Page 68 of The Lady Who Said No to the Duke
Two representatives of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, jewellers to the royal family, arrived with caskets of family gems and three hefty bodyguards, in order to ensure that everything that Thea might wish to wear was of the correct size and in perfect condition.
‘The coronet,’ Mr Worthington declared, opening a velvet box to reveal the silver gilt coronet with its eight strawberry leaves, signifying a duke.Papa’s earl’s coronet had eight too, but they were small and were separated by silver balls.‘I thought you might wish to examine it, my lady, although of course you will not need it until the next State Opening of Parliament.Or in the event of a coronation.’
‘Quite,’ Thea said faintly as it was placed on her head and declared a perfect fit.
Like Cinderella’s slipper, she thought rather wildly.But her prince had not fallen wildly in love with her after dancing with her at a ball.
She looked at herself in the glass and shivered.Who was that woman with the pale face and the wide eyes and the hair that clashed nastily with the red velvet inner cap of the coronet?
‘Yes, it is rather heavy, I fear,’ Mr Worthington said, lifting it off and placing it reverently back in its box.‘Now the rings.’
Then there were the appointments with themodistesfor what Thea privately considered a ridiculous number of gowns, considering that they would be spending the rest of the year at the castle, returning to London in the Spring for the opening of the Parliamentary session, the first opportunity for her to wear the coronet.
The wedding dress was Mama’s prime consideration and, for some reason, she was determined on palest pink.Thea, emerging from a shopping-induced daze, put her foot down.‘Cream,’ she insisted.‘And green.’
Mercifully, Madam Lanchester agreed with her and, as she was the most exclusivemodistein town, Mama was forced to yield.
Thea’s married friends, taking pity on her, persuaded her mother that she must rest and spent two days with Thea shopping for lingerie and shoes.
Embarrassed, but determined to be the perfect bride for Hal, Thea was persuaded into deliciously fine Indian muslin underwear, corsets that did amazing things for her bosom, ridiculous little slippers with lace or feathers and nightgowns and peignoirs that had her blushing.
‘I can’t wear that,’ she protested in one shop off St James’s Street.‘It is transparent.’
‘No, it only looks as though it might be.’Lavinia Royce, Lady Finedon, held up nightgown and peignoir together.‘See?I have a set just like this, only in pale blue.Geoffrey went wild when he saw it,’ she added in a whisper.
The other three nodded.‘The Duke will be utterly enslaved,’ Georgia Jameson assured her.
Thea bought it.And everything else her friends recommended.She could only hope it would not look to Hal as though she was trying too hard.
It was very strange, she thought, letting the silk gauzesift through her fingers.After years of being schooled in very proper behaviour and in only allowing the mildest flirtations, now she found herself expected to enslave a man in the bedchamber.How on earth did she do that?Would Hal look at her and see the skinny Twig he had first known, all dressed up in some ridiculous charade?
Or would those grey eyes look at her with that exciting, frightening heat in them?Might he possibly desire her, not just in the heat of a ballroom with Champagne drunk and flirtation in the air, but when they were alone?Might he desire her…for ever?
Chapter Twenty-One
Finally the waiting was over and, on the twelfth of the month, the cavalcade of carriages set out from Chesterfield Street.Thea travelled with Mama and Papa, and the carriage following held Papa’s valet, Symington, as well as Jennie and Maunday, both fiercely protective of dressing cases and jewellery boxes.
Then there were the staff returning to Hal’s household and finally the two loaded coaches with Thea’s trousseau and Mama’s gowns and accessories.
It might have been November, but the sun shone and the sky was blue, belying the crisp bite of the air.Thea told herself that it was a good omen, to go to her future home, to her husband, in sunshine.
She had a new velvet travelling cloak, a sumptuous new muff and a ridiculously flattering bonnet in green velvet to match the cloak.At least she looked the part, she decided, as the carriage rattled over London Bridge, the first landmark on their route into Kent.
The bridge was jammed, of course, as it always was, being the only crossing for travellers going into Kent and, as they were heading for Canterbury, it just had to be endured.Then they were clear and driving through Southwark, taking the route that Chaucer’s pilgrims had, hundreds of yearsbefore.Thea told herself to take an interest in the passing scene, all new as she had never travelled this way before, and then she would arrive at the castle relaxed and calm.
* * *
That tactic worked until Canterbury when John the coachman turned off the Dover road and headed south-west through green fields, high hedges and coppices brown and leafless against the still-blue sky.
Then they were driving alongside a high wall that seemed to stretch for miles and Papa said, satisfaction in his voice, ‘We are almost there.’
Thea told herself to breathe, to stay calm.She was not going to be sick, she told her rebellious stomach firmly.
Look how lovely the park is.Look at the deer.Look at the trees and the lake.Breathe.
‘That must be the old castle,’ Papa said, and she craned to look, saw a fleeting glimpse of a mound with jagged teeth of ruined walls atop it.
Then the road curved and Thea caught her breath.The castle had been built in Tudor times, but every duke since then had added to it, played with the plan, added and subtracted.All had chosen the glorious pale Caen stone that Canterbury Cathedral’s builders had used, and somehow that unified the whole.
