Someone to Wed

“Why not?” she said, and took her arm from about his waist, shrugged off his arm from her shoulders, and marched to the tree and up it.

Well, she did not exactly march up. Indeed, she hauled herself onto the lowest branch in a most ungainly fashion and then stepped gingerly up to the next and crawled inelegantly up to the third before looking down. Her rational mind told her she was still pathetically close to the ground. If Alexander below her stretched up an arm and she stretched down a leg, he would surely be able to grasp her ankle or even her knee. Her irrational mind told her she was in danger of bumping her head on the sky before falling from it like Icarus. She turned with great care and sat on the branch. Her legs felt boneless.

He was grinning at her. He had removed his hat and dropped it to the grass. “I daresay,” he said, “it must be almost twenty years since I climbed a tree.”

She grinned back at him before deciding that looking downward was not a good idea. He came up after her until his boot was on the branch beside her and then disappeared upward. He sat on a branch adjacent to her own and slightly above it and draped his wrists over his bent knees.

“I think,” he said, “it is still almost twenty years since I climbed a tree.”

“Do not belittle me,” she said as she edged along to set her own back against the trunk. “I have one question. How do we get down?”

“I do not know about you,” he said. “I intend to climb down the way I came up.”

“I thought so,” she said. “But that is the whole problem.”

“Never fear,” he said. “When teatime comes, I shall fetch you some food.”

And somehow they found the sheer silliness of their exchange hilariously funny and laughed and snorted with glee.

“And maybe a blanket to keep you warm tonight,” he added.

“And breakfast in the morning?” she asked.

“You are very demanding,” he told her.

“Ah, but—” She tipped her head to look up at him. “You care.”

Their laughter stopped. He gazed back down at her, his smile lingering, and she wished she had not said that—although he had said it first. Last night.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “You had better tell me what I can fetch you for breakfast, then.”

“Toast and coffee,” she said. “Marmalade. Milk and sugar.”

“Wren.” He held her gaze. “Are you regretting any of this?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. How could she regret it? Yes, marriage was vastly different from what she had expected. It had challenged her in unimaginable ways—and they had only been wed for two days. But how she loved it. And how she loved him.

She would not ask him if he was regretting it. It would be a pointless question. If she regretted it, there was something he could do about it. He could take her home and leave her to the hermit’s life to which she was accustomed. If he regretted it, however, there was nothing she could do to make life better for him.

“We will stay in London, then, until the end of the session, will we?” he asked. “And then go home to Brambledean? And perhaps to Staffordshire?”

“You would come there with me?” she asked him.

“Of course,” he said. “I have no plans to be apart from my wife for longer than a few hours at a time. Besides, I may need to hold your hand when you meet your team of managers and designers and artisans for the first time without a veil.”

Ah, she had not thought of that. “Yes, we will remain here,” she said.

“But not literally here,” he said, and he climbed down from his branch to hers and the one below just as though he were descending stairs in the house. “Give me your hand. I promise not to let you fall.”

And she set her hand in his and knew somehow that he never would.

Twenty

Alexander discovered what he wanted to know early the following afternoon when he called in at White’s Club. Lord Hodges’s rooms were within easy walking distance, though it would have taken a very long horse indeed to span both places. Fortunately for him, he discovered when he rapped the knocker against the door, the man was at home. A servant conducted him upstairs and left him in a square, well-appointed room, tastefully decorated and furnished. Lord Hodges joined him there within five minutes.

And yes, Alexander decided, Netherby was almost certainly right, just as was his own impression from having seen the baron a few times before. He was surely only in his mid-twenties. He was tall and good looking, youthfully slender, with blond hair cut short. He looked at his visitor with polite curiosity as he greeted him and shook his hand.

“To what do I owe the honor?” he asked as he indicated a chair.

Alexander sat. “I believe,” he said, “you must be Colin Handrich rather than Justin?”

A brief frown creased Lord Hodges’s brow. “My brother died ten years ago,” he said. “Three years before my father.”

“You have three sisters,” Alexander said.

“Lady Elwood and Mrs. Murphy,” the young man said. “I had a third sister, but she died as a child about twenty years ago. I beg your pardon, Riverdale, but what is the purpose of these questions?”

“I am glad of one thing at least,” Alexander said. “You did not know. I must enlighten you: Your third sister is not dead. She is the Countess of Riverdale, my wife.”

Hodges stared blankly at him, laughed slightly, then frowned again. “You are mistaken,” he said.

“No,” Alexander said. “What do you remember of her?”

“Of Rowena?” Lord Hodges sat back in his chair. “She was sickly. She rarely came out of her room. She never came into the nursery or the schoolroom or downstairs with the rest of us. She had a great … strawberry swelling covering one side of her face and head. I think it must have killed her, though the swelling had started to go down and lose some of its color. My aunt took her away to a doctor who said he could cure her. But she died. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. You have married someone else. I read your wedding announcement a day or two ago. Please accept my congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Alexander said. “But you were given the wrong information. Your aunt took your sister to London and called upon a former employer of hers, a Mr. Heyden, hoping he could help her find employment. He married her instead and they adopted your sister and changed her name to Wren Heyden. They raised and educated her. Sadly they both died last year, within days of each other, leaving Wren alone and very wealthy.”

“The Heyden glassware heiress,” Hodges said softly, as though to himself. “That was how your wife was described in the announcement.”

“She has a home not far from Brambledean Court,” Alexander said. “I met her there earlier this year and married her three days ago.”

The young man stared at him. “You must be mistaken,” he said.

“No,” Alexander said.

Lord Hodges gripped the arms of his chair. “Does my mother know?” he asked.

“She may have drawn her own conclusions when she saw my wife across the theater two evenings ago,” Alexander said.

“My aunt kidnapped Rowena?” Lord Hodges asked.

“There were plans to send your sister to an insane asylum the following day,” Alexander told him. “I would use the word rescued rather than kidnapped. Besides, your mother saw them leave and did nothing to stop them.”