The Bride of Ivy Green Read online

  Jane knocked softly, in case Gabriel was resting. When no one came to the door, she tried the latch and found it unlocked, then remembered Gabriel saying he never locked his door. She quietly eased it open and let herself in, wondering where everyone was. Perhaps Sadie had not heard her knock. Jane tiptoed down the passage to the master bedchamber and found the door open. Inside she saw Gabriel lying atop the bedclothes, dressed in his shirtsleeves, lap rug over his legs, but otherwise much as she’d last seen him, a book open over his chest, eyes closed.

  For a moment she simply relished the sight of him. The thick hair falling over his brow. The fan of dark lashes against his cheeks, already shadowed with whiskers this late in the day. The rise and fall of his broad chest.

  She slipped inside, quietly crossed the room, and leaned over the bed, her fingers itching to touch him. Reaching out, she brushed the hair from his forehead.

  His eyes opened. “Jane,” he said, voice groggy from sleep. “I must have drifted off. Only meant to rest a bit.”

  “I don’t like finding you alone. Where are Susie, Sadie, and Mrs. Mullins?”

  “Susie has gone to her family’s for the evening. Sadie as well. Mrs. Mullins was here earlier but was needed at home.”

  “But you need help, stuck in bed as you are. I hope you haven’t been left alone for long?” She sat on the corner of the counterpane. “I realize it isn’t perfectly proper for me to be in your bedroom with no one else in the house. But in your current state, I suppose it’s all right.”

  One black brow rose. “And what current state is that?”

  “I only meant that you’re harmless now. No one would think you were going to carry me off in your arms as you are. You are still a patient, after all.”

  “No one would think that, would they?” he said, a dangerous glint in his eye. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, pulled her close, and kissed her.

  Not so harmless after all.

  When he released her, Jane rose a bit breathlessly. “Well, I . . . guess you’re feeling better.” She smoothed her mussed skirts. “May I bring you anything? Tea or something to eat?”

  “I am not . . . Actually, yes. Thank you. A glass of water would be welcome.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  Jane went to the kitchen, filled two glasses from the pitcher, then returned to the room. A few feet inside the door, she drew up short, water sloshing from the glasses. The bed was empty.

  A creek of floorboards brought her head around. What she saw caused her to whirl full about, sloshing more water onto the floor.

  There stood Gabriel, fully dressed except for shoes, standing on his own power.

  “Gabriel!”

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “Welcome home, Jane.”

  “But . . . ! How . . . ? When?” With trembling hands, she set the water glasses on the bedside table.

  “Sensation began to return the day you left, but I didn’t mention it. I didn’t want to raise your hopes or mine. But Dr. Burton and Mrs. Mullins have been working with me to help me regain strength. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You did!”

  “The doctor still wants me to take it easy. To rest every day—which is what I was doing when you came in.”

  “You might have said so straightaway.”

  He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “I . . . thought it best to put on trousers first. Besides, it’s more fun to show than tell.”

  He picked up a walking stick and gingerly took a few steps toward her. “Still a little weak but getting stronger every day.”

  Jane clasped her hands and pressed them to her lips, tears of joy heating her eyes. Thank you, God!

  Gabriel held out his arms, and she walked into them. They held each other close in a long, warm embrace.

  Welcome home, indeed.

  chapter

  Fifteen

  That night Jane slept fitfully and dreamt of her father. In the dream, she was stunned to learn that he had been living alone and forgotten in dilapidated Fairmont House all these years, and not in India as she’d thought. The house was falling down around him, but still he sat there amidst the rubble, alone.

  Gabriel discovered the truth and glared at her. “He’s been alive all these years and you never told me? Never visited?”

  Remorse swamped her. “I’m sorry!”

  Jane awoke, breathing hard, the apology on her lips. How relieved she was to find it had only been a dream. Even so, the dread of it clung to her like acrid smoke.

