Barbara’s Wedding
A Richard and Rose story
By
Lynne Connolly
Associated with Hareton Hall, which is available from Samhain Publishing
Attending the wedding of an old flame isn’t supposed to be easy, but since Rose has already found the love of her life, she can only feel happy for her friend.
The day starts with an affirmation of the love between Richard and Rose, before they go to the church and. The wedding will lead to complications, and Richard and Rose badly need this interval of tranquillity before Richard’s past comes back to threaten his present.
While this is a story in itself and can be read separately, you can read the rest of the tale in “Hareton Hall,” the latest Richard and Rose book, available in Kindle and all over major formats. The book will also be printed and be available from all good bookstores.
Barbara’s Wedding
Lynne Connolly
Published by Lynne Connolly at Smashwords
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Barbara’s Wedding Copyright © 2010 Lynne Connolly
Barbara’s Wedding
The morning of Tom’s wedding to Barbara arrived to a busy house. I could almost hear the hum as the maids went about their duties, and if I listened I could hear the jingle of harnesses as horses, carriages and equipages were buffed up in readiness for the short drive to the church.
I lay awake for fully half an hour next to my peacefully slumbering husband. When I felt him stir I turned to him, so the first thing he saw was my smile. He reached out an arm and drew me close. “Good morning, my sweet life.”
“Good morning, my love.” I kissed him in the hollow of his neck and he turned his head to kiss me properly.
“What time is the wedding?”
“Eleven. It’s still early.”
“Good.” He moved his hand up my back in a gentle caress. “I can remember the morning of our wedding so clearly.” He laughed a little. “I drank too much, and then I woke up in that bed where we’d made love a few weeks before. The memory did much to alleviate the headache, and the knowledge that I’d be sleeping with you that night, and as many nights as you wanted me to, stopped me caring about it.”
His tender smile warmed me. “I was so afraid. I didn’t know if my fear was of the audience or of marriage itself, but the moment I saw you I knew which one it was.”
He lifted himself on one elbow, the sheets rustling around him, morning light gilding his short hair. We generally left the drapes and the shutters undone in the country, where there was no one to overlook us. He liked that too. Someone, probably Nichols, had lit the fire, so the room would warm up soon.
He gazed down at my face. “Now I wake up every morning and feel that lift when I see you.” I put my hand down the sheets to touch him and he laughed. “I didn’t mean that, I meant in the spirit. But since you mention it…” He slid his knee between my legs, urging them apart. Laughing, I complied with his unspoken request.
He bent his head and kissed me, thrusting his tongue deep, and at the same time, I felt him push his way inside me, not stopping until his shaft was fully embedded inside my body.
I sighed in happiness. “I never imagined marriage would be like this.”
“Neither did I.” He began to move in the rhythm we knew so well, the one that came to us fresh every time. Our own dance.
“Oh I hope this time—” I bit off my words, but a shadow of concern crossed his face.
“What is it, my love?” He kept up his insistent drive and I sighed and moved up to meet him.
“That I quicken.”
He paused and gazed down at me seriously, changing his motion to short, sharp stabs. “I don’t care. Cousin Emery is married to his pretty little Cit now, and if we don’t provide heirs, they will. In fact, I don’t want you to go through it too many more times. Helen’s was an easy birth, I’m told, and I pray that the next one—if there is one—will be no harder. We stop after four, even if they are all girls. I’ll love them all, and thank God when you both come through safely.”
He kissed me and began to move once more, angling my body to receive his, feeling him stroke that part of me that sent me to heaven. I cried out, little cries of abandon, and opened my eyes to be sent higher by his expression of total love.
“But we don’t stop this. I can’t. I love you, Rose, my life, my sweetheart, mi adorata, beloved.” With each endearment he plunged deep inside me, and I let him take me with him this time. “I want you—not any children you may bring.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Richard, I don’t deserve this—” and tears rolled down my face as he brought me to climax once more, surges of sensation sweeping over me until I drowned in them and called out to him.
“Who does?” He spoke more roughly as passion swept over him, filling me with his heat, his life force. I felt his loving surge through me, and I saw him open his eyes, force himself to think of my satisfaction. We had never talked about that part of our loving, his courtesy in ensuring my satisfaction before his, but I noted it and treasured it, knowing most men wouldn’t think in that way. It might be the reason his old lovers thought of him fondly, that he’d made no enemies amongst them. But he belonged to me now, and as the familiar, miraculous wave grew again, he shuddered and his cries joined mine as he spurted hotly into my receptive body.
He held me tightly. “I love you, my life, my heart,” he whispered so quietly next to my ear before he withdrew. I kept my eyes closed before I moved close to him, felt his arms around me.
