To her right, she saw her people—all the Hall’s household and the tenant farmers and their families—as well as their closest neighbors all smiling fit to burst; the men bowed their heads and the women bobbed curtsies, and she beamed upon them all.
As the harpsichordist labored and the music swelled, she looked ahead, down the aisle—to where Richard, resplendent in a perfectly cut blue coat, waited. Watching. Her smile deepened with love, and she stepped out, walking with all due sobriety to his side; inside, she felt like dancing with joy, but that wouldn’t do—not there, not yet.
The press of people to her left was comprised of Richard’s family—which had proved to be quite enormous—as well as several of his friends from London. His friends she’d met, but she’d yet to meet all his relatives.
Of those she had met… She hadn’t been sure how his noble family would react to the news that Lord Richard Devries had chosen to ally himself with a relative nonentity who lived buried in deepest Somerset. She’d anticipated some degree of disapproval, possibly even discouragement, although Richard had smiled and assured her it wouldn’t be so and that his entire family would welcome her with open arms.
He’d been right, but for reasons that, she suspected, were not quite as he’d imagined.
Nevertheless, as she walked forward to join him before the altar, she sensed the wave of sincere goodwill that rolled toward her from his side of the church.
She halted at the step before the altar, by Richard’s side.
The bishop smiled benevolently upon her, then commenced the service. The formal phrases rolled through the hushed chapel, sonorous and solemn. Both Richard and she responded to the age-old questions, stating “I do” in calm, clear voices, then the bishop turned and asked Hugh whether he gave her into Richard’s keeping.
After a snuffling huff, Hugh growled that he did.
Her smile one of burgeoning joy, she turned to Richard and formally bestowed her hand on him, placing her fingers across his offered palm.
The bishop beamed and continued.
Held by the love in Richard’s eyes, anchored by his touch, she listened as he spoke his vows, his deep voice laden with commitment, with love and pride and hope, and she spoke her complementary vows in a clear voice that rang through the chapel.
Richard’s heart swelled as his uncle pronounced them man and wife. Some of his friends at the rear of the chapel sent up a cheer—they knew of his long fight against falling victim to a marriage devoid of love, so in their eyes, this figured as his victory—then others among those on the other side of the church added their voices to the chorus.
The bishop—still smiling—looked out on his rowdy congregation, laughed, then nodded to Richard and Jacqueline. In an encouraging tone, His Grace suggested they make it official and that Richard really ought to kiss his bride.
He waited for no further invitation, but drew her into his arms. She raised her face and lifted her eyes to his. Love and more shone in their depths.
He bent his head, set his lips to hers, and felt a swell of joy rush at them from all around, a wave of emotion that surrounded him and her and held them, cradled and secure—as if Nimway Hall itself was bestowing its blessing.
Caught by a sense of fated rightness, Jacqueline kissed her husband, and he kissed her, and distantly, faint and low, at the very edge of awareness, she heard voices chanting. Not in song, not as angels might, but in the cool measured tones…of a spell?
When Richard raised his head, she opened her eyes and saw his were slightly widened; he’d heard that unearthly benediction, too.
Their gazes collided and locked, and acceptance flashed between them, then, simultaneously, they smiled, and joy suffused them.
Together, they turned and, smiling radiantly, stepped forward as man and wife to face their world.
Their well-wishers poured in from all sides, engulfing them. Congratulations were called, Richard’s hand was wrung, and Jacqueline’s cheek was kissed times beyond number.
Eventually, Richard’s mother, a lady none present would dare gainsay, aided by Hugh and Freddie, Elinor, Cruickshank, and Mrs. Patrick, succeeded in moving the crowd down the stairs to the great hall below.
Jacqueline had barely glimpsed the preparations—she’d been banished by general decree. Now, she discovered that the hall had been draped in summer flowers and green branches, a rose-draped, leafy bower forming an arch above where she and Richard were instructed to sit, behind a table raised on the rarely used dais set before the fireplace.
Then the wedding breakfast began.
