The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(15)

He’d always liked petite blondes, but he’d realized during that conversation that what his heart most longed for was a petite practical blonde.

Gareth watched his wife write, and thought about words, about how whole had meant one thing to him yesterday and another thing to him today. And then he thought about words like loss and less and never. Words that made him feel unhappy and frustrated. Words he wasn’t going to use about himself anymore. Yes, he’d lost his arm. Yes, he’d never get it back. But right now, in this cozy bedchamber, he was happy. In fact, he was quite certain that he was happier than he’d ever been before.

From now on I won’t think about what I’ve lost; I’ll think about what I have. His life. Cecily. Ned. Higgs, with his whistling and his deft way of fastening bandages. Mulberry Hall. The baronetcy.

He smiled to himself and watched Cecily write. His beautiful, practical wife.

Cecily glanced at him, saw that he was awake, and laid down her quill.

“What are you writing?” Gareth asked.

“A journal for our daughters.”

Gareth lifted his eyebrows. “Our daughters?”

“I’m telling them what to expect on their wedding nights. If I should die while they’re still young, I don’t want them to go into their marriages as ignorant as I was.”

Gareth thought this through. After a moment he said, “Practical,” although what he really wanted to say was, I won’t let you die.

“I’m a practical person,” Cecily said.

“I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.” He smiled at her, and then stifled a sudden yawn. “I’d better get back to my room before I fall asleep.” He groped for his discarded nightshirt.

“You can sleep here,” Cecily said. “If you’d like.”

Gareth stilled. “What would you prefer?” he asked cautiously.

“I’d like you to stay.”

Gareth felt himself blush with pleasure. His wife wanted to sleep with him. “All right.”

Cecily smiled at him and blew out the candle on the dressing table, then she came back to the bed. She slipped off her wrap and stood in the candlelight for a brief moment, naked and beautiful, and then climbed in with him. She rearranged the pillows, tucked the bedcovers around them, and nestled close, her cheek on his chest.

Gareth put his arm around her. His wife, who made him feel whole again. He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Was tonight what you expected?”

“No,” she said. “It was a lot better. Was it what you expected?”

“No.” Only a few hours ago he’d stood in his bedchamber and listed all the things he mustn’t do tonight—and then he’d gone and done them all, plus a few more, and the end result had been . . . miraculous. “It was a lot better.”





Afterwards





Cecy learned many things during her first year of marriage—how to run a large household, how to plan a menu, how to host a dinner party. She learned about pregnancy and childbirth and about being a mother, and everything she learned, she wrote down. The journal had a name now—The Book of Wifely Knowledge: For Phoebe—and when their second child was born, Cecy copied its contents into a matching journal—The Book of Wifely Knowledge: For Emma. Everything from wedding nights to managing servants to raising children. She added some recipes, too, things she had learned to make in the still-room: lavender water and essence of rose, bramble wine and elderflower cordial.

When Benjamin was born, Gareth started a journal for him. Cecy saw him working on it from time to time, but she didn’t try to read it, any more than Gareth tried to read the journals she was writing for their daughters. But she knew one thing that was in it, because he’d asked her for it: the recipe for what was arguably the best mulled wine in the county.

They were drinking that mulled wine now. A fire burned in the grate and the shutters were closed against the winter night and the drawing room was cozy. Cecy sipped her wine, sweet and spicy, tasting of cinnamon and cloves, ginger and orange zest. She glanced across at Mattie and Edward Kane. This was one of her favorite times of the year: Christmas, when Mattie and Edward came to stay for a month, and Mulberry Hall filled with adults and children and laughter.

“Shall we stage home theatricals this year?” Mattie said. “I think the older children would enjoy it.”

“They’d love it!” Cecy said.

“One of Perrault’s tales,” Gareth suggested. “Puss in Boots? Sleeping Beauty?”

“Little Red Riding Hood,” Edward said. “I’ll be the wolf.” He bared his teeth, and he did look savage, with those scars across his face—and then he grinned, and he was no longer in the least bit frightening.

Cecy fetched a copy of Perrault’s tales and they listened as Mattie read first Little Red Riding Hood and then Puss in Boots aloud. How familiar this was: a dark winter’s evening, Mattie’s voice rising and falling as she read. If she closed her eyes Cecy could almost imagine herself back at Creed Hall.

Except that Mattie had read sermons at Creed Hall, not children’s tales, and the drawing room had been chilly, not cozy, and Mattie had had to stand while she read, and there had never, ever been mulled wine or laughter.

Cecy looked across at Mattie curled up on the sofa, and at Edward sprawled alongside her. He was smiling as he listened to his wife, his eyes heavy-lidded, almost closed, and that reminded her of Creed Hall, too: Edward falling asleep whenever Mattie read the evening sermon.