“That was the best way to start a wedding day that I can think of,” I said.
I heard his contented laugh. “And every other day.”
We lay together for a while, caressing each other, but saying nothing. We felt no need.
When he finally rose to go to his room and dress, I watched him go, enjoying the sight of his lean, muscular body, thankful that we shared a bed.
I knew now how much he needed me. It frightened me sometimes, since when he called me “my life”, he meant it. I had my family, but his, apart from Gervase, gave him no solace, no support.
Nichols came in and picked up my dressing gown from the chair by the fire, where she’d laid it to warm the night before. Determinedly, I threw back the covers and got up. In the early days of my marriage, I’d been embarrassed, shy even, that Nichols and Carier saw us in bed, but they were the only people to do so, and their lack of comment lessened my discomfiture until I was hardly aware of it.
After I’d washed with the blessedly hot water we had these days, I sat at the dressing table and Nichols began the familiar task of dressing my hair. Nichols delighted me by the way she turned my thick, curly chestnut hair into a gleaming, fashionable style. Some women employed hairdressers to visit them every week or so, but Richard liked to touch my hair, run his hands through it, so I had it brushed out every night, washed if I wore powder, and never wore a nightcap. My first thoughts were always for him.
I wore no powder today. I hated the process—the little room filled with a fine dust of hair powder, the cone I had to hold over my face, the pomade slicked over my hair to make the powder stick. I was trying to set a new fashion, so except at the most formal occasions when I would have given offence if I left it off, I went without powder. I’d heard my efforts castigated as “provincial and coarse”, but the younger set were following my example, and, encouraged by my husband, these days I cared much less what people thought.
A maid brought me breakfast on a tray, as we would be out when the usual breakfast hour arrived. I sipped my chocolate as I sat at the dressing table.
I watched in the large, gilded mirror as Nichols turned me into a lady of fashion. All I had to do was stand and hold my arms as she wished, while she arrayed me in lace, silk and jewellery. My taffeta cream-coloured gown was embroidered with little flowers in white and pale blue and green, with heavily embroidered robings down the front. I had a matching petticoat, flounced and frilled around the hem. Nichols adjusted the fit, so that the top of the gown fitted me like a second skin, and the skirts belled out over the small side hoops.
Knowing my love of fine jewels, Richard hadn’t stinted, and today’s set was a parure he’d bought for me in Paris, on our way home from Venice. It had a fine, delicate necklace of diamonds and pearls, with girandole earrings, a bracelet and brooches to match. I loved this set, it suited most gowns, and the diamonds were cut in the latest style, so that under the right light they twinkled like stars.
Nichols handed me my fan and handkerchief and the battered old necessaire I carried with me when I wanted the day to hold good fortune. These days it was little more than a talisman to me. The scissors were blunt, the tiny mirror tarnished, and it was missing most of its components. But it brought good luck.
I went down with Richard, now in his magnificent best. Nichols followed with my hat, cloak and gloves.
The bright, varied silks worn by both sexes as they waited in the hall appeared like a bouquet of flowers when seen from above. Just as it used to be in the old Manor house, all was bustle and seeming chaos, and I plunged into it with a feeling of coming home. I helped Walter with his gloves and discussed the set of Martha’s hat before I realised who I was now, and guiltily stepped back to allow Nichols to pin on my new straw bergére hat, fasten my cloak around my neck and button up my gloves on the inside. I stole a glance at Richard and saw his amusement. “Once a Golightly, always a Golightly,” he remarked sotto voce.
We offered to take Lizzie and the Marquês in our carriage. They accepted and when the steps were let down, our respective partners helped us inside. As the carriage bowled down the new drive towards the gates of Hareton Hall and the village, Lizzie remarked, “It seems silly going in the carriage when we used to walk every day except Sundays.”
“Why not Sundays?” the Marquês asked her.
“The Sabbath,” Lizzie explained. “Must be kept holy.”
“So no walking?”
“No walking,” Lizzie said firmly. They exchanged a smile.
We watched the main street of the village as we passed up its length. This at least had never changed. The pretty thatched cottages contained squalor within, the seemingly higgledy-piggledy gardens held carefully cultivated rows of carrots, onions and raspberries. The raspberry canes stood bare, stripped of their fruit for another year. Most of the residents stood outside their front doors watching the parade pass by. All the gentry of the district and the party from Hareton would pass this way on the way to the church.
