The Romany Heiress (22 page)

Cate stopped her idle progress to face him. “What do
you prefer, Giles? If you’d rather not marry in a church,
we can do it quietly in the drawing room at the abbey”

Giles pulled off his gloves and slapped them in the
palm of one hand. “A wedding is a proud moment for a
woman. I was thoughtless last night in the drawing
room. I am sorry. I did not mean to devalue the ceremony or you.”

Cate smiled, suppressing a laugh. “A wedding is a
proud moment for a woman? Only the woman? What
about the man? Isn’t it a crowning moment for him too?
I can see that I shall have to reform you immediately. A
man should be proud he’s found a helpmate, a woman
who will be loyal and stand beside him.” She paused in her teasing. No doubt, Giles had hoped to find those
things in a mate but probably felt she would not live up
to those standards.

She bit her lip and moved toward him, taking the liberty of placing her hand on her betrothed’s sleeve. It
was a novel experience to think of him as her betrothed, to think she could approach him as she did, at
least in private. “This marriage might not be what
you’d anticipated for yourself, but I can be all those
things. I mean to be loyal to you, Giles. I mean to be
your helpmate if you’ll teach me, if you’ll let me”

She looked up into his blue eyes, seeking an affirmation. He gave her a slight nod. “We shall both do
our best,” he said with more reserve than Cate would
have liked.

“This place is fine for the ceremony, quite charming
actually,” Cate said, reverting to the earlier topic of
conversation. It would be charming in the spring. In her
mind’s eye, she saw the bleak stone chapel decked out
for a spring wedding, full of wildflowers and garlands,
a pristine cloth on the altar. But at the end of fall, when
winter stood on the cusp, it looked cold and gray. She
hoped it wasn’t a foreshadowing of her marriage.

“Are you ready to go back? There’s something I want
to show you up at the house” Giles offered her his arm,
and they began the walk back to the abbey. On the way
back, he played the part of the solicitous bridegroom to
the hilt, asking after the plans and lists Isabella had
concocted.

He laughed out loud as Cate recounted the morning spent with Isabella. “Gracious! You’d think from the
way she’s carrying on this was a society ball. Don’t let
her overwhelm you. She’s a dear friend and good at her
job. She’s one of London’s finest hostesses when she
and Tristan endeavor to go up to town. But don’t let her
talk you into anything you don’t want.”

His banter and agreement with her was heartening.
Cate felt a few moments of kinship with him then. Perhaps they would build a future on conversations like
this one, a little bit at a time.

As they neared the abbey, Giles said, “I am glad you
liked the little chapel. I always thought I’d be married
there. It’s the place where all the earls have been married and buried. The graveyard off to the side is where
our ancestors are laid. It’s where I’ll be laid to rest
when my time comes and you as well. There’s some
comfort and peace in knowing how one fits into the cycle of life.”

“Hmm,” Cate said dreamily, taking in the chance to
view Spelthorne through his eyes. Another might have
found his comment of death linked with marriage morbidly inappropriate, but she understood the connection.
“I think that is why I found the idea of Spelthorne so
appealing. It represented peace, rest, security, all of
which are absent qualities in the life of the Rom. I’ve
discovered I don’t uproot well. Traveling, moving
around, is not part of my make-up.”

She peered up at him, thinking of something else
he’d said. “You said ‘our.”’

“Yes. It occurred to me last night that although you don’t know your ancestors they are your people, your
blood. The Spelthorne earls go back four generations.
You are the great-granddaughter of James Moncrief.
Although I am not of their blood, I am of their traditions as well. As you said yesterday, there are many
ways to be a father. If so, I think there are many ways to
be part of the family history.”

“I think you’re right,” Cate said softly, feeling some
of the guilt over their marriage lifting from her. Giles
was coming to terms with his new understanding of his
identity, just as she was coming to grips with hers.

Once they reached the house, the quiet peace they’d
shared on the walk back was shattered. Isabella met
them in the hall, a sheaf of paper in her hand. “Giles,
there you are! There’s been a set back” She brandished the paper.

