Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(92)

“You did,” their mother said. “But I did not believe you, Stephanie. I thought she was going to marry that tall, good-looking Welshman. Devlin?”

“No, Mama,” he said. “She is going to marry me.”

“It is the scar that did it, Mother,” Ben said. “It makes Dev irresistible to the ladies. They forget the tall, good-looking ones as soon as they set eyes on that face of his.”

“Devlin,” his mother said again, and came toward him, her hands extended for his. “I did not see it coming, I must admit, just as I did not . . . last time.” Her voice faltered for a moment. “I am very happy for you. Gwyneth will be a fine countess and a good wife.”

“I know, Mama,” he said, setting his hands in hers. “It was important that I choose someone who can do the job well.”

Stephanie was coming toward him too, her eyes shining, her arms spread wide. Owen was grinning at him. Ben was smiling. And then—

“Look out!” Owen roared, and he dived for a large urn, which was swaying ominously on its base, and Ben swept Joy to safety and blew softly in her ear and murmured low words to comfort her loud wails of protest at having her game so rudely interrupted.

Devlin stepped back out onto the terrace five minutes later to see them all on their way. By that time his mother had learned from him that the wedding date had been set for December 23, the day before the children’s Christmas party at the hall. She had announced her intention of calling upon Lady Rhys tomorrow to discuss the wedding, and Devlin had informed her that Lady Rhys intended to call upon her tomorrow for the same purpose.

“They can wave to each other in passing,” Owen said.

Devlin had a growing suspicion that his idea of a wedding was not going to fit with anyone else’s, particularly those of the three women at the heart of it all—Gwyneth, her mother, and his. His determination not to be an autocrat was to be put to an early test, it seemed.

“Devlin,” Lady Rhys had said to him when he had made the remark over champagne and cakes that neither she nor his mother need worry their heads over the wedding since it was surely going to be a small and quiet event. “Weddings are for the mothers of the bride and groom. It is you and Gwyneth who need not worry your heads over the details.”

Gwyneth, far from backing him up, had merely twinkled at him and said nothing.

“Is Pippa not going with you?” he asked now as Owen was handing their mother and then Stephanie into the carriage.

“No,” Owen said.

“Where is she?” Devlin asked.

But his brother merely shrugged and disappeared inside the carriage.

He was going to have to go and find her, Devlin decided. This was disturbing. It must not be allowed to continue. Perhaps for everyone else the memory of how she had been at the age of fifteen had faded. For him it was as vivid as if it had been yesterday.

As it happened he did not even have to start searching. He glanced upward as he was climbing the steps back to the front doors and there she was, sitting inside the turret room at the front of the west wing, her back to him. She had not even watched her family leaving, then. He frowned as he continued on his way to his own room. He changed quickly out of his finery and went up to the turret.





Chapter Twenty-Three





The room had been warmed by the sunlight shining through all the windows, just as the summerhouse had been yesterday. Philippa was sitting on one of the deep sofas, nothing in her hands and no book or needlework or anything else beside her—just as there had been nothing out in the rose arbor a week or so ago. She turned her head only long enough to see who had come to intrude upon her privacy, and then continued gazing through the window in the direction of the lake. Devlin went to stand by the window and looked out in the same direction, though he was careful not to obstruct her view.

“I have just come back from Cartref,” he said after the silence had stretched for a minute or two. “I have offered for Gwyneth and she has accepted me. I need a countess.” He needed a wife, though he did not try to explain to himself what the difference between the two was exactly.

“I am happy for you,” she said after a few beats more of silence. “I used to assume that it would be Nicholas who would marry Gwyneth, but I think maybe it was always you with her. We heard that she was very . . . sad after you left. It was she you were with that night.”

“Yes,” he said.

The lake looked cold as a small cloud moved over the sun, and he wondered if it would freeze over this winter. It did sometimes. They used to go out there and skate and slide though they had always been warned to stay close to the edges, where the ice would be thickest. He and Nick—rarely Ben—had always tested those limits, of course, when there were no adults close enough to bellow at them. Or save them if they fell through. Children were often idiots by their very nature.

“You are not planning to come with Steph and me this evening?” he asked her. “She wants to learn to waltz.”

“No,” she said.

“Are you going to the assembly tomorrow evening?” he asked.

“I suppose I will feel obliged to,” she said, “since it is to be held here. Though you are not going to be the master of ceremonies, are you?”

“No,” he said. “That will be Colonel Wexford. It will not be in any way a family affair. There are committees and subcommittees planning everything. I think people are enjoying themselves. I believe they felt a bit stifled for a number of years.” They had felt condescended to, he thought, though he did not say that aloud.