At the head of the street, just before the church, stood the only substantial house in the village. Mrs. Hoarty lived there, and when I saw the house, I suffered a pang of conscience. I hadn’t visited her since I’d arrived at Hareton. What sort of friend was I that I couldn’t remember my oldest acquaintances? Mrs. Hoarty suffered badly with arthritis these days. She couldn’t indulge in the social round of visiting and depended on people calling on her to give her some amusement. I sighed and glanced at Richard.
“I’ll come with you,” he murmured. I smiled and nodded, pleased I hadn’t had to say anything.
The church was thronged with people, the outside choked with vehicles. Our carriage was second in our little procession, behind the one holding Martha, James, Gervase, Ian and the children. I wondered how Gervase had got on with the three lively youngsters, but from what I saw he emerged unruffled.
The people outside the church must have arrived recently, but they didn’t intend to deprive themselves of such a show any more than the villagers farther up the street. Ostensibly waiting outside to gossip, they watched in blatant curiosity as we alighted.
Gervase’s arrival created a stir. Dressed in deep, rich crimson velvet, he was the first outsider they saw. “I wonder how many people are mistaking him for me and speculating on your absence?” Richard asked me.
“I never thought of that,” I said, but I did now and I saw a few glances at the now-empty interior of the first carriage. The footman flung open the door to our vehicle and let down the steps. The Marquês alighted, and gallantly helped Lizzie down. They paused to wait for us.
Richard helped me out, and I waited while Nichols, who had walked ahead of us, took my cloak and shook out the folds of my gown at the back. I was thankful for the fine, sunny day. Rain would have turned the sward at the front of the church into a quagmire. Richard, resplendent in heavy blue dull satin today, waited for me, and then offered me the support of his arm while we followed Lizzie and her Marquês. I nodded graciously to one or two people, including Mrs. Terry and her daughter. Instead of waiting to gossip with the others, Richard led me straight inside the church, and the usher showed us to our pew.
I enjoyed the coolness and quiet of the church after the bright autumn sun outside. Garlands of flowers lay along the backs of the high-sided pews, adding a pleasant scent to the musty air inside. I presumed Tom was already there, waiting for his bride. I saw Mrs. Hoarty as we went forward, and stopped to exchange a few quiet words with her, promising to see her soon. She seemed smaller than when I’d seen her last, but she still sat upright, next to her son, a lawyer in Exeter, and a woman I didn’t recognise, but who I took to be Mr. Hoarty’s wife. He hadn’t been married the last time I saw him. I hoped he was happy.
We sat next to James and Martha. James cast his hat carelessly on the seat beside him in the high-sided pew and sighed with relief. “Worst thing about all this earl business,” he said, “is all this socialising. Never did enjoy it.” He’d forgotten to lower his voice and his last words echoed around the old stone building. I covered my mouth with my hand in an attempt to stop a giggle, and I saw Richard’s brief smile before he suppressed it.
James sighed and stretched his legs out. We sat in the pew we’d used all our lives, the one our father had used before us. Generations of Golightlys had left their marks here, penknives, pins and other implements gouging out initials into the old oak. “Your father would never have allowed it,” I murmured to Richard, who I caught trying to read a particularly puzzling script carved in the rail before him.
“My father would have had us whipped,” he said briefly. “The only person allowed to carve wood at Eyton was Grinling Gibbons.”
I pointed at a scratch in the corner of the pew. “I did that, but James wouldn’t lend me his knife, and I had to use my brooch pin.”
He smiled and examined the mark. I could hardly see the “RG” now. “You’ll leave more of a mark at Eyton. And if you want to deface the pews in the chapel, I shall defend your right to the death.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said, thinking of the magnificence of the small chapel where Helen had been christened.
The organist struck up. We stood and watched Barbara and her father pass us on their way to the altar. Barbara looked adorable in shell pink satin, with orange blossoms in her hair and pearls at her throat. Any man would be proud of her. I could see Tom now as he waited for her in front of the altar. His tall, broad figure filled out his dark blue velvet coat to admiration, and emotion choked my throat. Tom would take his vows seriously. In this age of philandering and casual affairs, Tom was a stalwart.
We heard them make their promises in clear, fearless tones that filled the church. When her father placed Barbara’s hand in Tom’s, I remembered that only a widow over the age of consent had her own life. From the time her previous owner, her father, put her hand into the new owner’s, her husband, legally she belonged to him. I was lucky with my husband, but so many were not. Barbara would be lucky too.
The rest of the Hareton party sat in the pew opposite us, and I saw Julia Drury, the only one in the church seated. She still claimed she couldn’t walk, and a manservant carried her everywhere, but from what Carier told me I was sure she could manage with a cane. I’d present her with one as a hint.
