Barely a Bride

  * * *

  A similar conversation was taking place at the Weymouth town house on Park Lane as Lord Weymouth broke the unhappy news to his wife.

  “Have you seen her, Trevor? Have you spoken to her?” Lady Weymouth asked.

  “No, my dear, I’m afraid I have not,” Lord Weymouth answered.

  “Then how did you discover that she isn’t—”

  “Breeding?” Lord Weymouth said the word they had both been avoiding.

  “Yes.”

  “I read the letter she posted to Griffin,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  “You what?” Lady Weymouth was shocked. “You read her private correspondence?”

  “Of course I did, my darling Cicely,” he cajoled. “I read everything that goes into the military dispatches. It’s one of the responsibilities of my position. We are at war, my dear.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Cicely snapped. “I realize we’re at war. My son is on the Peninsula fighting it. But you know as well as I that Alyssa’s letters hardly fall into the realm of military secrets.”

  “That doesn’t mean they can’t bring harm to our son,” he told her.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I may have forced him into marriage, but Griffin chose the young lady.” Weymouth faced his wife. “You saw the way he looked at her, Cicely. Whether the boy knows it or not, he’s beginning to care for her. Perhaps, even love her…” He paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “What if she doesn’t return his feelings? What if she decides, now that she’s had a taste of it, that she doesn’t like being married or having the responsibility of the manor? Or worse yet, what if she decides, now that she’s no longer a virgin, that she doesn’t like sleeping alone?”

  “Trevor!”

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Lady Weymouth stared at her husband as if he’d just announced he was preparing for his coronation as king. “Trevor Abernathy, did you not pay any attention to what was going on around you?”

  “Of course I did,” he replied. “I saw the way Griffin treated the girl, the way he looked at her, touched her.”

  “Well, you should have paid more attention to the way Alyssa was looking at Griffin.” She sighed. “She refused a duke, for heaven’s sake! For our son.”

  “That fool father of hers refused the duke.”

  “And Alyssa refused him as well—at the wedding breakfast.” She reached across the arm of her chair and took hold of her husband’s big hand. “Trust me, that girl loves our son.”

  “I should hope so,” he grumbled.

  “Have you heard anything different? Anything that might lead you to believe she doesn’t?”

  Weymouth shook his head. “I did get the news that she’s locked herself in her room and is refusing to eat. Keswick sent a message to Shepherdston, and Shepherdston sent a message to me. Said she’d locked herself in her room after writing that letter to Griffin and that she hadn’t come out yet.”

  “Good gracious! Have they checked on her? Is she all right?”

  He nodded. “She appears to be fine, except that she weeps quite a bit. The staff were quite alarmed by it, especially since she’s been so happy rearranging the manor.”

  Lady Weymouth wanted to smack her husband for being so obtuse at times. “She’s grieving.”

  “What?”

  “She’s grieving. For Griffin and for the loss of a child.”

  “She wasn’t with child.”

  “She might have been! And that’s what matters. Goodness, Trevor, have you forgotten how heartbreaking it was for me each time we lost a child? Each time my monthly courses came to dash our hopes? After we’d believed it was possible? Don’t you realize that after all these years, I still cry each time I’m proven barren and old?”

  “No, my dear.” Weymouth dropped to his knees and took his wife in his strong embrace. “I haven’t forgotten. I apologize for upsetting you so.” He kissed her cheek and then her lips.

  “You should apologize to Alyssa,” she scolded him. “That girl is grieving for the loss of her hopes and dreams. She is grieving because she knows that she may have lost the only chance she had to give our son a child. She loves him, Trevor. Didn’t you see how she wore her heart upon her sleeve?”

  “I thought so,” Lord Weymouth said. “But I had to be certain. She is, after all, the daughter of a man who traded her to Griff for the loan of a stallion and the possibility of a litter of puppies. I forced the boy into marrying. I had to make certain his bride was all she seemed to be.” He met his wife’s unerring gaze. “How was I to know she wouldn’t be as shallow?”

  “How indeed?” Cicely’s blue eyes blazed fire. “Because Griffin chose her, and there isn’t a shallow bone in his body. Besides,” she added, “by forcing the situation, you, in effect, traded our son to the Tressinghams for the possibility of a grandchild.”

  “Yes, well, the Tressinghams didn’t want Griffin. He wanted a litter of foxhound pups and his wife wanted the Duke of Sussex.” He managed a smile. “You know, my dear, I was quite pleased with Griffin’s choice—despite her father being a complete bore and her mother being a social climber. And I was vastly encouraged when I learned that her second sister has an infant son and that her eldest and the third are increasing.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “Who would have thought that our little Alyssa wouldn’t follow suit?”

  Lady Weymouth smiled a mysterious sort of mother’s smile. “Perhaps we should have. After all, she is unique among her family members.”

  “I am greatly disturbed by what I read in her letter,” Lord Weymouth said. “She blames herself. She thinks she’s at fault.”

  “She would.” Lady Weymouth clucked her tongue in sympathy. “I did the same.”

  Cicely’s words shocked her husband.

  “You?”

  She nodded.

  “But why, my love? Everyone knows the Abernathys are notoriously unreliable breeders.”

  Cicely shook her head. “What everyone else thinks doesn’t matter. I believed I was at fault. Alyssa believes she is at fault.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because in our eyes, the men we love have no faults.”

  That simple statement brought Lord Weymouth to his knees once more. “How shall we go about helping the girl?” he asked.

  “She’ll be all right,” Lady Weymouth said. “In time. But she mustn’t dwell on it. She must find some sort of diversion.”

  “The manor was her diversion, and the staff says she’s shown no interest in it at all.”

  “Then we must arrange something else.” Lady Weymouth tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair as she pondered a solution.

  “We could invite her here,” Lord Weymouth suggested. Lady Weymouth shook her head. “Not yet. We’re Griffin’s parents. She doesn’t need to feel she’s disappointed us as well. She needs someone young. Someone vivacious. Someone as independent and free-spirited as she is. She needs…” She looked at her husband as they spoke in unison. “Miranda.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Lord Wellington reviewed us on the 19th. We looked well. Today the entire regiment moved up about two leagues to the front. We marched at daylight, passing the Coã at the bridge of Almeida in order to join Crawford. The banks are rugged and inaccessible. Everything is parched and brown. I long for the news of home and for Alyssa. Her letters have been a godsend. They are my lifeline.”

  —Griffin, Lord Abernathy, journal entry, 04 July 1810