We will come in a body together and tell you all about it, and you will discover that we Huxtables do not take no for an answer when we have set our minds on something.' She got to her feet, and that was the end of it. Two minutes later, she and Duncan were out on the street, where a light drizzle was falling. 'Well,' he said, 'that was remarkable.' He could not for the moment think of any other words to describe the visit. He would be almost willing to swear that his grandfather actually /liked/ Maggie Huxtable, though it was doubtful anyone had spoken to him as bluntly as she had for years. 'I like him,' she said, proving that the feeling had been mutual. 'He loves you, Lord Sheringford.' He almost laughed. That might have been true when he was a boy, though his grandfather had never given much indication of it beyond those endless shillings. But now? He very much doubted it. He struggled with his umbrella and hoisted it over her head and his own. 'He has a strange way of showing it,' he said. 'Not at all,' she said. 'He has been hurt and angry and puzzled for five years. He must have been dreadfully disappointed in you since you did not offer him any explanation of your behavior. But instead of cutting you off, as he surely would have done if he had truly not loved you, he waited until it was possible for you to fight back, in the hope that you would do just that, that you would give him a good enough reason to continue to love you. Which you have done.' 'By finding you,' he said, 'and persuading you to marry me.' 'He is a little afraid,' she said, 'that I may be too old to present him with a great-grandson before his death, which is, of course, absurd. But yes, he is happy that you are to marry and return home. He will come to our wedding.' 'Hell might freeze over too,' he said.
They were almost out of the square. The drizzle was already turning into a steady rain, which was drumming on the umbrella. But instead of hurrying onward, Duncan stopped walking abruptly. 'He /adored/ my grandmother,' he said.
She turned her head to look at him. How foolish she had been, choosing to wear pale blue on such a day, and a straw bonnet, when she had known they would be walking. Was she an eternal optimist? And was he up to the challenge?
He bent his head and kissed her on the lips – and her own pressed firmly back against them and clung for a totally indecorous stretch of time.
He felt slightly dizzy when he thought of the changes six days had wrought in his life.
16
MARGARET had ten days in which to prepare for her wedding and for married life. Ten days in which to have second and third and thirty-third thoughts about the wisdom of her decision to marry a stranger – who had lived with a married lady for almost five years and had had a son with her. Ten days to shop for bride clothes – sometimes with her sisters, sometimes with Lady Carling, sometimes with all three. Ten days in which to draw up a guest list and send out invitations and wait for replies and try to resist the temptation to insist upon involving herself with the planning of the wedding breakfast. That last point was one of the hardest.
She would have been content to keep the guest list short, to have no one at her wedding, in fact, except her family and Sir Graham and Lady Carling and the Marquess of Claverbrook.
Her sisters had other ideas. Of course.
So did Lady Carling. Of course. 'You must invite everyone with whom you and Lord Sheringford have even a passing acquaintance,' Vanessa told her. 'I do agree, Meg,' Katherine said. 'It is what we decided to do for /my/ wedding, you will recall, and while it was something of an ordeal at the time, I have been so very glad since. A big wedding provides wonderful memories.' 'But no one will /come/,' Margaret protested.
Her sisters looked at each other and laughed. 'Meg!' Katherine exclaimed. '/Everyone/ will come. How could they possibly resist? It will be the wedding of the Season.' 'With only nine days' notice?' Margaret asked doubtfully. 'Even if it was tomorrow,' Vanessa said. 'Of course everyone will come, you silly goose.' It was an opinion with which Lady Carling concurred when she called at Merton House the same day. 'And even if we were to invite only family,' she said, 'the numbers would be quite vast, Margaret. There are your brother and sisters and Mr. Constantine Huxtable. And there are Agatha, my sister, and Wilfred, and all my nieces – there are six of them, did you know? All of them are married. And on his father's side Duncan has four uncles and their wives and two aunts and their husbands. Not that they are actually uncles and aunts, since they were my late husband's cousins, but that is what Duncan always called them. And /they/ have so many children all told that I lost count years ago. There are even grandchildren who are old enough to attend a wedding without any fear that they will dash about whooping and getting under everyone's feet. If you give me paper and pen and ink, I will write down the names and addresses of all I can remember. Most of them are in London and will certainly expect invitations. Duncan was always very close to his cousins and second cousins as a boy. Except Norman, that is. He was a dear enough boy, but he was always very good and very ready to disapprove of any brothers and cousins who were /not/ good. That did not endear him to any of them, as you may imagine. And I suppose we cannot invite him to the wedding anyway, can we? Not when he is married to poor Caroline.' Margaret capitulated and invited the whole world – or so it seemed.
Certainly her hand was severely cramped by the time she had finished writing all the cards.
The whole world replied within two days, and at least nine tenths of it was coming to the wedding at St. George's on Hanover Square and to the breakfast at Merton House.
The Marquess of Claverbrook was coming too. Margaret had carried through on her promise to visit him again with Stephen and her sisters, and none of them gave him any chance to say no. Of course, he did save face by declaring that he would attend only to see with his own eyes that his rogue of a grandson really did put in an appearance at his own wedding this time.
The days passed in a blur of activity. Before Margaret knew it, her wedding day had dawned and it really was too late to change her mind even if she wanted to.
She did not.
Crispin caused her more than one restless night, it was true, but she knew that she would never marry him even if she were free to do so.
There were too many things about him that disturbed her, and the leftover dregs of an old attachment were simply not enough.
He was coming to the wedding, though she suspected it was only because Sir Humphrey and Lady Dew were still in London and he did not wish to arouse their curiosity by staying away. Lady Dew was delighted by the approaching nuptials, though she did admit to a little disappointment that her small attempt at matchmaking between Margaret and Crispin had been unsuccessful. She had finally heard of the scandal concerning Lord Sheringford, but she gave it as her opinion that if a lady was foolhardy enough to leave her husband in order to run off with another man, then she must have had a very good reason to do so. For her part, she would not hold it against the earl, especially as he now had the good sense to ally himself to Margaret.
Margaret stood barefoot at the window of her bedchamber early on the morning of her wedding, gazing up at a sky that was deep blue and cloudless – a rarity so far this summer. She was not particularly enjoying the sight, though. She was fighting panic by telling herself that it was surely what every bride faced on her wedding day.
She did not turn to look at the rumpled bed behind her. The linens would be changed after she had left for her wedding. Tonight it was to be her wedding bed. They were to leave in the morning for Warwickshire, she and Lord Sheringford, but tonight Stephen had insisted they stay at Merton House while he went to Vanessa and Elliott's.
Margaret set her forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes.
How strange it would be to be married!
And how she ached for it. And for tonight. Was that a shameful, unladylike admission? But she did not really care. She had waited long enough for this. /Too/ long. Her youth was already gone. And since it /was/ gone, and with it all her youthful dreams of romance, then it was as well to turn her mind to the future with a positive wish for it to come as soon as possible.
Today and tonight she would be a bride – and she was going to enjoy every moment. Tomorrow and for the rest of her life she would be a wife. She was going to enjoy that too. It was what she had always wanted, after all, and what she had decided over the winter that she would /be/. It really did not matter that her bridegroom was neither Crispin, whom she had loved, nor the Marquess of Allingham, with whom she had enjoyed a