Succulent roasted meats, fishes and fowls in aspic, vegetables of all descriptions prepared in myriad ways. Pastries, breads, pies with intricately woven lids and rich, gravy-filled interiors. Haunches of venison and several stuffed pigs. All were carried in on heaped platters and were promptly devoured. Later came cheeses, nuts, and fruits in compotes, tarts, and syllabubs, each course accompanied by wine and ale.
Those in charge of the Hall’s kitchen as well as the kitchens of the farms had, apparently, run amok.
Speeches and toasts punctuated the courses, and laughter echoed from the coffered ceiling.
Later, once the covers were drawn, Jacqueline moved around the room, thanking all those she knew must have contributed to the amazing feast. If she hadn’t known her people, she might have thought they’d put on the show to impress their highborn guests. Instead, she wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Patrick confided, “We don’t see this often—our guardian being wed. Once or twice in a lifetime, if we’re lucky. So we were all determined to make the most of it.” The housekeeper grinned. “And we did!”
Jacqueline laughed and turned to find Richard beside her. He’d heard, and smiling as widely as she was, he nodded his thanks to Mrs. Patrick. “You and all those who helped have done Nimway Hall proud.”
After parting from the delighted housekeeper, Jacqueline glanced up and met Richard’s eyes. “You’re very good at that—knowing just what to say.”
Pleased, he shrugged. And steered her on to a group of his friends, who, he informed her, she ought to thank for aiding him to escape the last violent attempt on his honor, thus allowing him to flee London and subsequently find his way there. “To Balesboro Wood and Nimway Hall and you.”
Their eyes met, love and a connection born of the partnership they’d already forged shining, then they looked ahead, and she said, “I do, indeed, owe your friends my heartfelt thanks.”
Smiling, she looped her arm in his and set off to speak with the friends in question.
She was now entirely at ease among his set—family, connections, friends, and all—thanks, in large part, to his mother.
A formidable lady of determined character, the Marchioness of Harwich had arrived within a week of Richard dispatching to his parents’ Essex home the news of his betrothal. Not having anticipated such a rapid response, Richard had ridden to Wells to speak with his uncle, and Jacqueline had been busy in the kitchen garden when she’d been summoned with the news that a grand carriage had come bowling up the drive. Consequently, she’d found herself meeting her prospective mother-in-law with her sleeves rolled up and, it had turned out, a smudge on her cheek.
Realizing at the last minute—as she’d walked into the great hall—who her unexpected visitor must be, she’d frozen, uncertain.
The marchioness had turned from studying the coat of arms above the mantelpiece, taken one long look at her, then arched a finely drawn brow. “Blood turnip?”
Jacqueline had blinked. “I was just pulling some, yes.” She’d frowned. “How did you know?”
The marchioness had pointed. “That smudge on your cheek. Not the right color for blood, really, and it’s the season, isn’t it? I pulled our first crop a few days before I left.”
Stunned, Jacqueline had stared. “You garden? Yourself?”
The marchioness had grinned. “Why, yes. It gets me out of the house and away from all those wanting me to make decisions.” Her hazel eyes, ve
ry like Richard’s, had twinkled. “I run away and hide amid the vegetables whenever my steward gets too pushy.”
That had been the start of a relationship the like of which Jacqueline had never imagined. She’d learned that, with Richard’s father so deeply mired in running the country and therefore often absent from home, his mother ran the family’s vast estates, much as Jacqueline ran the Hall. They’d bonded over that and over Richard.
After a day of observing Jacqueline and her son, as Jacqueline and the marchioness had strolled around the lake, the marchioness had confided, “The truth is, my dear, that while Richard enjoys the puzzle of understanding people and identifying what drives them—an innocent yet highly useful skill for any of our station, and one both I and my husband have encouraged and at which Richard quite excels—the one person he, time and again, fails woefully to correctly perceive, especially as to what drives him, is, of course, himself.”
The marchioness had met Jacqueline’s eyes, the comprehension of a mother very clear in hers. “He needs to be needed, you see. Not just in the simple sense, but for all he can give. You”—the marchioness had looked ahead and waved at the house, then toward the fields on the Levels below—“and all this, all that is Nimway Hall, have offered him that—a position that will take and use all he has to offer—and for that, my dear, you have my eternal gratitude.”
