Sapphire

“Because you love me,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

“Because I have loved you, whoever you are, from the day you stood in that parlor waiting to set my arrogant self straight.” He smiled roguishly. “So will you? Will you marry me so that I do not have to continue searching the streets of Boston and New York and heaven knows where else?”

“Yes,” she cried, throwing her arms around him.

Blake wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her into the air. “Yes?”

“Yes!” She held him tightly, lifting her face to his. “Yes, I will marry you, Blake Thixton, Earl of Wessex, and, yes, I love you. I just wanted to hear you say it. It’s all I wanted. I’ve loved you from the very first day you walked your arrogant self into my father’s parlor.”

30

Three weeks later, Sapphire and Blake arrived in London and parted at the docks where they disembarked. Blake took a hired carriage to his town house in Mayfair while Sapphire took another to Lucia’s apartment in Charing Cross. As she alighted from the carriage, tipping the driver well, she adjusted her bonnet. Even after three weeks, she was still happy to be back in women’s clothing again. She didn’t even mind the corset she had once complained about.

After Blake’s epiphany on the docks in New York, they had remained there in the city, booking passage on the next passenger steamer leaving for London. In the week’s time they had to wait, they spent many hours shopping, and the hours they weren’t shopping, they spent in the huge four-poster bed at the Madison-James hotel. They made love more than a dozen times, and ate more than one bowl of strawberries and cream.

Blake had offered numerous times to make her his wife in one of the lovely churches in New York or Boston if she preferred, before they set sail. It seemed important to him that he make up for what he had seen as infidelity to her, but she had assured him that the subject of Grace was forgiven and forgotten, so long as he never walked into a room alone with her again.

It was important to Sapphire that Aunt Lucia and Angelique be present at their wedding, so London it would be. Her only regret was that Armand would not be there to celebrate her day, but that was of course impossible. She wasn’t even certain he was still alive.

At the door of Aunt Lucia’s apartments, Sapphire took a moment to smooth her blue and green floral barege gown with its full Marie sleeves tied at intervals with ribbon and a fashionable full pelèrine. She wore gloves dyed to match the blue in the dress and her wide-brimmed high-crowned bonnet was decorated with blue and green flowers. The flowers matched her eyes perfectly, Blake had pointed out as he kissed her goodbye on the docks and readjusted her bonnet for her.

Sapphire smiled to herself as she knocked on the door. Blake told her every day, practically every hour, that he loved her, and still she couldn’t get enough of those words. She couldn’t wait to hear what Angelique would have to say about that.

The door opened and Avena appeared in the doorway. She took one look at Sapphire and squealed in delight, grasped the hem of her white apron and raised it up over her face. “A ghost, God save me,” she swore. “I’ve seen a ghost!”

Sapphire laughed and walked in, removing her gloves. “Not a ghost, Avena—it’s me. See, me in the flesh.” She tapped her chest with her gloves and then hugged the maid.

“Is that Jessup, Avena?” Aunt Lucia called from down the hall. “Tell him I’m coming. We mustn’t be late. They’ll not hold the ship!”

Avena slowly drew the apron off her face, her eyes widening. “Not Mr. Stowe, madame,” she said in excellent English.

“Not Mr. Stowe?” Lucia’s voice grew louder as she came down the hall. “Then who—”

Sapphire turned to the hallway just as her godmother entered the parlor, slipping an earring onto her ear.

“Sapphire!” Aunt Lucia cried.

Sapphire ran into her aunt’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you,” she laughed, hugging the plump woman, resting her cheek on her shoulder to smell her French perfume. “I’ve missed you so much and I have so much to tell you!”

“It’s you! It’s really you!” Aunt Lucia leaned back and pressed her hands to Sapphire’s cheeks, looking up into her face. “I told Angelique you would be fine. That you were safe and that you would come home to—” Her hands flew suddenly to her mouth. “Oh, no. Angelique and Henry! Avena!” Aunt Lucia cried, hurrying toward her, flapping her arms. “Mr. Stowe, you must meet him on the street downstairs. He must get to the ship.”

“What ship?” Sapphire asked in confusion.

“The ship bound for Boston, of course,” Lucia said, as if Sapphire was a foolish child.

Avena ran out of the apartments, leaving Lucia to close the door behind her. “The one with Angelique and Henry on it. They married last week, packed their bags and booked passage to America. They were coming to look for you!”

Sapphire laughed, her eyes brimming with tears as she walked into Lucia’s arms again. “We can’t have that, Aunt Lucia. She has to be here for my wedding!”

Less than a month later, Sapphire stood in the vestibule of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, trembling inside her new pale blue silk slippers. Because of the title Blake held as the Earl of Wessex, he had been given permission to be married at Westminster Abbey and everyone who was anyone in London society had been invited, despite her protest that nothing more than a small, private ceremony was necessary.

Now, as Sapphire stood waiting for the trumpets to sound that would signal her entrance into the chapel, she found herself shaking all over. Nothing in the past six weeks seemed real to her, but suddenly, standing there, seeing Blake at the altar, it was all too real.

Her hand shaking, Sapphire brought a gloved finger to the jewel at the base of her throat. Blake had insisted he have the sapphire left to her by her mother set in a wedding necklace for her, and as beautiful as the jewel had been lying in the velvet bag in her mother’s keepsake casket, it was even more beautiful framed in diamonds, set in gold.

“Are you ready?” Angelique whispered in her ear.