Chapter 15

15

Issie and Lady de Ros, seeing how happy Bella was, quickly overcame any disappointment they might have initially felt over sharing their beloved Bella with Lord Brooke, who couldn’t ever even hope to be worthy of her, and began planning how soon after her wedding Bella could come to visit them. Though they nearly got into another argument over that. Bella finally reminded them that they both could come visit her at Bluffton Castle anytime they wanted for as long as they wanted, even at the same time, and was able to smooth things over.

Lady de Ros tried to talk Bella into waiting at least a few weeks longer, but Bella was adamant that she was marrying Lord Brooke the day after he returned from London with the special license. So Lady de Ros graciously gave in, and invited Issie and her husband to stay until the wedding, an invitation they accepted, sending a groom back to Fenborough Hall to collect their things. Lady de Ros also sent a wedding invitation to Mr. Perry, and sent for a seamstress to come and make her granddaughter the most beautiful wedding gown the world had ever seen.

The evening before Bella’s wedding, Lady de Ros went to her room, followed by a maidservant holding a heavy case.

“Put it there, Maggie,” Lady de Ros instructed the maidservant, and she obediently placed it on the table Lady de Ros had indicated before leaving. “I wanted you to have a necklace of mine to wear on your wedding day. Pick out whatever you would like.”

Bella, who had been gazing out of the window with a dreamy expression on her face, turned to her grandmother. “That is so kind of you, Rossie, and I’m sure all of your jewelry is beautiful, but I’d like to wear the necklace my mother wore on her wedding day,” Bella said. She then went and pulled her mother’s necklace out of a drawer and showed it to her grandmother.

Lady de Ros looked shocked by the sight of it, and Bella grew a little defensive, thinking her grandmother thought it too paltry a thing to wear to wed an earl. “I believe the pearls are real, though the diamond is paste,” Bella said.

“It is not paste,” Lady de Ros said, and her eyes were suspiciously damp. “I gave this to Mr. Perry for your mother when he took her to live with him and his wife. It’s a real diamond. I thought if she ever needed money she could sell it. And it made me happy that I could provide for her in some manner. And that her father could as well, unbeknownst to him. He gave it to me,” Lady de Ros said, and her cheeks turned red and she lowered her eyes.

“I see,” Bella said, and she remembered Lord Dutton’s expression when he’d seen this same necklace, and realized she now knew who her real grandfather was.

She said nothing to Lady de Ros about that, however, as she felt that if her grandmother had wanted her to know who her grandfather was, she would have told her. Instead, Bella embraced her very tenderly, and wished that it had been possible for Rossie to have married the man she’d loved, as Bella was about to do.

Lord Brooke had invited two other guests to the wedding while he was in London, and the morning after he returned with the special license, Catherine Adams arrived at Afton Manor on the arm of Mr. Peckham. When Bella heard she was there, she sent a maid to bring Catherine to her chamber, as Bella had washed her hair and was waiting for it to dry and couldn’t go down to greet her.

Bella was overjoyed to see Catherine, who was just as happy to see her and clasped Bella a little too forcefully to her chest, as she was prone to do. Bella was eventually released, gasping for breath, as Catherine informed her that Lord Brooke had explained everything, and that Catherine was also engaged, to Mr. Charles Peckham.

“When I explained to Charles that his behavior toward you was not that of a gentleman, he was so very mortified and begged me to help him improve. Well, it was the first time someone thought that I was qualified to instruct them on proper behavior,” she said with a shocked look. “And Charles’s uncle is a duke! So I told him about my family, and that I wasn’t really related to the Hampshire Adamses, and he did not care one whit! I hope you are not upset, Lady Belle. I mean, Miss Grant—”

“Please, call me Bella. And why would I be upset?”

“Well, I know Charles had initially been one of your beaux, and you might think that I had stolen him from you.”

“Not at all! I think you and Mr. Peckham are ideally suited. You’re both so kind and friendly and such cheerful company,” Bella said, and didn’t once think that Catherine was ridiculous to believe Bella was pining for Mr. Peckham when she was marrying the incomparable Lord Brooke. Bella considered it a very obvious case of love being blind, as it was apparent that Catherine was head over heels for the man she’d previously despised.