Giles gave Cate a conspiratorial wink and Cate could
see his mouth twitch as he tried to suppress a laugh.

“It’s not funny in the least!” Isabella stormed. “When
you pick a wedding day, you usually consult a calendar.”

Cate looked from Giles to Isabella, perplexed.

“Do you know that five days from yesterday is All
Hallows’ Eve?” Isabella said, her disbelief over his
carelessness evident in her tone.

Giles couldn’t suppress his laughter any longer. “No,
I didn’t. But I would like to say that I was badgered into
five days by you, Bella. If it had been up to me, I would
have been married tomorrow. All Hallows’ Eve it is. We
can marry in an evening ceremony.”

“Evening? That’s positively medieval. When have fashionable people wed at night? What about a wedding
breakfast?” Isabella protested.

“When they’re me” Giles merely smiled, unbothered by her well-meaning protestations. “Now, I was
off to show Cate something upstairs.” He turned back
to her and tugged on her hand, leading her upstairs with
a playfulness in his step.

Upstairs turned out to be the attics. These rooms
were unlike any attic Cate had been in, although admittedly, that was very few. The attics were a warren of
gabled rooms at the top of the house filled with treasures. She could have spent hours wandering through
them. Unlike her perception of an attic, these rooms
were well organized, nothing was crammed in haphazardly and items appeared as if they had been stored
with great care, in spite of the expected layers of dust
which accumulated with lack of use.

Giles proudly announced that one of the things he’d
done since becoming the earl was to catalog the contents of the attics. The idea of Giles crawling about the
rooms in his impeccable clothing, writing down the
items made her giggle.

“If you think that is funny,” Giles shot her a mocking glare, “I am currently beginning to write the history of each item. Its year or origin, which relative it
belonged to, and what purpose or history is behind it.
You can help me with it. It would be a great project for
getting to know your family.” He paused. “By the way,
why is cataloging funny? It happens to be a great historical resource”

He looked so self-righteous, Cate couldn’t help herself from blurting out the truth. “I can’t imagine you in
your very proper clothing up here in the dust, rummaging through trunks holding who knows what.”

Giles looked serious and vulnerable. Perhaps she
had gone too far. She should have realized they didn’t
know each other well enough for such disclosures yet.
“Is that how you see me? Too proper? Too much a gentleman to dirty his hands with work?”

She had hurt his feelings. “No, of course not. I am
sorry.”

“For what? For telling me the truth?”

Cate wrung her hands, searching for a way to make
things right. “The truth is, I like the way you dress. It
was one of the first things I noticed about you, what
made you stand out from other gentlemen. The way you
look in your clothes is quite handsome.” She lowered
her voice to a coquette’s whisper and dared a little,
“The way you look out of your clothing is quite admirable too”

That won her a smile and a chuckle. “Ho! Out of my
clothes you say? Have you been spying on me?”

“No, but I have been fishing with you.”

That made them both laugh. Cate was reassured.
They were indeed building a history together, one conversation, one experience, one day at a time.

“Here it is,” Giles called out, gesturing to a trunk that
was set out from the rest toward the back of the garret.
“I couldn’t sleep last night so I came up here to search
for some items I recalled from my cataloging. Thanks to my excellent record keeping, I was able to locate the
trunk right away,” he added pointedly, winning another
laugh from Cate.

She came to stand beside him and stared down at the
big, scarred traveling trunk with iron bands. “The trunk
looks ancient. What’s in there? Spanish doubloons?”

“Better than Spanish gold” Giles winked and lifted
the lid.

The smell of lavender and cedar chips wafted out
from the open trunk. Cate felt her curiosity build at the
scent. The trunk was exquisitely lined in ruched satin
and there was no doubt that this trunk had belonged to
a woman of means.

Giles rubbed at an engraved plate embedded in the
lid of the trunk. “It’s my great-grandmother’s-our
great grandmother’s. There’s her name, Heloise.”

“The one married to James?” Cate asked.

“Yes. You’re learning,” Giles smiled.

He dug down into the layers of tissue and wrapping.
“She and great-grandfather were married in the little
chapel in 1680” He drew out a bundle. “This is the
gown she wore for her wedding.”

