Serena Blyth and Spencer Trewbridge were joined in holy matrimony two days later. After the event, a subtle air of relief pervaded the hallways of Trewbridge.
“Thank God that’s over,” Edward said, as the families waved off several guests who had come only for the ceremony and were not members of the house party.
“Edward!” his mother chastised him, but she sounded as if her heart wasn’t in it. After all, Edward had only expressed what everyone was thinking.
“Thank you very much,” Mr. Blyth kept saying, but nobody was sure whom he was thanking. Probably the Almighty, Marguerite thought. The man was relieved that nothing untoward had happened to prevent his daughter marrying well.
The entire company stood in the foyer talking desultorily, and Marguerite fancied it was as though everyone had been expecting fireworks but got only a damp squib.
“Miss Ninian, would you care for a walk?” John asked her.
She turned to him, relieved to escape the endless discussions of how beautiful the bride had looked. Of course! He had promised to show her where Diabolo was buried. She hurried upstairs to collect her cloak and met him at the gate of the Lady’s Garden.
“I know you are not yet experienced at riding, and this is a difficult climb on horseback. So I thought a brisk walk might clear the air,” he explained as they set off.
Clear the air? She nodded, unsure what to say. Diabolo’s death was a mystery. The servants speculated about it in whispers. The Trewbridge family had not vouchsafed any explanation.
Lord John glanced down at her serviceable boots. “Good,” was all he said, but she felt as if she’d passed some test. They picked their way through the mud of the lower fields and scraped their boots on the stone bridge over the tributary of the Avon. Then they began to clamber uphill towards the crease in the Downs where Diabolo rested.
Lord John spoke in a tight, expressionless tone. “We put him on a travois,” he explained, “and we pulled him up to the higher reaches where he and I used to canter along the ridge on our way to Fitzy’s place. I knew he’d like it up there.”
Marguerite was relieved to have left the interminable post-wedding gossip behind, but she wondered if she had blundered into a far more difficult conversation now, fraught with pent-up emotion.
Then he seemed to check himself and changed the subject. “The first time I came up here, I wondered why my ancestor didn’t build Trewbridge right here,” he commented as he waited for her to catch her breath. “You can see for miles. But I suppose it would have been too difficult to drag all the building materials uphill. And the house is appropriate for its setting where it stands. It seems my great-grandfather had few enemies.”
Marguerite looked down at Trewbridge far below, looking like the tin miniatures that Billings, the blacksmith, crafted in his spare time for the village children.
“Why, I never noticed before!” John exclaimed. “You can see one of Trewbury’s chimneys, far to the west.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her so she was facing more to her left. Then he pointed into the distance. She craned forward and his fingers pressed into her skin. “Careful!” he exclaimed. They fell silent. His hands remained on her shoulders and he turned her towards him, gathering her closer. “Miss Marguerite Ninian,” he said, as if he had never heard her name before.
“Yes?” Where he touched her Marguerite felt warm and soft. She was melting, leaning into him.
He tilted her face up and pressed a chaste kiss on her lips. Her first kiss. Her heart fluttered like a hundred butterflies.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for coming with me.”
She swallowed, trying to calm her scattered senses. He was grateful, that was all. Don’t read anything into that kiss, Marguerite, she told herself. Cripples couldn’t afford to get ideas. Steadying herself she stepped back and walked across to Diabolo’s grave. After a moment’s hesitation he joined her.
Nothing marked the place except for the recently turned earth.
“The local smithy is making a plaque,” John said. “I suppose if someone were not fond of animals it would seem ridiculous to go to all this trouble for a horse, but Diabolo was not just any horse. He was special. And I think you, of all people, understand that.”
She nodded. “I know. You got him when you were young, and you grew up together. Then he survived the fighting on the Peninsula and came back here. He deserves a plaque.”
“You do understand,” John murmured.
She smiled. “He would probably like an apple tree here, but it is too windy on the brow of the rise,” she said. “What about a walnut tree? They take many years to grow, but their size and strength and shape would be ideal.”
John looked out towards the horizon again. Then he looked down at her. “A walnut tree is just right,” he said.
Marguerite hugged herself. This was the best day of her life.
“Are you cold?” John asked. He tugged off his jacket at the same time as she said, “No,” and they both laughed.
“Truly,” she said.
She smiled even more when they reached the stile at the lower fields and he held out his hand to assist her over. Then he picked her up off the step and swung her around by the waist, laughing at her surprise, before depositing her on the grass. She blinked, startled to see Lord John let his guard down. “Oh!” was all she could manage.
He grinned. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” he said.
She giggled. And she was still smiling when they returned to the house. Scurrying to her room, she closed the door and leaned back against it, savouring the warm flutters of excitement in the pit of her stomach. “Marguerite, you silly girl,” she whispered. “What have you done? You’ve fallen in love with a man who thinks of you as a little sister. A man who covets his brother’s wife. You are a fool.”
Unsettled, she paced back and forth, then pulled off her bonnet and lay back on the bed. Her stays dug into her skin and she had an unladylike desire to peel off her clothes and lie on the bed naked. Her hand strayed to her breast. “No!” she said aloud. What was she thinking? She hurried to the mirror and began pinning up loose tendrils of hair. The mirror reflected a woman with flushed, damp skin. A woman, not a girl. But it was the expression on her face that bewildered her. What had John done to her? She looked knowing, almost cunning, as if she and John shared a secret. It was the same expression her sister Penny had worn in the days preceding her marriage.
She inhaled sharply and muttered, “Damn you, John Trewbridge. I knew the moment we met that you were going to bring me trouble.”