Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels 2)

She looked at him expectantly.

“Carys,” he said. “It means ‘little loved one.’ Do you like it?”

She nodded, and caught him thoroughly off guard by sitting in his lap. She weighed no more than a cat. Bemused and disconcerted by her ready acceptance of him, Rhys adjusted her on his legs. “Carys Winterborne. It’s a fine name, aye?” He glanced at Helen, and saw that her eyes were glistening. “We can call her anything you—”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, smiling through her tears. “Beautiful.” She reached out to caress his face, and nestled into his side.

For the rest of the way home, they both leaned against him . . . and it felt right.

Chapter 34

“FERNSBY, I’M ELOPING.”

After settling Helen and Carys at his house, Rhys wasted no time in going to his office and summoning his private secretary for an emergency meeting.

The statement was received with impressive sangfroid: Mrs. Fernsby displayed no reaction other than adjusting her spectacles. “Where and when, sir?”

“North Wales. Tonight.”

It wasn’t soon enough. Now that an actual wedding ceremony with Helen was within his grasp, he was in a fever to make it happen. He felt damnably giddy, poised at the brink of doing something foolish.

The feeling reminded him of an afternoon, late the previous summer, when he had been drinking with Tom Severin and some of their cohorts in a public house. They had watched some bees that had flown in through a window and settled on an abandoned pewter quartern with a few drops of rum left in it. The bees had guzzled the rum and had become noticeably inebriated, trying to fly away in dizzy, aimless loops, while one bee had simply reclined with its heels up at the bottom of the mug. Rhys and the others had found it uproarious, especially since they had been drinking steadily and were full up to the knocker themselves.

Now Rhys had far more sympathy for the bees, knowing exactly how they had felt. This was what love did to a man, turned him into nothing more than a half-crocked bee, flying upside down and in circles.

“If you intend to marry by special license,” Mrs. Fernsby said, “there might be a problem.”

He gave her a questioning glance.

“As far as I know,” Mrs. Fernsby continued, “the Archbishop only grants special licenses to peers or peeresses in their own right, members of Parliament, privy councilors, and judges. I’m not certain whether Lady Helen has the right or not, since hers is only a courtesy title. I’ll try and find out.”

“Tell the Archbishop to make an exception if necessary. Remind him that he owes me a favor.”

“What favor?”

“He’ll know,” Rhys said. Filled with vigor, he paced around his desk. “We’ll take my private train carriage to Caernarvon. Arrange for a suite at the Royal Hotel for at least a week.”

“Will you want Quincy to travel with you?”

“Aye, and find a lady’s maid to come with us.”

Now Fernsby was beginning to look perturbed. “Mr. Winterborne, one can’t simply ‘find’ a lady’s maid. There’s a process—putting notices in the paper—conducting interviews—reading recommendations—”

“Fernsby, of the hundreds of women I employ, can you not find one who can arrange a lady’s hair and button the back of a dress?”

“I believe there’s slightly more to the job than that, sir,” she said dryly. “But I will find someone.”

“While you’re at it, hire a nursemaid as well.”

Mrs. Fernsby stopped writing. “A nursemaid as well,” she said dazedly.

“Aye, we’ll be bringing a four-year-old girl with us. Also, she’ll need clothes and toys. Put one of the sales clerks in charge of that.”

“I see.”

“And Lady Helen will need some new things to wear. Have Mrs. Allenby take care of it. Tell her I want to see Lady Helen in anything other than black.” Tapping his fingers on the desk, he mused, “I suppose it might be too much to ask for a wedding dress . . .”

“Mr. Winterborne,” Mrs. Fernsby exclaimed, “do you actually expect all this to be accomplished by tonight?”

“Fernsby, you have the greater part of a day, as long as you don’t lollygag over lunch.” As she began to protest, Rhys said, “I’ll handle the arrangements for the special train.”

“What about all the rest of it?” she called after him, as he strode from his office. “What about flowers? A cake? What about—”

“Don’t bother me with details,” he said over his shoulder. “Just make it all happen.”

“SO NOW WE’RE friends again,” Tom Severin said in satisfaction, stretching out his legs and resting them on the large bronze desk in his fifth-floor office.

“Only because I want something,” Rhys said. “Not because I have any liking for you.”

“My friends don’t have to like me,” Severin assured him. “In fact, I prefer it if they don’t.”

Rhys sternly held back a grin. “The friendship is contingent upon whether or not you can actually provide the favor,” he reminded him.

Severin held up a hand in a brief staying gesture. “A moment.” He raised his voice. “Barnaby! The information I requested?”

“Here it is, sir.” Severin’s personal secretary, a stocky fellow with rumpled clothing and hair that sprang in a wild mass of uncombed curls, hurried into the office with a sheaf of papers. He set them carefully on the desk. “Four private stations I’ve found so far, sir. Awaiting confirmation on the fifth.”