  Then she recalled Gabriel’s recovery and their happy reunion of the evening before, and the dread began to dissipate. She rose, dressed in her riding habit, and rode back to the farm to see him.

  He sat in his office drinking coffee and perusing an auction bill when she arrived, but he rose gingerly when she entered, surprised and pleased to see her again so soon.

  She stepped into his embrace. “I just had to make sure last night was not a dream.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” He nuzzled her cheek and neck, enveloping her in the tangy smells of shaving soap, coffee, and cinnamon. He whispered, “I had the strangest dream that you finally agreed to marry me. Better kiss me, or I’ll never believe it’s true.”

  She chuckled and raised on tiptoes to kiss him.

  A short while later, Jane rode back to The Bell, filled with joy over Gabriel’s love and warmed by his kisses. But as she groomed Athena in the stables, she found her thoughts returning to Gabriel’s earlier admonition that she needed to forgive her father and write to him again. She was not sure about the first, but after her horrid dream, she decided she would at least write to him to share the good news of her engagement.

  On her way to the office for pen and paper, Jane passed the coffee room and jerked to an abrupt halt.

  Mercy and her aunt were sitting at one of the tables. Matilda Grove leaned forward, all animation, laughing and talking to a man with tan, leathery skin, silver-and-brown hair, and a startlingly familiar profile. Her stomach lurched. Papa . . . ?

  Surely the man only resembled her father. Jane had been thinking of him just moments before, so he was in her thoughts and evidently was now appearing in her imagination.

  “You look the same as ever, Matilda,” the man said in a voice that stole Jane’s breath.

  “Then you’ve lost your eyesight, Win. And you are as brown as a berry, except for your hair. My goodness—we’ve both gone and got old.”

  “I own that charge, but you should not. You are a sight for these poor sunburned eyes, I can tell you.”

  As Jane stood there, stricken into stillness, Mercy glanced up and noticed her there. Her smile fell away. She looked concerned, almost guilty. “Here is Jane.”

  The man turned to glance over his shoulder, and Jane’s heart hitched. The eyes in that tanned face were as familiar to her as her own.

  Her father’s expression transformed from tentative pleasure to wariness. He might very well wonder about her reception after their parting, almost nine years ago now.

  “Jane.” The single syllable sounded like a question and an answered prayer rolled into one.

  He rose and turned to her. And for a moment they stood like that, a few yards apart.

  Miss Matty’s voice broke the awkward silence. “Can you believe it, Jane? There were Mercy and I walking along the High Street, and whom should we see? The nabob himself, back from India at last.”

  “We were only keeping him company until you returned, Jane,” Mercy added gently.

  Matilda’s eyes sparkled as she looked at Winston Fairmont. “Don’t just stand there, Win. That’s not a proper greeting. Go on and kiss your daughter. Don’t hesitate on our account.” She gave his arm a little nudge.

  He stepped forward and, when Jane didn’t pull away, pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  Mercy stood and turned to her aunt, sending her a significant look. “Come, Aunt Matty. Let us leave these two to their reunion.”

  “Oh, v
ery well.” Matilda rose. “But you must promise to visit us at Ivy Cottage while you’re here, Win. How long do you plan to stay?”

  “My . . . plans are not yet definite. But I will pay a call soon.”

  Matilda beamed at him. “We shall hold you to it!” She paused to put on her bonnet, but Mercy took her arm and led her from the room, murmuring something about a mirror in the hall she could use.

  Dear Mercy. Mercy understood.

  When the Miss Groves had left them, Jane sat down and gestured for her father to reclaim his seat.

  “I am astonished,” she began. “I thought to never see you again.”

  “Did you not receive my reply to your letter?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “Apparently I reached Ivy Hill before it did.” He sighed. “I was surprised to receive a letter from you at last and should have guessed it contained bad news. I was sorry to hear about your husband, Jane. It is why I am here. At least in part.”