The layers of wrapping came off, and Cate gasped.
The gown Giles uncovered was of sapphire silk, cut in
the fashion of the period with the rounded neckline, exposing the shoulders and the bodice tapering to a vee,
not unlike the royal red gown she’d worn to dinner a
few nights previous. The gown was trimmed in exquisite lace work at the sleeves and the low neck. “It’s
beautiful.” Cate couldn’t resist the urge to finger it.

“I thought of it after seeing your red gown,” Giles
said. “The style suited you well. I thought you might
like to wear this for our wedding.” He shrugged. “It certainly fits the rhyme about something old, something
borrowed, something blue.”

Cate could barely find any words to respond. “Really? I could wear it?”

“If you’d like. There are other gowns up here. Celeste’s is here if you would prefer . . ” Giles’s voice
broke off.

“No,” Cate said quickly, “this is the one”

“The women can alter it in anyway you need. I am
sorry there’s not more time. I want you to have a suitable dress”

“Thank you,” Cate said reverently. “This dress will
more than suffice”

The day of the wedding dawned wet and gray, not
exactly the type of weather one imagined when thinking of the ideal wedding. Then again, there was nothing
“ideal” about the wedding that would take place later
that day. Cate dropped the curtain and sighed, curling
up on the window seat in her customary position.

Across the room, the dress hung ready, along with an
elegant ermine-lined hooded cloak and matching slippers Giles had dug out of the trunk along with the
gown. Eight hours separated her from that gown.

For better or for worse, Cate had no doubts that the
day would pass quickly enough. Giles’s friends had
filled the wedding day with activities. She would have to hurry and dress in order to be ready to help with the
decorating of the chapel, which would take up the
morning. Then Isabella had something planned with
the village ladies that Cate had no idea about but Giles
had seemed to approve so she had not protested, wanting to make him happy in return for the generosity he’d
shown her.

True to expectation, the morning flew by in a festive
manner as the six of them devoted their efforts to the
chapel, along with the household staff at the abbey.

When they were finished, Cate had to recant all her
previous thoughts about the chapel appearing dreary.
Their efforts had transformed the bleakness into a
backdrop from another time.

The season had made it difficult to come up with the
flora and fauna that would have been available during
the spring and summer. Isabella had improvised with
ribbons, and Giles had unearthed a trunk filled with
carpets from James and Heloise’s time. One of those
carpets served as a runner down the short aisle. Another
acted as a tapestry backdrop, skillfully hung behind the
altar. Isabella’s ribbons roped off the pews from the
center aisle so that guests would enter down the right
and left sides of the church. Large, tapers were placed
in the niche of each stained-glass window and in profusion around the altar. Two large vases of exquisite red
roses graced the front of the chapel. In the candlelight
of evening, it would look magical.

Returning home to the abbey, Cate found the village
women and wives of the tenant farmers assembled in the drawing room, awaiting her arrival over a lavish tea.
Isabella hastily explained it was a chance for the women
to celebrate her coming into their ranks as a new addition to the female community of Spelthorne.

Cate realized she knew many of them as Isabella
walked about the room with her, making introductions.
She had indeed met several of them on her afternoon
outings with Giles.

Once the introductions were complete and she was
settled in the seat of honor on the settee, the clergyman’s wife spoke up. “Here at Spelthorne, we have a
custom of giving advice to new wives. Each of us has
brought a gift and some advice to go with it.” There was
general laughter and tittering at the implications, and
Cate felt her cheeks heat.

By the end of the afternoon, a pile of gifts ranging
from handstitched pillowcases to a gauzy, frothy nightgown from Isabella, lay at her feet.

The ladies left and their departure left a stillness
hanging over the abbey, anticipation was running high.
Isabella and Cecile ushered her upstairs for a bath and
some time alone. Her last time alone, she realized.
From now on, she’d be sharing a chamber with her husband. Already, looking about her room, it was evident
that the household staff had been busy moving her
items while the party had been going on downstairs.
Only her wedding gown and toilet items remained.