The Caversham Chronicles ~ the Beginning

Chapter Seven-1

Chapter Seven

Cav led his grinning betrothed up the steps to the London home of his friends, the Baron Manners, Thomas Manners-Sutton, and his wife Anne. Cav was lucky to catch them still in England as they had planned to return to Ireland when he’d stopped them with a note two days ago. Now, if all was as he’d planned, Thomas’ elderly mother and his sister Charlotte would be inside. Both widows, they would be excellent chaperonage for his bride-to-be for the duration of their betrothal.

When he’d left Thomas’ office the day before, his friend had wanted to rush over to meet this daughter of his youngest brother, Harold. He’d not seen her since she was a girl according to both Amelia and Thomas. Cav had warned Thomas that Amelia might not be as open to a reunion as his friend had hoped because she felt abandoned by them when she’d heard nothing from her father’s family after her letter informing them of his death.

“As God is my witness, Cav, none of us ever received a letter from my niece or her aunt.” Because Cav had known Thomas since they were both in short pants, if his friend said the family never heard from her, Cav believed him.

Cav stared at his friend over the tea cart the servant rolled into the office.

When the man left, Thomas leaned back in his deep leather chair and explained further. “We had no idea that Harold had died until a month after his passing. We learned of it when a vicar from Surrey had come to Charles’ office on a church matter. Imagine Charles’ reaction—receiving condolences on the sudden demise of his very own youngest brother! When the man left, Charles sent an investigator out and sure enough, Harold was gone and buried. Our niece was living with her maternal aunt, in a supposedly comfortable situation as the woman’s companion. At least that is what the lady told the investigator when he visited Greenwood.”

“The Lady? As in your niece or Lady Rawdon? Because, I assure you if it was the latter, that woman is not to be trusted. In fact, I wouldn’t have put it past her to have withheld those letters to keep her niece under her thumb.”

“For what reason?” Thomas asked.

Cav really wanted to believe Katherine Rawdon was merely manipulative and not vicious or cruel. “As hard as it is to imagine having met her, I honestly believe it was genuine companionship. The woman does live alone and has no children of her own despite two marriages.”

Cav had stirred the sugar in his cup as he thought on his luck in escaping that woman’s clutches. “She is a self-absorbed, vituperative, conniving witch.”

“Perhaps it is best she had no children,” his friend replied.

Now, as he handed Thomas’s butler his cloak, his thoughts were on Amelia, and those words she’d whispered as they exited the carriage. He’d had to forcefully will his erection away before entering his friend’s home.

If this wasn’t an important dinner party, he’d take his bride-to-be and leave. How he’d love to show her the consequences of teasing him in this way—in the privacy of his bedroom.

Their hosts stood in the grand saloon, their eyes focused on him and Amelia. Behind them, Cav could see the two women seated on the sofa inside.

Cav covered Amelia’s gloved hand with his own, his warm one covering her cold one, and led her into the room. Lady George and her daughter Charlotte stood as they entered, smiling at them both. Amelia grinned and looked at him curiously with those expressive eyes of hers. He gave her a reassuring grin in return, and stopped in front of Thomas and Anne.

“Thomas, Anne,” he said, then turning to Thomas’s mother and sister he added, “Lady George, Charlotte, may I present my betrothed, Miss Amelia Caroline Elizabeth Manners-Sutton.”

“My dear,” Cav said with a wave of his hand, “meet your paternal family.”

Immediately, Lady George collapsed onto the red damask sofa behind her in a fit of vapors, and while Charlotte fanned her mother, Thomas’s wife quietly asked the footman for her smelling salts. The two older women worked to revive Lady George, as his bride-to-be clung to his arm, eyes wide and fearful.

“Oh my,” Amelia said as she clung to his arm. “Have I worn the wrong gown for this particular dinner party? The modiste said this was considered respectable.”

Cav was so proud of her, trying to lighten the mood after springing this surprise on her. He’d almost expected a little anger directed at him, but he got none.

A grinning Thomas stepped forward, took Amelia’s hand and kissed it. “My dear, we are so very pleased to make your acquaintance after all these many years. I’m sorry my other siblings could not be here, they’ve left the city by now, and…”

They all turned at the sounds coming from the sofa where the elderly woman struggled to stand against her overly-cautious daughter’s wishes. The daughter reached out to stop her mother but the woman escaped her grasp, moving with a spry step to where her son, Amelia, and Cav stood. Both her daughter and daughter-in-law followed close behind, their arms outstretched to catch her if she fell.

“Mother, careful,” Charlotte said.

“I’m fine,” the older woman growled, swatting off her daughter and daughter-in-law’s hands. “Quit treating me as though I am half-dead. I have more life left in me than the two of you combined.”

The purple-turbaned Lady George stopped next to her son and, raising her monocle, stared at Amelia. Cav could tell it made his future wife more than a little nervous though she hid it well.

“What game do you play, gel? Has that over-reaching, deceitful relation of yours convinced you to mine deeper pockets than the local yokels in Surrey? Because if that is the case…”

“Mother,” Thomas said in a tone Cav had heard his friend use only in Parliament, “mind your tongue.”

Amelia began to laugh. A deep laugh Cav had only heard a few times in their short engagement.

