Chapter Twenty-Five
“I believe we may be destined to do everything in an unorthodox manner,” Irina said as she stood before the mirror in her room at Stanton Park. Her maid crouched at her side, carefully pinning a piece of ivory lace at the hem of the wedding gown.
Lana sat in a plush chair by the hearth, a hand resting contentedly on her burgeoning stomach. “Whatever do you mean?”
“How many earls do you know who get married in the woods?” she asked her sister through the mirror’s reflection.
Lana laughed. “How many princesses, at that?”
Irina shook her head, smiling. She’d been wearing this same expression it seemed for the last several days, and oddly enough, her cheeks did not ache one bit. She supposed that only happened when a smile was forced and false. Irina had never in her life been happier than she had been over the last few weeks. And even the occasional passing thought of Max couldn’t dampen her joy. As Henry had promised, he had been spared the noose and had been sentenced to a lengthy stint in a gaol in Cambridgeshire. Irina hoped his time there would be well spent in reflection and reformation, and once he completed his sentence, he’d be shipped back to his father. That was all she permitted herself to think of him. Max was a part of the past.
She and Henry had left the Canterbury estate and gone straight to Essex, though not before sending a messenger to Brighton. Lady Langlevit would still be taking the waters there, recovering from her bout of illness, and would want to know straightaway the news of her son’s new betrothal. Both Irina and Henry agreed the faster the countess returned to Essex, the sooner they could marry.
“Fairy princesses,” Irina sighed, and with another long look at her gown, felt such warm serenity she wanted to twirl around. She didn’t, though, not with Jane still pinning some lace.
“Well, you certainly look the part of a fairy princess,” Lana said.
With no modistes in Breckenham to speak of, and with no desire to return to London to visit Madame Despain at her shop on Bond Street, Irina and Lana had been left to their own devices for the creation of Irina’s wedding gown.
It had given them something to focus on for the week it took for Henry’s letter to reach Brighton, and for Lady Langlevit to make a surprisingly speedy return to Essex.
They had taken Lana’s wedding gown, and with the help of several maids at Stanton Park and seamstresses in Breckenham, had transformed it into a completely new masterpiece. Still the same bone-ivory color, but with a high collar of sheer lace, small rose buttons from the nape of the neck to the start of the short train, and lace sleeves to the elbow. It was a simple gown, with hints of pink and rose in the new embroidery along the bodice.
“Thank you for allowing me to wear your gown,” Irina said, relieved when Jane stood and moved away. Irina picked up the sides of the skirt and inspected the new lace.
“It is our gown now,” Lana replied, lifting herself from the chair. Irina moved to help her, but Lana shook her head. “I am fine. Truly. I’m feeling much better and stronger. Oh, look at me!” she cried as she saw her figure in the mirror. “To think I once fit in that gown.”
She touched the buttons along Irina’s spine with a sigh.
“You are beautiful,” Irina told her, turning to take her sister’s hands in her own. She saw the flush of pleasure in Lana’s cheeks, the rosy glow of motherhood in her every motion. “I can only hope I am as lovely when I am with child,” Irina whispered, knowing that she could not have spoken of such things with anyone other than Lana. Or Henry.
They had not had much opportunity over the course of the last two and a half weeks to make love again, though they had certainly made the most of one unchaperoned horseback ride, and then after a tea with Lady Langlevit the day she’d returned.
The countess had been tired from her journey and had excused herself, leaving Henry and Irina alone in the day room at Hartstone. He had stared at her from his seat, a smile creeping over his lips, before he’d jumped to his feet, taken the teacup straight out of her hand, and dragged her to the carpet behind the sofa. It had been a quick union, though no less thrilling, especially with the threat of a servant walking in on them.
However, even after only so few encounters, something was different. Irina could feel it, though nothing she could quite describe. Yesterday, she’d thought back to when she’d last had her monthly menses and had realized with a burst of elation that she should have started bleeding a week before. She was carrying Henry’s child. It was still much too early to be completely sure, but she hoped for it, and a part of her knew.
“You will always be lovely,” Lana told her now, cupping her cheek and grinning. Tears trembled in her eyes. “And I am so very happy for you and Henry. I’m not sure I could have allowed you to marry anyone else, in fact. I trust him completely, and I know how deeply he cares for you. I saw it even when we were younger and he went to such extraordinary lengths to keep us both safe.” Lana kissed Irina’s cheek and stepped back, blinking away her tears. “You have chosen well, sister. And so has he.”
Like Lana, Irina was quite certain she couldn’t have married anyone else, either. She’d been more than prepared to return to St. Petersburg alone, with no prospects and no hope. It seemed like a lifetime ago instead of only a month.
There was a knock at the door. “Are my two favorite princesses quite ready? The carriage awaits, and the sun will not slow its descent, not even for royalty.”