Catherine stayed to help Bella get dressed, to the disapproval of Issie, who could not totally overcome the feeling that Bella had belonged to her before all of these other people, and that she should at least be able to have her to herself this last time. Bella, sensing Issie’s feelings, asked Catherine if she would leave them alone together. Catherine cheerfully agreed and went down to the drawing room.

“Issie, you know that I’ve loved you since you were two and I will love you forever,” Bella said.

“I know. And now you’ve chosen to love that man, as well, even though he’s not at all worthy of you. Your taste is consistently terrible,” Issie said, with a sniff.

“Do not insult the people I love,” Bella told her. “Or my taste. It is impeccable.”

“Oh, Bella,” Issie said, crying in earnest. “I will miss you so very much.”

“You will not miss me as much as you expect. You have James now, and soon you will have little Jameses, and little Issies, and you will barely even think of me, except to wonder why I come to visit so often.”

“I will never forget you, Bella,” Issie vowed.

“Then how could you think I’d ever forget you?” Bella asked. “And now you’ve made me look ugly for my own wedding,” she complained, putting her fingers to her eyes in a useless attempt to catch the tears before they fell.

“That’s impossible. You could never be ugly,” Issie said, but she helped Bella apply a damp handkerchief to her face, and they both managed to stop crying and reapply themselves to the serious business of making themselves look beautiful.

“And Issie, you do know, I hope, that Lord Brooke never intended to make you feel bad about yourself. He never was repulsed by you or thought that you were ugly, even if you did think he felt that way. I would hate it if the two people I loved most didn’t like each other.”

“Don’t worry; I feel much better about myself now. James thinks I’m the most beautiful woman in the world, and the brightest person he’s ever known, male or female. And I feel like it’s true, when I’m around him,” Issie said, blushing.

“I knew the first time he laid his head on your breast that you were destined to be together.”

“He’s a doctor, Bella!” Issie said admonishingly, before breaking into giggles. And when Grandpa Perry arrived to escort the bride down the stairs, he found her and her cousin lying on the bed, laughing like little children.

The vows were exchanged, the wedding cake eaten, and Bella was hugged and kissed more that day than she’d been the first twenty years of her life.

But finally the time came that Lord Brooke had been eagerly anticipating: they said goodbye to their friends and family and left in a carriage bound for Bluffton Castle, where they were to spend their honeymoon.

“I was so jealous of Issie, when I was fifteen, that she was able to visit a castle and I wasn’t allowed to go with her,” Bella said, after she’d finished waving goodbye and had settled back in her seat.

“Imagine if you had accompanied them; the past few months would have never happened.”

“Because I would not have been able to masquerade as Issie, you mean, since you would have met us both when we were younger and recognized me right away?”

“Perhaps, but I think it more likely that I would have fallen in love with you the first time we met and insisted on courting you as soon as you were old enough. You’d be living with me at Bluffton Castle right now.”

“I’m not sure you would have fallen in love with me at fifteen,” Bella said. “I had spots.”

Lord Brooke used this as an excuse to run a finger over his bride’s flawless, smooth skin, before saying: “I am absolutely certain I would have fallen in love with you, even with spots.”

When he bent to kiss her, Bella pulled back even though she was very eager to receive more of his kisses—the ones she’d received that morning from friends and family paled in comparison to those of her new husband. However, she had a serious matter to discuss with him first.

“Wait. I don’t know what to call you. You never told me your name.”

Lord Brooke blinked, and then began laughing. “ I never told you my name? That’s quite the accusation, considering that when we met, you were the one masquerading under a false name.”

“Yes, but I told you my real name almost from the first. I told you I was called Bella.”

“And I told you what to call me,” Lord Brooke said.

“You did?” Bella asked.

“You are to call me my lord Brooke and I am to call you my lady Bella,” he said, his voice low and husky. Bella was prepared to accept that answer, as she figured they’d talked long enough, and the way he’d just pronounced her name and called her “his” had made her shiver. Still, she did think she should know and use her husband’s name, so she persisted. “But you never told me your Christian name. The first I heard of it was during the wedding service. It is William, is it not?”

“It is. Why does that make you grin?”

“Because that’s Shakespeare’s name. And Issie idolizes William Shakespeare.”

“?‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’?” he murmured, and Bella thought it was a very good thing he had never quoted Shakespeare to Issie, or she would have been unable to resist him. And then William was kissing her, and soon she couldn’t think at all.