“Oh, ma’am. If that isn’t indeed an appropriate description of my aunt, I don’t know what is. My father used to call her a praying mantis after he read about that particular insect in one of the books he’d restored. He was incredibly well-read.”

Cav watched the emotion play across Amelia’s face and was moved when she realized with whom she was speaking.

“Of course he was well-read,” Lady George said, “he was also very intelligent. Why, if he had gone…”

Thomas cut his mother off yet again. “But he didn’t mother. Harold married a young lady he loved, and had two wonderful children that our father refused to acknowledge because he hadn’t made the match for Harold.”

“Your father only wanted what was best for you all. But yes, you are right,” the elderly woman said. Turning to Amelia, she said, “You look like my eldest daughter, Louisa, God rest her. Doesn’t she look like Louisa, Thomas?”

“Yes, Mama, I believe you are correct,” Thomas said.

Amelia smiled as she replied to Lady George. “And all this time Papa said I looked like you. And, you know, I could never tell if he was teasing me, or being kind.”

“And now?”

“Now I see he was merely being truthful, ma’am.”

Lady George hooted with laughter and soon the entire saloon was laughing. As proper introductions were made all around, Cav realized he was proud to the point of bursting of his soon-to-be wife’s wit and charm. He knew, of course, that he would have to apologize on the way home for bursting this upon Amelia as he did. In all honesty, he worried that she would not want to attend tonight’s dinner and meet his friends, who also happened to be her family. He and Thomas agreed earlier that day that Thomas must inform his family before he and Amelia had arrived so as not to shock Lady George so terribly. Even though she had been expecting them, the older woman still had been overcome at the sight of her granddaughter.

As the evening passed, he realized he’d done the right thing in bringing Amelia here. Now her grandmother could dote on her—the child of the son her husband had refused to allow back into the family fold.

He watched as she met the relatives she’d never known and the rush of emotion upon learning the story behind her father’s self-imposed exile from the family. Her father had chosen love over duty, and in their world, duty and honor was of primary importance. If you were fortunate enough to find love, you were indeed a lucky man.

He was beginning to feel supremely blessed to have been struck by love twice in one lifetime. Amelia was intelligent, charming, pleasant mannered, and beautiful. She was also easy to talk to, got along with his son, and had a wit and sense of humor that always surprised him and kept him laughing. He hadn’t been so happy and comfortable in the company of a woman in many years. And, while Cav had Ren and Elise, Amelia had no children of her own. In the hours before sunrise a few nights earlier, she’d made it clear to him that she wanted children. Because of Amelia’s eagerness to become a mother soon, Cav was thankful their wedding would take place in less than a month.

Thinking back to their exchange upon disembarking the carriage, he knew his future wife wanted him as much as he wanted her. And to think, a week ago he didn’t even know she existed. Now he was about to marry this woman who was unafraid of the future and wanted to share in it with him. For whatever amount of time remained for them.

His friend Thomas came to where he stood at the far side of the parlor after their port and cigars, and the two men stood watching Amelia charm her grandmother and aunts with tales of her and her missing brother when they were children.

“She is indeed charming,” his friend said. “And Harold was right. She has the look of our mother about her.” Cav raised a brow at that comparison. There was nothing similar about them in his opinion. One lady was well-preserved, the other in her prime. “Well… Mother in her youth,” his friend added sheepishly. “I’ve seen the portraits and miniatures. She was a diamond in her day. And a more pleasant and sweet-natured lady you’ve never met than my mother. Spoiled all nine of us equally.”

Cav coughed politely. He remembered Lady George, his friend’s sweet mother dragging him by his ear from the kitchen garden when the cook had complained of the children eating the berries he needed for the evening’s desserts.

For some reason, Cav was unable to stop grinning. The woman across the room with Thomas’ wife, sister, and mother was soon to be his duchess. A feeling passed through him just then, and he knew that from up in Heaven somewhere, Lizzie was smiling down, pleased that he was getting on with his life after all these years.

“You look like a green lad with your first love,” his friend chided. “You should see yourself.”

He knew he looked like an old fool. At least he was among his friends, and Amelia was their relation.

“Mother would like me to ask why the rush to marry,” Thomas said. “She wants to have some time with her new-found granddaughter.”

Cav gave his friend a look. “I will marry her in one month, at Haldenwood. And to that end, I have an appointment with the Archbishop’s secretary in the morning to see about an opening in his schedule that will allow him time to come to the country to officiate. My own secretary has already hired help to begin with the preparations.

“Charles?” His friend looked surprised. “Good God you are serious if you want him to officiate. But why the rush, old man?”

Cav thought a moment, and gave his long-time friend his most heart-felt reply. “Because when I am with her, I don’t feel old. I feel young again. I feel desired in a way a mistress could not satisfy. I feel needed and useful.” Cav glanced from his friend to Amelia and back, giving Thomas a contemplative smile. “From the moment she walked into my life, I realized I had been missing that. Amelia filled a void I didn’t know was there.”

The ride from the home of her uncle and aunt to Caversham House was a short one. Sitting across from the man about to be her husband, Amelia was still reeling over all that she had learned tonight. Her betrothed was old friends—schoolmates in fact—with one of her uncles. As Cav had explained it to her, he knew his friend had an estranged younger brother, but had never known that man was her father.