Irina laughed at Gray’s announcement. “Yet another unorthodox decision.”
“Yes,” Lana agreed as Jane rushed forward with a small spencer made entirely of lace and sheer silk. “Getting married at sunset does mark you as an eccentric, I’m afraid.”
She opened the door. “Normal people are boring,” Gray announced, extending his arm to Irina. He looked entirely handsome, even though he wasn’t in full evening dress. Black kits in the woods seemed a bit much, so everyone had been invited to wear something a little less formal. Even her own wedding gown was suitable for a ceremony in a chapel in the woods.
The small stone structure sat in a clearing on a ridge, not too far from Henry’s obstacle course, Irina had noted when he’d first shown her the site. It had been built by his ancestors, and though it had been kept up over time, it was not used often. Ivy had begun to creep over the stone and the stained-glass windows, but Henry had always loved the solitude of it, and when Irina had seen it, she’d fallen in love, as well.
The carriage took her, Lana, and Gray through town and onto Hartstone land, traveling as far as it could through a field to the base of a hill which was thickly covered with elms and yew trees. There, several footmen in livery waited with saddled horses and, to Irina and Lana’s surprise, two covered sedan chairs, each one set on two long poles.
“These poor men have to carry me all the way up that hill?” Lana said, grimacing. Gray helped her into one of the wicker sedan chairs.
“I will carry you myself if you complain. Now sit and relax and pretend you are Cleopatra.”
He kissed her quickly and then turned to help Irina, but she had already climbed into the chair. Though she could have easily climbed the hill to the chapel, the last thing she wanted was to catch the lace Jane had so painstakingly sewn onto the hem on brambles.
So, she and Lana were carried up the hill path, giggling at the ridiculousness of their modes of transport. Henry had thought of the sedan chairs, she was certain. Or perhaps Lady Langlevit. Together with Lady Dinsmore, she had thrown herself into the wedding plans the moment she’d arrived home, and considering the small guest list, the combined staffs at Stanton Park, Ferndale, and Hartstone, as well as the simple ceremony, things had come together easily and quickly.
Irina turned her face up to the dense canopy, where slivers of the brilliant sunset shone between the leaves. Henry had taken her to the chapel at this same time of day and the setting sun had come through the stained-glass windows so magnificently, Irina had decided to hold the ceremony at sunset instead of the more typical late morning or early afternoon. Now, as they approached the crest of the hill, where the trees thinned and there was a clearing of grass along the hill’s ridge, her stomach twisted into knots.
She wasn’t nervous; she was ready to be Henry’s wife. The knots were pure excitement. Tonight, she would be able to fall asleep beside him, and if they chose to stay in bed for days on end, that would be their prerogative. This was the beginning of everything. Irina placed a hand on her stomach and felt lighter than air.
The footmen, huffing with exertion, lowered the poles and set the chairs on the grass just outside the small chapel. There were murmuring voices echoing off the arched beam ceilings inside, but only Gray was there to help both her and Lana to the doors. Gray escorted Lana in first before coming back to escort Irina to the altar. A maid from Hartstone stood ready with a bouquet of roses for Irina, and once she’d taken them and slipped her arm in Gray’s, the doors to the chapel opened.
A hushed silence fell over the small crowd, and as the first notes of a single violin began to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, Irina’s eyes settled on the only man she had always loved. The only man she would ever love.
Henry stood tall and straight and proper at the end of the aisle, his stance at complete odds with the expression in his eyes, a heated mix of love and desire and happiness. He saw no one but her, she was certain of it. As she walked toward him, and though the half dozen pews were filled, Irina saw no one but him.
He wore a dove gray kit with a cravat that matched the ivory of her gown, and his hair, combed into tousled waves, was lit to a golden hue by the honeyed sunlight. Jewel tones of sapphire and ruby and emerald cut through the chapel, creating a kaleidoscope of halcyon light over everything it touched.
The slowly building smile upon Henry’s lips coaxed her toward him, and when he finally reached for her hand, Irina trembled. As everyone turned to face forward again, the rustling of clothing echoed off the ceilings and the violin approached the close of the wedding march.
“My radiant countess,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m not a countess quite yet, my lord.”
His lips brushed her ear, and as though without a thought to the chapel filled with people, kept them there. “You are already my wife, Irina. In my heart, you are mine. This is just ceremony.”
He pulled back, and she met his gaze. Even as intimate as they had been a handful of times, she had not yet seen so much passion and love in his eyes as she did now.
“In my heart, you have always been mine,” she whispered as the last strains of the violin’s canon ebbed.
He tucked her arm close to his ribs and turned them to face forward, toward the vicar, though his eyes remained on her. “Always,” he repeated.
And then the ceremony began.