In similar vein, when Richard’s father had arrived, only the day before the wedding, he’d beamed delightedly at Jacqueline, patted her hand in avuncular fashion, and thanked her most sincerely for giving his second son the right sort of place to put down his roots.
Richard’s great-aunt Dulcimea—she who had recently declared him her heir—had been even more forthright, declaring to Jacqueline in the strident tones of one partially deaf that the entire family was simply thrilled that their wandering sheep had finally found a home with a loving wife who wasn’t averse to putting him to use.
Overhearing the comment, the marchioness had added that, indeed, Jacqueline should not be backward in requesting aid of the wider Devries family whenever required. “There have to be some benefits to my husband being forever at court.”
To the household’s and those on the wider estate’s abiding surprise, Richard’s family and friends had proved to be as easygoing and lacking in arrogance as he. His cousins had ridden out with Richard to help when Higgs had lost a fence, and when Richard had mentioned to his friends his idea of linking the lake to the stream via a series of ponds fitted with sluice gates, the group had declared that, before they departed, they would construct the system as a wedding gift, not just for Richard and Jacqueline but for Nimway Hall.
Everyone who had come for their wedding had been prepared to enjoy themselves and had.
Then the musicians in the gallery started playing, and the dancing began, raising the level of enjoyment yet another notch.
At one point, when Jacqueline had insisted she needed a moment to catch her breath, Richard found them glasses of punch, then steered her to where Crawley, Hopkins, and Ned Ostley were gathered in one corner of the hall.
The three men beamed and bobbed, then Ostley said, “I heard tell that Wallace closed up the Lydford house, and they say he’s fled the country.”
“That’s excellent news.” Richard smiled and raised his glass to the men. “So he won’t be hanging around like an evil spirit waiting to cast a shadow over the Hall’s future.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Crawley growled, and Hopkins nodded.
Jacqueline simply continued to smile.
But when they moved away from the trio, she paused by the wall, looked out at the crowd, then glanced at Richard, who had halted beside her. “You suspected Wallace would leave the country, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t push more decisively to be rid of him.”
He didn’t try to hide his satisfaction. “It occurred to me that with friends like Dashwood, getting rid of Wallace wouldn’t need further action from me. Having disappointed his mentor, had he remained, Wallace’s life—at least in his eyes—would have been worthless. On the Continent, as a gentleman not well known, he might, perhaps, start afresh.” He shrugged and met her eyes. “I didn’t need to do more.”
She studied his face, then smiled. “In personality, you seem more like your mother, but you do have some of your father’s traits.”
His lips twitched, but he humphed and steered her on.
Eventually, the sun slid down the western sky, and the fading light prompted the estate families and their neighbors to reluctantly take their leave.
They were followed soon after by the bulk of Richard’s relatives and friends. Some were putting up at nearby inns before journeying on; others, like his great-aunt Dulcimea, were traveling back to Wells with the bishop.
Only his parents and his two closest friends were remaining at Nimway Hall, and as Richard and Jacqueline walked out with those departing, those remaining few beat a considerate retreat, leaving the great hall to the ministrations of the staff. Elinor and Hugh, escorted by Freddie, had retired earlier, all three worn out by their efforts and the unaccustomed excitement.
That left Jacqueline and Richard, once they’d waved their guests away, to turn and, hand in hand, cross the threshold and walk into the welcoming shadows of Nimway Hall effectively alone.
With smiles and thank-yous to the staff busily setting the great hall to rights, Richard led Jacqueline to the stairs. Her hand in his, feeling the strange peace of the household, that from the very first, had touched him, enfold them again, he ascended the long flight beside her. When they stepped into the gallery, he paused, and when she faced him, brows rising in query, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the backs of her slender fingers. Holding her brilliantly shining blue-green gaze, he smiled. “I understand we have new quarters.”