  “Thank you. But as I wrote, I am well. I never intended that my letter should force you to travel all this way.” Jane looked around the empty coffee room. “Is your . . . wife . . . not with you?”

  He grimaced. “No. I’m afraid not. She died in September.”

  Her gaze flew to his. “Oh, Papa. I am sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course. I would never wish her any harm.”

  “Although you were angry with me for marrying her.”

  “I was angry with you, yes. For many things.” Jane felt her defenses rising. “But that was a long time ago.”

  He flinched. “It sounds as if you are still angry.”

  “Can you not understand? That you still esteemed and longed for another woman, after all those years married to Mamma . . . It seemed like a betrayal.”

  “Yes, I always remembered Rani fondly. And a mutual friend mentioned her in his letters from time to time, so I knew she had not married. When your mother died, I thought I might have a second chance at happiness.”

  “Logical or not, it felt like you abandoned me. Abandoned us all. Selling everything without notice and with no intention of returning.”

  “I waited until you married, Jane,” he said gently, “until you were settled.”

  “I know you did. It seemed as if you were glad to have me off your hands.”

  “I thought you were happy with John. Was it so wrong for me to wish to be happy as well?”

  When she did not answer, he leaned across the table and touched her arm. “I am sorry, Jane. But after your mother’s drawn-out illness and death, I wanted to escape the pressing grief—be anywhere but here.”

  Jane clenched her hands in her lap. “And were you happy in India?”

  “I was, yes. Eventually. Rani’s family was against the match, insisted she needed to marry one of her own countrymen. Finally they agreed, though reluctantly. We had several happy years together, thank God. I only wish it could have been more.”

  Noticing Bobbin return with bottles from the cellar, Jane lowered her voice. “How did she die?”

  With a glance at the barman, her father grimaced. “Cholera. But that is not a conversation for a public coffee room.”

  “I am sorry.” Her poor father had lost two wives, Jane realized, her heart beginning to thaw toward him.

  They sat in silence for several moments, then Jane changed the subject. “Have you just arrived?”

  “Yes. Reached the coast a few days ago and arrived in Wiltshire yesterday.”

  “You must be exhausted. I hope you were not thinking of staying in Fairmont House?”

  “Of course not. I sold that years ago. Why? Is it empty?”

  “No. It is a hotel. So, actually, you probably could stay there, if you wished.”

  His face slackened. “A hotel? How did that come about?”

  “The admiral you sold it to died soon after you left, and his heir put it up for sale. It never sold, until a hotelier bought it recently.”

  “You can’t have liked that.”

  “No. But at least the new owner is a kind and helpful person. Though I admit seeing all the changes stung.”

  “I can only imagine. What do they call it?”

  “The Fairmont.”

  “You don’t say. . . . Never dreamed of having a hotel named after me.”

  “But you can stay here in The Bell, if you like.”

  “Thank you, Jane, but I have already taken rooms in Wilton.”

  “Have you? Why?”

  “I did not wish to presume. Or be a burden.”

  “You would not have been.” Did she truly mean that? She hoped so. “Well, then . . . I see you’ve had tea, but you must be hungry from your journey.”

  “I long for good English food, I don’t deny.”

  Jane smiled. “That we have. And plenty of it.”

  He rose. “But tomorrow, Jane, if that’s all right. The morning grows late, and I should catch the stage back.”

  “Are you sure? You could quit your rooms in Wilton and stay here, you know.”

  “I am . . . content where I am for now. But perhaps later. Thank you, Jane. I shall see you tomorrow.” He reached toward her, hesitated, and let his hand fall back to his side.

  After her father left, Jane saddled Athena for the second time that day, eager to tell Gabriel the astounding news of her father’s return. As she rode back out to the farm, she realized she’d completely forgotten to mention their engagement, so stunned she’d been to see him. She would tell her father the next day, she decided, and bring him out to meet Gabriel as soon as she could.

  After Mercy and Matilda returned from London, George and Helena welcomed them warmly and treated them more cordially than before. Mercy began to think she had been wrong to feel herself unwanted.

