’s family. He had been more relieved than disappointed when no one had shown up.

“I have been in Scotland ever since coming down from Oxford in the spring,” the young man explained, “on a walking tour with my old tutor and a couple of friends.”

And where have you been for the rest of Lauren’s life?

Kit did not ask the question aloud. He clasped his hands behind him.

“I asked my mother who Lauren Edgeworth was after reading your invitation,” Viscount Whitleaf said. “It was obvious she must be a relative. I am an Edgeworth too.”

“You did not know who she was?” Kit asked.

“No, not really,” the young man replied. “Maybe she was mentioned when I was a lad. I don’t remember. I was sorry I had missed the celebrations at Alvesley. But when I read the notice in the paper, I thought it would be rather jolly to come down here to pay my respects to my cousin on the occasion of her wedding.”

“Jolly?” Kit frowned.

The young man flushed again. “You are not pleased to see me,” he said.

“How long have you held the title?” Kit asked.

“Oh, forever.” Whitleaf made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “My father died when I was three. I was the last of six children—the only boy. I’ll reach my majority in January. I’ll be free of all my guardians then. That will be jolly, let me tell you. Are you really not glad I have come? Was my cousin offended when I did not even reply to the invitation? Should I leave?”

“Guardians,” Kit said quietly. “Since you were three.”

“Lord, yes,” the young man said, grimacing. “Three of them. A humorless lot. Not one funny bone among the lot of them. And my mother too, though she does occasionally laugh, to give her her due. And mothers do not have a great deal of say in their minor sons’ lives, you know. For some peculiar reason they are supposed not to have brains. Anyway, for most of my life I have had leading strings projecting from all parts of my body, like the spokes of an umbrella.”

“Did you know,” Kit asked, “that these guardians have been writing letters in your name? Declining the chance to take Lauren in as a child when her mother apparently disappeared during a long journey overseas, for example—even though her father had been a Viscount Whitleaf, presumably your uncle? Replying to her own overture of friendship when she was eighteen—eight years ago—with the information that you did not encourage indigent relatives or hangers-on?”

Viscount Whitleaf flushed and winced. “If ever I used to ask to see my correspondence or their replies,” he said, “they would call me a precocious cub or something equally endearing and look at me as if I were a particularly nasty insect that had crawled out from beneath the nearest piece of furniture. But that sounds just like them—what you just described, I mean. My mother told me last week that my aunt, Miss Edgeworth’s mother, was not highly regarded. She flirted with everything in breeches—according to my mother. And then she went off and married Wyatt before my uncle was cold in his grave. There was even a suspicion—er, perhaps I ought not to mention this. It’s doubtless nonsense, dreamed up by old tabbies who had nothing better to do with their time. It was even said, anyway, that her daughter—that is this Miss Edgeworth—was his. The new husband’s, I mean, and not my uncle’s.”

Kit, inclined to fury, decided on amusement instead. “But you still thought it might be jolly to meet her?” he asked.

“Oh, I did.” The young man smiled. “The family black sheep are invariably more interesting than the white sheep. They tend to be dead bores. Or worse.”

“Stay here,” Kit said. “Make yourself comfortable. Lauren is probably dancing with someone. I’ll fetch her down as soon as she is free. I can assure you beyond any reasonable doubt that my bride is indeed a legitimate member of the Edgeworth family.”

“Oh, I daresay,” the viscount said good-naturedly. “But I really wouldn’t care a fig if she wasn’t, you know.”

“She has your color eyes,” Kit said, smiling. “I should have realized who you were as soon as I walked through the door. But the light was behind you then.”

“Ah, the Edgeworth eyes,” the young man said. “They always look better on the women than the men.”

Kit chuckled to himself as he made his way back upstairs, greeting guests as he went, acknowledging their congratulations and good wishes. The stripling was surely going to discover within the next three or four years that women would fall all over themselves for just a single glance from Viscount Whitleaf’s violet eyes.

Lauren’s dressing room suddenly seemed rather crowded even though she had dismissed her tearful maid five minutes before. The silly girl had sniffed and wept all through the hour of dressing her mistress and styling her hair. She had never been happier in her life, she had declared while hiccuping woefully, and though she did not entirely fancy not seeing her mum, who lived in Lower Newbury, so often, she would be thrilled to move to Alvesley and call Lord Ravensberg master. He was the handsomest, kindest gent she had ever clapped eyes upon.

Lauren had made allowances for the fact that it was a day when emotions could be expected to run high.

It was her wedding day.

Aunt Clara was the first to come to her dressing room. Lauren had not breakfasted with all the guests in the dining room. A tray had been brought up to the bedchamber, laden with appetizing foods, all her favorites. She had not been able to swallow one bite.

Aunt Clara enfolded her in a light hug, so as not to squash either of their wedding finery.

“Lauren,” she said. It was all she could say for a while, even though she smiled.

Oh, yes, it was a day for emotions. Lauren knew that her aunt was delighted for her. She had been dreadfully upset at the broken engagement, convinced as she had been at Alvesley that her niece had found happiness at last. She had actually wept—Neville and Lily had had to console her—when Lauren and Kit had walked into the drawing room at the abbey late on that wet afternoon a month ago. They had not needed to say a word. Everyone had known instantly that they were reconciled. It had been almost embarrassing. It must have been glaringly obvious why they had been so long down on the beach.