It wasn’t until nearly midnight when Irina and Henry managed to escape the party at Hartstone and steal a few moments alone in the dark. There were fewer than twenty people in attendance, including their families, the Duke and Duchess of Bradburne, and the Earl and Countess of Kensington, and Irina knew they’d be noticed missing, but she doubted any of them would bother to be put out about it. They were married now, and newlyweds at that. They could slip out into the garden “for air” all they pleased.
Henry held her hand, something that he had been doing ever since they’d stood at the altar, repeating the vicar’s instructed words of love and devotion and loyalty, binding themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. He’d had at least one hand on her at all times since. A palm at the small of her back or cupping her elbow, fingers threaded through hers. When they had been physically parted, Irina had always been within his sight, and those eyes had held her just as possessively as his hands had.
Now, as they breathed in the sweet, chilled air, damp with a coming rainstorm, Irina leaned against him, their arms wrapped around one another as they walked away from the French doors leading inside to the revelry.
“Is it too much to hope for that they’ll all have departed by the time we return?” Henry murmured. Irina nudged him with her shoulder, but didn’t reprimand him. She secretly wished for an empty house as well. Lady Langlevit had already retired to her rooms, and they would not see her until morning, when they set off for Cumbria. There, they would spend the remaining summer months, visiting the distillery and planning out and constructing a new obstacle course in the woods surrounding that estate. It was something Henry had wanted to do for a while, and Irina got a thrill when he’d asked for her help designing it.
She leaned more heavily against him. Ahead, at the labyrinth’s entrance, there were wide globe lamps hanging from the same kind of poles that had carried their sedan chairs up the hill. Their feet seemed to be taking them in that direction. Perhaps it was exhaustion or pure contentedness, but Irina was surprised that her heart did not constrict with fear. She hated garden mazes or anything that reminded her of the twisting path at Henry’s Cumbria estate and the terrifying day she’d been kidnapped—for the first time. But now, with him at her side and more confidence in herself and her life than ever, the mouth of the maze didn’t faze her. It made her feel a bit giddy.
“I’m only glad we don’t have a ballroom full of London society awaiting us back there,” she said, her head resting against his shoulder.
“As am I,” he said. “I can guarantee the men would all be in terrible moods.”
She glanced up at him. “Why is that?”
“Because there are no fewer than thirty men who lost two thousand pounds this day, the moment you accepted me as husband.”
Irina stopped and tugged him to a halt. “What do you mean? The betting…I thought you said you’d taken care of it?”
Henry had gone to London to post the banns for a few days and had returned saying he’d also “put an end” to the ridiculous wagers.
“And I did,” he replied, a mischievous smile touching his lips. “Wiping the ledgers clean for the marriage pot was out of the question, but raising the stakes was not. Any man could have done it, upping the entrance from two thousand pounds to whatever sum they chose. I simply made certain no one else cared to enter the pot.”
Irina gazed up at her husband, the lamplight slanting down from the globes and gilding his hair.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged lazily. “Put in five thousand pounds. Then I immediately went to my solicitor and had him draw up our contracts and post the banns.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “You entered into the pot?”
“The lady had given me every indication that she was interested,” he said, holding up his hands in mock innocence. “I truly thought I had a chance at winning.”
And he had won. The Earl of Langlevit had won the Quest for the Queen. Irina threw her head back and laughed.
“You took their money?”
“All of it,” he said with a firm nod, gathering her in his arms. “Those fools deserved nothing less. And now the Bradburne Trust will have a princely little sum deposited straight into its coffers just as you had envisioned.”
Irina pushed up onto her toes and kissed him soundly on the lips. He clutched her, pressing her breasts and hips into him. Within the hour, she hoped, there would be no clothing between their bodies, and they would be coming together in their marriage bed. She thought of her late menses, and her lips broke from the kiss in a smile. Within a few days, she would be certain. She could not wait to tell him.
“Why, Lord Langlevit, I am shocked. I clearly remember you saying more than once that you had no interest in winning any ridiculous bets.”
He angled his head closer and took her lower lip between his teeth. He applied enough pressure to make her wilt against him then with a flick of his tongue, released it. “A man is allowed to change his mind. Especially when the prize is so very tempting.”
She feigned insult and with a dramatic gasp pulled back. “So I am a prize to you after all?”
Henry’s arms became steel and cinched her back against his chest. His eyes turned languid and serious in the golden lamplight. “You are a gift, Irina. The greatest one I have ever received.”
She reached to touch his cheek. This man. Would she ever stop being stunned that he was finally hers?
“This gift wishes to be unwrapped,” she whispered, and with a spark, his gaze turned from adoring to determined.
“Then let us bid our guests good night,” he said. “To hell with politeness.”
Henry ushered her back toward the French doors, Irina’s laughter floating up into the night sky.