Page 100 of Lady Daring
“Yes,” he said simply.
She sniffled. “All right, then.”
“Truly?” His voice caught.
She nodded, letting the tears well. “Yes. I will love you always. For our whole lives.” She laughed at the look of relief, astonishment, and lingering doubt in his eyes. “Forever,” she said firmly. “I will prove it.”
He rose and gave her a resounding kiss, one that made the rest of the room swirl away. She surfaced to a circle of applause.
Darien bowed and moved them smoothly back into the dance, bringing his emotions under control. “Now,” he said, and she felt the low scratch of his voice in her chest, “do you still believe that foolishness of Miss Wollstonecraft’s that men and women should not base their marriage on passion?”
Henrietta felt she moved over clouds. She belonged here with this man, beside him, in his arms. He was the thing she’d been missing.
“Pooh,” she said. “Let Miss Wollstonecraft set the terms for her own marriage, and we shall set the terms for ours. I want love, and passion, and respect, and amiability. And your engineering services. And conversation. And art, and travel, and?—”
“And fidelity,” he said. “And a house full of children. And a wife who will always remain her sensible self, and pull her own weight, rather than depending on me for everything, including her pin money.”
“Oh, I see,” she said with a grin. “Using my own philosophy against me.”
He gave her a look of amusement, delight, and, yes, love. He was not a man given to declarations, and yet he had made one for her, beautifully. He would demonstrate his devotion to her daily, in ways large and small. In the steady hand at her back shielding her against the disparagement of others. In thesacrifices to make her happy, like acknowledging a bastard child, taking in her wards and his, allowing his wife to run her mills and poke about his building projects and traipse their lands in muddy boots, baby on her hip. That was how he would show his love.
“Miss Wardley-Hines.” Forsythia Pennyroyal approached later as Henrietta stood with Lady Bess at the side of the room. “May I offer felicitations on your upcoming marriage.”
“Thank you,” said Henrietta. “I hope you and your family are well?”
“Yes, thank you.” She avoided looking at Darien, whose face had gone carefully blank. “Lady Bessington says if I wish to join the Minerva Society, I require the sponsorship of a votary.”
Henrietta’s stomach tightened. Foolish to despair of the one thing she did not have when she had been given so much, and forgiven much. “I am sure someone will be willing to stand your sponsor, Miss Pennyroyal. The votaries are the most elect, most elite of the Society, the women who have done the most to enhance its mission and dignify its name. They?—”
“I will put your name forward at the next conclave,” Lady Bess said, “and your aunt will second. I expect the vote will be unanimous, Hetty, dear.”
“Oh, Bess,” Henrietta whispered, putting her hands to her mouth.
“Ha!” Bess crowed. “Daring proposes to you in a ballroom, butIwring tears when I tell you that you will be a Daughter of Minerva. Do you know, another young girl asked me how to join the Society after she saw you at your debate. A Miss Spickey, I believe.”
“Constance?” Henrietta grinned. “But that is wonderful! She truly needs us.”
Lady Bess turned to Darien with a smile. “She will make it fashionable for young women to join the Minerva Society. And I suspect she will set the fashion in other ways as well.”
“I am beginning to think,” Darien said, “that the benefits of this union accrue mostly to me.” She leaned in for his kiss.
“Get you a special license already!” Aunt Davinia barked, pounding her cane on the floor. “Happens I know the Archbishop of Canterbury. Could get you one in a trice.”
Lord Darien Balesand Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines did not, after all, marry by special license. In fact, considering the scandalous reputation of both parties, the broadsides found little to lampoon about their rather conventional wedding. The banns were published for the required three weeks in the parish of Marylebone, and they wed, of all places, in the chapel of the parish workhouse which, though new, was not particularly grand.
Henrietta, who had eyes only for her groom, was informed later that the ceremony was crowded with titled families, high-ranking cabinet members, the widow and orphans of a famous war hero, and the celebrated Mr. Ouladah Equiano and his bride. Prime Minister Pitt declined his invitation with regrets. His presence was not missed.
The wedding breakfast, which seated three hundred, was held at Hines House and presided over by Davinia Wardley, common-law wife to the late Duke of Cumberland. The gossip columns reported that a prodigious amount of champagne was consumed. They reported also that the bride insisted the vibrant blue-violet color of her gown was made to match the color of the bridegroom’s eyes. Yet the lady reporter who penned the columncould confirm that Lord Darien’s eyes were in fact the striking shade of lapis lazuli, like an illuminated manuscript of medieval times.
Comments were stirred by the cut and style of the bride’s gown, draped like a classical chiton. Sliver sandals laced over her feet, Roman-style, and the high sash added a military flair. A silver leaf woven into her unpowdered coiffure gave, from the back and side, the look of a helmet. The reporter had it on good authority that the costume was a tribute to Minerva, and the same matching silver leaf could be seen in the hair of an entire table of dignified female guests. One of them, the writer noted, was an elegant, soft-spoken schoolmistress who had come from Bath and went by the name of Miss Gregoire, and who spent some time in private conversation with the groom’s ward, Miss Horatia Bales.
The bride’s stepmother made no attempt to hide her enceinte shape and, it was said by some, rather looked as if she were flaunting it. The bride’s father wore the cross of his order pinned to his coat, but this ornament was no more conspicuous than any of the other insignia decorating the varied guests.
After an endless round of toasts initiated by the Marquess of Langford, who was garrulous and clearly overproud of a son who really had not done much to recommend him, the gossip columns reported that the wedded couple departed to the bride’s estate with the unromantic intention of installing a new drainage system for her fields. Firm promises were made about returning for the wedding of the bride’s cousin to the groom’s cousin, and the mother of the next bride was heard to say, in an aside to a friend, that Miss Pomeroy’s ceremony should be done with a little more style and, Lady Pomeroy hoped, at least as many important guests.
At the close of Parliament a few weeks later, the new Lady Darien Bales found herself sitting in the spectator’s gallery ofthe chamber of the King’s Bench, screened from the rest of Westminster’s great hall while the court resolved a short but sad suit. Mr. Rathbone Bales and his wife, Perdita, were absent, but Miss Horatia Bales clung quietly to Henrietta’s hand.
Lord Darien, heir presumptive, sat at a table as witness. The end of it was that Lord Lucien Bales was declared dead in absentia and Lord Darien Bales recognized as heir apparent to the Marquess of Langford and legal guardian to his niece, though he declined the courtesy title Earl of Aldthorpe. The matter entered into the Official Rolls, the suit concluded and the family exited, the new heir somber about his elevation and his lady clutching her handkerchief.
