Page 35 of The Secret Word
“Oh.” Clem showed she understood Chris’s reservations when she said, “He has done a great deal for you, Chris. Are you worried about what he might expect in return?”
“He has been very kind to me, Clem. And he is not a philanthropist.”
“He is not a monster, either,” Clem replied. “He is a hard man, darling, I know that. But he looks after his people, does he not? Feeds them well? Educates them? Does not allow anyone to hurt them? That is what you told me. It is a house, and he rents houses. Does it need to be more than that?”
All of that was true, but… “I owe him a favor. That’s what he said, when he let us into Fortune’s Fool to save you from the Brown brothers. He has told me a couple of times since then that the favor has been getting bigger.”
“This won’t be a favor, though,” Clem insisted. “The house is empty, I take it.”
At Chris’s nod, she said, “Take me to see it, Chris. As far as Mr. O’Hara goes, we shall pay our rent and look after the house. We shall be good tenants. No one is doing anyone a favor.”
Chris was by no means convinced, but only three days remained until the wedding, and he had seen nothing else that would do.
After he had taken her through the house, no choice remained. She loved it.
“I’ll sign the lease,” he agreed. “It has a bed, which I think must have been made in the room, for it would need to bechopped into pieces to go through the door. The same with the dining room table. Can we manage until after we are married?”
“We shall need beds for the servants, and cupboards for their belongings. In fact, we shall need servants! A cook, a scullery maid, a housemaid and a footman to start with, I think. Will you take me to an employment office tomorrow, Chris? I shall manage that side of it, if you can buy the furniture for their rooms. Also, a kitchen table. We shall manage with that much, I think, though we might be going out to shop the day after our wedding!”
Not the day after. Chris had borrowed a little hunting lodge from his cousin Harry Satterthwaite. It was only an hour from the outskirts of London heading south, and the kind of hunting it was used for, Chris gathered, might also go under the heading “adult games”—but Harry assured him it was an ideal spot for a new husband and wife to spend their first few days. The servants were discreet, and did not live in. The cook was excellent. The countryside was beautiful.
“We shall be going away for a few days after our wedding,” Chris told his bride. “Would you prefer to spend our first night in our new home?”
“Perfect,” said Clem. “Then we can decide on anything urgent and have it done while we are away.”
Chris had to admit that he hoped she would have other things on her mind than housekeeping and home decoration on the morning after their wedding. They would see.
Chapter Fourteen
It is themorning of my wedding. Clem stayed still under the blankets for a few moments longer, as her mind tried to grasp that enormous thought. Though she had pretended to Chris and to everyone else that she expected her wedding to go ahead, she had been certain Father would ruin it all, and announce he wanted her to marry someone else. Or that Chris would grow tired of dealing with Father and jilt her. Or that some other disaster would come between her and everything she wanted.
Yes. Things could still go wrong. But hope, only a tender flickering flame a few short weeks ago, was a raging fire, and would not be extinguished. Even the most alarming scenarios had no power to distress her, precisely because they were so alarming she could not believe in them.
A knock on the door heralded Martha, the maid, with a mug of hot chocolate and a beaming smile. They had had a serious talk, Clem and her maid. Martha would be moving with her to Primrose Square, having promised she would obey the person who paid her wages—Clem herself—and would not be bribed, threatened, or cajoled by anyone else.
“Oh, Miss Wright,” said Martha. “Tonight, I will be addressing you as Mrs. Satterthwaite! I have the men coming in a few minutes with your bath water, Miss. We shall have to hurry. Lady Fernvale is going to be here with the dressmaker injust forty-five minutes. I am so excited about seeing you in your gown, Miss Wright! It is going to be so beautiful.”
Clem sipped her chocolate in her sitting room while the footmen marched into and out of her bedchamber with buckets of water until the hip bath was full. Once they were all gone, Martha helped Clem to disrobe and sink into the hot, scented water.
Bliss!
The wedding was at nine o’clock, since that was the only time available. Weddings had to be performed in the morning, before noon, and St George’s had seven other weddings today.
That still gave Clem two and a bit more hours to prepare, but with Chris’s godmother and the modiste due to arrive shortly, she could not linger in the bath. Besides, much as she tried to relax, her nerves were leaping. She was to be married today! It was really happening!
She had not quite finished washing when a knock on the door to her suite heralded the expected guests. Martha went through to let them into the sitting room while Clem began rinsing herself off.
“It is Lady Fernvale, the dressmaker and her assistant, and your toast, Miss Wright,” Martha reported. “I have ordered tea for my lady, and told them you will be out shortly.”
Dried and dressed in her chemise and a robe, Clem sat in her sitting room nibbling toast while the dressmaker, whose seamstresses must have worked day and night, showed her the gown.
She had been fitted into pieces of the gown, and on her last fitting, they had tried it on inside out, to ensure that the fit was perfect. She had not, therefore, seen the full thing. It was stunning.
Mindful of her soon-to-be husband’s pocket, at least until they found out whether Father would keep his promises, she hadchosen a color and style that could be worn for church services and special day-time occasions for the remainder of the Season. Indeed, the gown was of a classic cut and design that she could possibly wear for best for years to come.
Designed to suit her curves and her coloring, it was made from blue silk the color of her eyes—Chris had described them as the blue of the sky near the horizon on a bright summer day, and had declared that shade to be his new favorite color. The fabric was woven with a self-stripe in the same color, which shimmered into and out of view as the gown moved. The waist was high and the skirt cut so that the fabric clung to her waist and then curved out in a bell to skim her hips and swirl around her ankles, where a narrow ruffle in the same blue silk trimmed the hem without making Clem look shorter.
Her bodice and sleeves were the same silk, closely embroidered with flowers and embellished with crystal beads that sparkled in the light—impossible, Clem would have thought, in the time available, but the dressmaker had had a few yards of the fabric already-embroidered.
