“That,” she said, “and the fact that my grandfather is in coal. It does sound very murky and dusty, does it not? She hopes—no, she fervently hopes and prays—that I have learned my lesson and will not lead you a merry dance as I did her poor dear Matthew.”
“No!”
“All very civil,” she said. “Though she did sink just a little into spite at the end, Ben. She took leave to give it as her opinion that it would be no less than you deserve if I do lead you a dance, since you appear to be the type of man who believes it quite unexceptionable to ride out with a widow when she is in deepest mourning.”
“We deserve each other, then?” he asked her.
“It would appear so,” she said with a sigh. “Oh, she is not, by the way, coming to our wedding. Neither are the Earl and Countess of Heathmoor. I was rather surprised by that announcement, since my letter to them was merely to explain that I will be remarrying and was in no way an invitation.”
The next day Samantha was surprised by another letter. The Reverend John Saul, her half brother, was pleased to hear that she had settled well in Wales and was happy there with her mother’s people. He felt it incumbent upon himself to honor his late father by attending the wedding of the daughter of whom his parent had been so obviously fond. His dear wife would not be accompanying him.
Samantha, alone in her book room when she read the letter, unabashedly wept over it, its stiff pomposity notwithstanding.
“I will have an outside guest of my own,” she said, thrusting the letter into Ben’s hand when he drove over from Cartref with her grandfather during the afternoon.
And she turned and wept all over again in her grandfather’s arms while he patted her back and read the letter over Ben’s shoulder.
The preparations for the wedding were all made. All that remained was to await the arrival of those who would be traveling from England during one of the potentially most inclement months of the year. They would all acquire cricked necks, Ben remarked on one occasion, if they gazed skyward much more than they did. It was a cold month, and the wind, which blew almost constantly, was what Mrs. Price called a lazy wind.
“It can’t be bothered to swerve around you,” she explained. “It just blows straight through.”
But the sky remained blue much of the time, and when there were clouds, they were high and unthreatening. There was no snow. There rarely was in this part of Wales, but the key word was rarely. They would all have relaxed a bit more, perhaps, if it had been never. Snow was not the only threat, of course. Rain could be just as bad or worse. It did not take a great deal of it to turn the roads to mud and sometimes to quagmires. And rain was common in this part of the world, especially at this time of year.
But the weather held.
And the guests began to arrive.
All the guests from England stayed at Cartref at Mr. Bevan’s insistence, though Ben removed to the inn a little earlier than planned to make room for them all. Calvin, who was to be his best man, came there the evening before the wedding to stay with him.
All the Survivors came with him just for the evening, to the great pleasure of the landlord and the equal consternation of his wife, who had discovered not only that the lady and all the gentlemen were titled, which was bad enough, but that one of them was actually a duke.
“And there is only that much,” she whispered to her husband even though they were in the kitchen and two closed doors stood between them and the gathered company, “between a duke and a king.” She held her forefinger a quarter of an inch from her thumb.
George Crabbe, Duke of Stanbrook, meanwhile was asking Ben about his wheeled chair. “It seems a sensible notion,” he said, “but you have always been quite adamantly set against using one.”
“I have nothing more to prove,” Ben told him. “I can and do walk. I have danced. Now I can be sensible and move around as fast as any other man.”
“One is t-tempted to challenge you to a race along the village street, Ben,” Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, said. “But one would not wish to make a s-spectacle of oneself.”
“Or lose ignominiously to a man in a wheeled chair, Flave,” Ralph, Earl of Berwick, added.
“You will be able to race against Vince in March, Ben,” Hugo, Lord Trentham, said. “He is having a race track built about the outer boundary of his park. Had you heard? That will be a sight to behold.”
“A blind man and a c-cripple,” Flavian said. “Heaven defend us.”
“Call me that again, Flave,” Ben said cheerfully, “and you may find yourself being beaten about the head with a cane.”
“It might cure his stammer,” George said.
“Ben.” Imogen, Lady Barclay, was looking intently at him. “You have danced?”
“Waltzed, actually.” He grinned at her. “There is an alcove at one end of the ballroom at Cartref. I waltzed all about it with Samantha during a ball just before Christmas.”
“Was that wise, Ben?” Calvin asked him. “I have always thought you may do more harm than good to your legs by insisting upon walking on them. But dancing? I worry about you, you know. All the time.”
But the Survivors were all beaming at him.
“Bravo,” the duke said quietly.
“I s-suppose,” Flavian said, “this alcove is the size of an egg cup, Ben?”
“Probably a thimble, Flave,” Ralph said, grinning and winking at Ben.