Simply Love

stood waiting to open it.

“Grandmama? Freyja?” Joshua said, offering an arm to each of them. “We will lead the way in. Sydnam, you may bring Anne in after us.”

Anne turned her head to exchange a smile of amusement with Sydnam. She could hear the children coming along the hallway behind them.

The door opened.

For the first bewildered moment Anne felt embarrassed for Lady Potford. Obviously something must have gone terribly wrong with her plans-a mistaken day, perhaps. The tearoom, large and high-ceilinged and lovely, was actually filled with people. And they were all getting to their feet and looking toward the door and-

And then she and Sydnam were being rained upon by-by rose petals of all things in November.

And then there was noise to replace the unnatural quiet that had preceded it-voices and laughter and the scraping of chairs on the polished wood floor.

And finally, only moments after the doors had opened, she realized that wherever she looked the faces of the people were familiar.

“What the devil?” Sydnam said, clamping her hand harder to his side. And then he began to laugh.

“Sitting ducks,” Lord Alleyne Bedwyn said from close beside him. “You will be sorry you wore black, Syd.”

“But the petals look good in Anne’s hair,” the Earl of Rosthorn said.

“Oh,” Anne said. “Oh.”

She had spotted her mother and father across the room, her father looking austere and pleased with himself, her mother beaming but holding a handkerchief close to her face too. Sarah and Susan were on one side of them, Matthew and Henry on the other.

And then she saw Frances and the Earl of Edgecombe, and then Miss Thompson-and beside her the Duchess of Bewcastle and Lady Alleyne, and then Sydnam’s parents with Kit and Lauren, and then Susanna and Claudia and Lord Aidan Bedwyn with the Duke of Bewcastle.

But it was all a flashing impression. There was too much to see and too much to comprehend all at once. There were numerous other people present.

The Duchess of Bewcastle clapped her hands, and a silence of sorts descended on the gathering. Anne and Sydnam were still standing just inside the doorway in a pool of deep red rose petals.

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Butler,” she said, bright and animated and smiling warmly, “you may have thought yourselves very clever indeed when you married in great secrecy a few weeks ago. But your relatives and friends have caught up with you after all. Welcome to your wedding breakfast.”

Looking back afterward on what turned out to be one of the happiest days of her life, Anne found it hard to remember the exact sequence of events after that first moment. She certainly had no recollection of eating anything, though she supposed she must have done so since she certainly was not hungry for the rest of the day.

But she did remember the noise and the laughter and the wonderful, heady sensation of being the focus of loving attention with Sydnam. She remembered being hugged and kissed and exclaimed over again and again. She even had a few clear memories.

She remembered Joshua bringing forward a pretty, guilelessly smiling young lady, whose free hand was flapping with excitement at her side and realizing that she was Prue Moore-now Prue Turner. She remembered Prue hugging her as if to break every bone in her body.

“Miss Jewell, Miss Jewell,” she cried in her sweet, childish voice, “I love you. I do love you. And now you are Mrs. Butler. I like Mr. Butler even if he does have to wear a black patch on his eye. And I am David’s aunt. Joshua says so and Constance says so, and I am glad about it. Are you?”

And then she turned to hug Sydnam with just as much enthusiasm.

Anne remembered being hugged by Constance too-the former Lady Constance Moore-and realizing that they must have come all the way from Cornwall just for this occasion.

She remembered Frances shedding tears over her.

She remembered Lauren’s happy smile and the young man she introduced-Viscount Whitleaf, her cousin, a young man who had her lovely violet eyes. He had come to Alvesley to visit the week after Anne and Sydnam left.

She remembered what Claudia said to her when they hugged.

“Anne,” she said severely, “I hope you realize just how much I love you. I have actually consented for your sake to be in the same room with that woman and that man. I feel as sorry for the Duchess of Bewcastle as I feel for the Marquess of Hallmere. She is remarkably sweet-but one wonders for how long under his influence.”

Anne remembered that Claudia and Miss Thompson sat together talking through much of the afternoon.

She remembered her father laughing and telling her what a splendid joke it had been to keep secret the fact that he had received a letter from Lady Potford on the same morning that Anne’s had arrived.

She remembered her mother’s happy tears-and Sarah’s.

She remembered the cousins of Sydnam’s who had been located in time and brought to Bath and were introduced to Anne-though he had to remind her of all their names the next day.

She remembered that for the first chaotic minutes children dashed noisily about getting under everyone’s feet until someone arranged to have them all shooed into the ballroom. Anne suspected it might have been the Duke of Bewcastle-he had probably raised an eyebrow or perhaps even his quizzing glass in the right direction.

And she remembered Sydnam’s bright and happy look, his laughter-and of course the impromptu speech of thanks he gave from both of them for such an unexpected gathering.

“You may all expect,” he said to much laughter, “that Anne and I will put our heads together over the winter when there is nothing else to do and devise a suitable revenge.”

But there was one part of the reception that was not at all jumbled in with all the other memories.

Music had been wafting from the ballroom all through the tea-or the breakfast, if one wished to humor the duchess. No one seemed to have been paying it much attention. But Joshua, seated close by, must have noticed.

“It was just here that we waltzed for the first time, Freyja,” he said. “Do you remember?”

“How could I forget?” she said. “It was while we waltzed that you begged me to enter into a fake betrothal with you, and before we knew it we were in a marriage together-but not a fake one at all.”

They both laughed.

“And it was here we danced together, Frances,” the Earl of Edgecombe said, “though it was not quite the first time, if you recall.”

“The first time,” Frances said, “was in a cold, dark, empty ballroom with no music.”

“It was heavenly,” the earl said with a grin.

“It would be a shame,” Kit said, “to have an orchestra and the use of one of the most famous ballrooms in the country and not dance. I shall instruct the orchestra to play a waltz. But we must remember that this is a wedding celebration. The bride must dance first. Will you waltz with me, Anne?”

But he was looking, Anne noticed, at Sydnam.

Sydnam stood up.

“Thank you, Kit,” he said firmly, “but if it is not the custom for the bridegroom to be first to dance with his bride, then it ought to be. Anne, will you waltz with me?”

For the merest moment she felt alarm. Everyone had hushed and was listening. They all would doubtless come and watch. She had not done a great deal of dancing herself, except at school, but Sydnam-

But Sydnam could do anything in the world he set his mind to-except perhaps clap his hands.

She smiled at him.

“Yes, I will,” she said.

She did not think it was her imagination that the guests gathered around them let out a sort of collective sigh.

She set her hand on Sydnam’s offered sleeve and he led her into the ballroom. Almost everyone, it seemed to her, followed them and arranged themselves about the perimeter of the room while Kit spoke to the orchestra leader. The children were drawn back too, though most of them ran off into the tearoom to play.