Since their betrothal, they’d been sharing her chamber, but he’d heard whispers and had seen Hugh, Elinor, Cruickshank, and Mrs. Patrick conferring, then the maids scurrying hither and yon on the first floor.
Jacqueline’s smile—an expression of serene joy that hadn’t left her face all day—brightened. “Yes, indeed.” Her fingers curled about his, and she tugged. “It’s this way.”
She led him along a corridor into a wing down which he hadn’t previously ventured. She halted before the door at its end. “This has always been the chamber of the guardian and her husband, at least in our memory.” She released his hand, opened the door, and walked inside.
Richard followed. He looked around, then closed the door and walked forward to join her where she’d paused a few paces inside the door. The chamber spread to either side, spanning the width of the wing. To his right stood a massive four-poster bed hung with heavy brocade curtains presently looped back to display a thick featherbed covered with silk sheets beneath a silk-brocade counterpane. A small mountain of lace-trimmed pillows was temptingly piled at the head of the bed.
Armoires in dark wood and clothes chests were set against the walls, along with Jacqueline’s dressing table, with the orb placed as Richard had last seen it, to one side of the central mirror. For a wonder, the orb hadn’t been taken downstairs for the day but had, as far as he knew, remained on this level; presumably the maids had brought it there when the footmen had carried Jacqueline’s dressing table in.
He glanced to his left, to where two armchairs, each with its own footstool, were angled before the hearth, with cushions in the same brocade as on the bed; the arrangement suggested gentle moments of relaxing exchanges, personal moments of sharing.
Jacqueline had drifted across the room. Richard raised his gaze. The chamber filled the end of the wing, and wide windows were set in all three outer walls. The window to his right looked out over the side lawn to the arm of Balesboro Wood that protected the house to the east. The window directly ahead looked toward the lake, while the window to the left framed a vista to the west, encompassing a wide view of the edge of the escarpment and the fields and farms stretching away on the Levels bel
ow. On the horizon to the northwest stood the singular outline of Glastonbury Tor.
It was to that third window that Jacqueline had gone, drawn, no doubt, to the view of her lands. He was still coming to grips with the ineffable connection she, as guardian, felt toward both lands and people, to the Hall itself, and the wood as well, and the purpose that connection bestowed was something he had already come to value.
He halted behind her and looked over her head at the lands he would help her protect. He reached forward, slid his hands about her waist, and drew her back against him. She relaxed into his hold. He bent his head and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. His voice low, he said, “My mother told me that this is my place—to stand here, beside and behind you as the husband of the guardian of Nimway Hall. I gather you explained your position to her.”
Jacqueline gave a ladylike snort. “I didn’t have to explain anything—she saw, listened, and learned. Your mother is an exceedingly astute lady.”
He grinned. “True.” He sobered. “But she was right. I feel it. To my bones, I know that this is where I was always destined to be. Marriage to any other was never in my cards. I had to find my way to your side to find my future.” He pressed another kiss to her curls. “Because you embody that future, and you always will.”
Jacqueline reached up with one hand and stroked his cheek. “Sweet words, husband.”
“For you, always, my one and only wife.”
She sighed, giving sound to the happiness that filled her soul. She turned in his hold and looked into his face, a face she’d already grown used to seeing every night and every morning and for a good part of every day. She met his gaze, then allowed a smile that held all her love to light her face. “There are no fine words I can give you in return, for there simply are no words sufficient to the task of encompassing all I feel for you. All that I see and value in you. I know you will be my and Nimway Hall’s defender for the rest of your days.”
His lips curved, his hazel eyes shining, affirming that truth. “I love you beyond life itself. You who have given me the life I need to live.” His eyes held hers, his voice deepening as he said, “If you weren’t in my life, I would be running still, evading the snares.” His lips twisted wryly. “If Balesboro Wood hadn’t rendered me lost—as the power inhabiting it definitely did—I wouldn’t have found my way to your side. To life and love and a future filled with promise.” He arched his brows. “I have to admit I don’t know what to make of that. Bale means an evil force, yet for me and, I hope, for you and Nimway Hall, my getting lost in Balesboro Wood has brought nothing but good.”