  But at dinner the next evening, her misgivings returned.

  It was only the three of them at the table. Matilda had been invited to spend the evening with the Miss Cooks, who were eager to hear about her time in London.

  “I have had a letter from my parents,” Helena began. “They are coming to visit. Of course they will need a place to sleep.”

  “They may use my parents’ room,” George replied.

  “But did you not tell me, Mr. Grove, that your parents’ bedchamber is sacrosanct?”

  “Well . . . I think we may justly put your parents in that bedchamber when they come. I shall simply write to Mamma and Papa and ask them not to visit at the same time.”

  “There are also my younger brother and sister to consider. We cannot ask them to share a room. They are not children any longer.”

  George sawed his roast, unperturbed. “Lydia may have my old room now that Miss Ashford . . . that is, Lady Brockwell, has moved out. And Alistair is a strapping boy of—what—fourteen now? The old governess’s room in the attic shall serve him well, I imagine. He’ll clamber up all those stairs without trouble. Probably like being far away from the adults.”

  “But, my love, the housemaid keeps a room up there, as does my lady’s maid.”

  “Why yes, but at the opposite end of the attic.”

  “Still, I don’t know that it would be proper to put a guest with servants.”

  Mercy resolutely set down fork and knife. “Don’t trouble yourself, Helena. I shall move my things upstairs.”

  Helena tipped a pert chin in her direction. “I was thinking your dear Aunt Matilda might like the solitude, but if you prefer it . . .”

  “That would be a great many stairs for Aunt Matty, but I am young and strong.”

  Helena said, “Relatively speaking, of course.”

  George frowned. “Mercy, no. That room has been yours for as long as I can remember. My dear, we cannot put Mercy out of her own room.”

  “No one is forcing her! She volunteered, quite graciously. Thank you, Mercy.”

  For a moment, George held his wife’s gaze, mouth tight. But whatever he saw in her icy eyes dissolved his objections. “Well, then. Yes, thank you, Merc
y,” he echoed with an apologetic smile. “And it’s only temporary. I am sure they don’t mean to stay more than a week or so.”

  “True.” Helena nodded. “The arrangement will ease my mind about this particular visit. But when our own children arrive . . .” Her words trailed away on a vague little gesture of her pale hand.

  George said, “The old nursery upstairs has become little more than a storage room, but it could with some alteration be made up into a fine nursery again. It is where I slept as a child, after all, until I was breeched and given my own room on this floor.”

  “Our beloved infant so far away from its mother? I could not abide it, Mr. Grove.”

  George rose, stepping to the decanter to pour himself a glass of port. He murmured, “You may change your mind when said infant cries its lungs out at three in the morning.”

  “What was that?”

  “Not a thing, my love. You know best.” With a wink at Mercy, he returned to the table, where he bent and kissed his wife’s forehead.

  Helena’s brow remained furrowed. “You realize, my dear, that with an event like a christening, both sets of parents will want to attend, and then where shall we put everyone?”

  George said mildly, “Shall we not wait and cross that bridge when the blessed event arrives, my love?”

  “I am only thinking ahead.” Helena chuckled, but it sounded derisive in Mercy’s ears. “It sometimes seems that I must do the thinking for the both of us.”

  George frowned again. “That was uncalled for, my dear.”

  “I only mean it is difficult for you to see the situation clearly, being so entrenched in the past and how things have always been in Ivy Cottage. Far easier for a newcomer to have a clear perspective on the future. You do see that, I trust?”

  She bestowed on him her most charming smile, and it worked its magic.

  George’s chest puffed out with pride. “What I see is a beautiful woman, and clever in the bargain.” He grinned at Mercy. “Am I not blessed, sister, in my choice of wife?”

  Mercy obliged with a nod. “Yes.”

  “It is a pity you have missed the blessing of matrimony, Mercy,” Helena said, not unkindly.