Cressida bit her lip. Smiling tensely she asked, “So advancing Miss Hardwicke’s happiness isn’t the last time you’re prepared to... rattle society’s sensibilities?”
Justin cocked his head, then raised his eyes heavenward. “Lord, Cressida, haven’t I already sa
id I can refuse you nothing?”
Cressida covered her face with her hands and shivered with hopeful resolve as she thought of the terrible plights of the four Vestal Virgins and of how much she’d like to see their collective happiness advanced.
“Thank you, Justin,” she murmured, dropping her hands to smile up at her husband. A smile with an edge of devilry. Snapping open her fan, she fluttered her eyelashes over the top of its ivory tips. “Just know, my darling,” she whispered throatily, “that I’m prepared to go to great lengths to repay you for your efforts.”
Well-wishers cheered the bride and groom as they stepped out of St Mary’s. The turnout might have been sparser on account of a bridegroom less well connected than his predecessor, but the joy reflected on the faces of the bridal couple showed nothing but their own happiness.
Their closest kin had not abandoned them, nor had Miss Hardwicke’s fears been realized, that following her heart’s desire would shorten her mother’s life. In fact, rumor had it that Mrs. Hardwicke had rallied on account of the sudden support of her younger brother, Sir Robert, and his unexpected largesse in providing his niece with a handsome dowry.
Justin clasped Cressida’s hand and squeezed it briefly as several children cast rose petals from their rush baskets at the now serenely smiling bride and the grinning bridegroom, his unfettered pleasure a welcome contrast to the bemused diffidence he’d shown barely a week ago when informing Cressida and Justin that his suit had been accepted. The intensely shy and quiet young man had been all but dragged out of his lodgings by Justin and his landlady, the redoubtable Mrs. Sminks, to beg his love to take a chance on the promise of his imminent elevation and renege on her contract with the bridegroom for whom she felt nothing but abhorrence. Miss Hardwicke had been due to wed Lord Slitherton within days and, although the strength of her feelings for Mr. Pendleton had been in no doubt, it had taken some persuasion to convince her that she was not going to be, indirectly, the death of her ailing mama.
Cressida considered herself justly proud of the current state of affairs and so felt a surge of pleasure and gratification when she caught sight of Madame Zrelli. Her former benefactress had brought tears to the eyes of the congregation with her pure, sweet voice in church earlier.
Now the brilliant sunshine that sliced through the lowering sky illuminated the rawness of Madame Zirelli’s feelings as she raised her head to peer past Annabelle Luscombe’s rose-trimmed bonnet in order to observe the daughter she’d lost all those years ago standing on the church steps with her new husband.
Sheathed in a fashionable gown of iris blue silk with opaque sleeves and a fetching bonnet adorned with tumbling roses, Madame Zirelli was a striking figure as she stood a little distance from the crowd.
The handsome gentleman who joined her appeared to think so too, remarked Cressida, pointing him out to Justin. Tall and distinguished looking, Sir Robert said something that caused his companion to jerk up her head and clasp her hand to her mouth.
A rustle of silk and the scent of musk made Cressida turn as a familiar voice murmured, “Word has it that Sir Robert is in the market for a wife and, by the cunning look on her face, the hired entertainment imagines she’s in the running.” The scorn in Catherine’s thin voice cut through Cressida like a lance. She glared as Catherine went on, “She might sing like a nightingale, but she’ll forever be tainted by Mrs. Plumb’s. Naturally, I had to make it clear to as many as I could that Mrs. Plumb’s Salon of Sin is where Sir Robert found his faded opera singer. I’m astonished she has the gall to mix with the invited guests.”
Justin looked strangely at his wife’s cousin. Catherine’s mouth was pursed as if she’d eaten a lemon.
“If you consider yourself more of a lady than Madame Zirelli, I’d remind you to keep your voice down, Catherine. We are in a public square, and Madame Zirelli is an opera singer whose reputation is in no way besmirched by the fact she lodges with Mrs. Plumb.” He exchanged glances with Cressida, who laughed at her cousin’s shock when he added, “You may be surprised that my old !iend Madame Zirelli is now an intimate of Cressida’s. Perhaps you would be persuaded to revise your opinion of her if you were to join us for dinner next week, when we shall entertain Madame Zirelli and a selection of notables from the arts.” He paused, his eyes still resting on Madame Zirelli and her companion. “I believe Sir Robert will also be on the guest list,” he added.
Catherine, usually so quick with her acid rejoinders, was momentarily rendered speechless.
Justin continued, “For some weeks, I attended Madame Zirelli at her lodgings at Mrs. Plumb’s establishment on a legal matter, just as I’d advised her of her rights eight years earlier, with regard to her then husband Lord Grainger’s ill treatment of her.”
“Lately, she has advised me on other matters”—Cressida’s smile was secretive as she looked first at Catherine then at her husband —“which have greatly facilitated my happiness.”
Before Catherine could snap closed her gaping mouth, their attention was diverted by the collective gasp that rippled through the crowd. The bride had tossed her bouquet over her shoulder, and half a dozen young hopefuls were jostling each other with unseemly enthusiasm as it flew through the air. All eyes were on the trailing pink ribbons that secured the bouquet of white roses as it sailed in a graceful arc over the single misses at the front of the pack to land neatly in the unsuspecting Madame Zirelli’s now demurely clasped hands.
Cressida, like everyone else, saw Sir Robert smile and whisper something in Madame Zirelli’s ear, causing her to raise her hand to her breast and a fiery blush to stain her cheeks.
A few drops of rain caused a titter of concern, drawing attention from the clearly unworthy recipient—in the eyes of the crowd, at least—and galvanizing Mr. Pendleton into action as he ushered his bride across the cobblestones toward the waiting carriage.
Sir Robert, Cressida knew, had lent the handsome equipage to his so-called niece’s husband until they were in a position to acquire a suitable conveyance. She knew, also, that his generosity had not stopped there, and that he’d decided to reside permanently in England.
As she glanced between the bride—whose naturally serious features were transformed into a picture of sheer delight—and Madame Zirelli, she could not help but note the astonishing resemblance. In their shared moment of joy, there could be no doubt that the two Castilian beauties were related, and with a spear of foreboding, Cressida glanced at Catherine, thin lipped, beside her.
It was Justin’s intuitive murmur, “What does opinion matter when one is cocooned in happiness and not rejected by one’s family?” which set Cressida’s mind at rest and reinforced the decision never to let others, particularly Catherine, cause her to question herself .
“Loyalty is a fine trait, except when it causes unnecessary pain,” Cressida remarked with a wry smile, indicating the newlyweds, weaving their way through the crowd. “Any mother would be proud to claim Miss Hardwicke for her daughter, considering how ready she was to throw away her happiness for the sake of her ailing parent.”
Justin squeezed Cressida’s waist. “And Mr. Pendleton’s astonishing persistence in persuading his young bride of the merits of a love match with an aspiring man of the courts, over security and money, has convinced me he will go far.”
Another glance in the direction of Madame Zirelli and Sir Robert made Cressida catch her breath. In the twilight of their lives, each looked as if they’d discovered the elixir of happiness. Their radiance almost eclipsed that of the newlyweds, until with a shriek the new Mrs. Pendleton was whisked into the arms of her new husband, who covered the final yards to the carriage as if he couldn’t wait to escape with her.
“My congratulations, Lady Lovett,” Justin said fondly, “for notching up such success in your first matchmaking venture. I shall not hesitate to recommend you.”
His words were overheard by Sir Robert, engaged in conversation with Annabelle Luscombe nearby, to whom he appeared to be introducing Madame Zirell
i.