We sat for the sermon, and James settled into his corner of the pew. We exchanged smiles. I don’t remember when James last stayed awake for the whole of a sermon, especially one of Mr. Claverton’s. He could talk for hours about a small Bible passage, but he was never a violent preacher. He knew half his congregation would fall asleep, and he didn’t want to disturb them. I leant my head back and drifted off into my own world.
I could smell the citrus perfume Richard always wore, and I luxuriated in his presence. He excited me, made me feel sublimely happy. His emotional dependence frightened me sometimes, and it was growing obvious to me that I was the only one he would let into his life so completely. Without me he would close up again, and this time he wouldn’t let anybody in. I’d just have to make sure I didn’t leave him.
A petal drifted down and landed on James’s head. I caught the movement and turned to see it land gently, and it nearly overset me. Martha gave me a quelling glance and removed the offending article from her peacefully slumbering husband.
Between us the children sat still and quiet, hardly stirring. I wondered what Martha had promised them. Some form of sweet probably. I deserved one too, for holding back my laughter.
By his careful pose and smooth face, I saw that Richard had left us, drifting in some world of his own. I followed his example and let my thoughts go back to the childhood Tom and I’d shared here in Devonshire, climbing trees and running around the hills and beaches together. Sometimes Lizzie would join us, but even in those days she didn’t like to get her clothes dirty.
The sermon wound to its end and the Eucharist prayer was sung. I knew that so well I could recite it in my sleep. Mr. Claverton gave Communion and we went first, forcing Richard Richard out of his reverie and watched with interest. One lady even wore one of the huge hoops ladies had worn ten years ago, and I was still obliged to wear for Court. She went up the aisle side-first, and came back down with the other side facing forward. We smelled the camphor from where we sat.
Tom and Barbara went away to sign the register, and I remembered when we had done that, the first time Richard had called me his wife. He delighted in saying it still, as I delighted in calling him my husband.
Barbara went down the aisle leaning on Tom’s arm. Leaning a little heavily, but perhaps the situation overwhelmed her and she needed his support. Then we were free to go.
Our carriages waited outside. Nichols brought my cloak, fastened it for me and climbed in with us, taking a seat opposite me for the return journey. With Richard on one side and Nichols opposite I was well guarded.
Lizzie and her Marquês looked at each other quite a lot in the short journey to Peacocks where the wedding breakfast was to be held. “It won’t be long,” he said once, and they smiled again.
Richard helped me into the carriage and I sank against the squabs, feeling quite the mature lady. But Richard and I held hands all the way home.
If you want to read the rest of this story, get Hareton Hall, available from Samhain Publishing.
Secrets can destroy you—and the one you love most.
Hareton Hall
Richard and Rose, Book 6
As Richard returns with Rose to her childhood home of Darkwater for two weddings, romance is in the air—but so is trouble. It begins with Rose’s stolen watch. Tensions rise when they learn their old adversaries, the Drurys, have taken a house nearby. A series of attacks on those they love, plus a rise in smuggling activity, only add to the threat of violence.
Then illness strikes at the worst possible time, threatening everyone in the district—especially the children. Questions abound: Was the infection deliberate? Is someone striking at Richard through Rose, or are their enemies targeting Rose for information she possesses?
Richard calls on his resources, public and private, to counter an enemy that threatens to destroy his beloved Rose. Rose is no helpless victim, however, and refuses to let anyone—even Richard—take away her independence. She finds ways to fight that aren’t in his armoury. Whether he likes it or not…
Warning: When Richard uses a topaz necklace to give Rose hot shivers, it might give you ideas, so keep a man handy to experiment on. But you can’t have Richard.
You can get it from most online bookstores, including:
http://tinyurl.com/37b846b for the Kindle edition
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/hareton-hall
The Richard and Rose series, in order:
1. Yorkshire – Rose arrives at a once beautiful mansion, only to find the place in ruins and the love of her life waiting for her.
2. Devonshire. Rose returns to Devonshire to plan her wedding, but the local gang of smugglers threatens to wreck it, and her dreams of a happy future.
3. Venice. Rose travels alone through Europe for her honeymoon with Richard. In Venice, two card sharps and a sinister stranger await them.
4. Harley Street. Back in London, beginning their married life and under pressure to produce an heir, Richard’s past life catches up with him and threatens to ruin his present.
5. Eyton. Richard and Rose visit the ancestral home of Eyton and find murder and mayhem awaiting them.
6. Hareton Hall. Back in Devonshire to attend the wedding of her sister, Rose finds her life under threat by old adversaries – and a source neither she nor Richard have been aware of before.
There are two more books to come in this sequence. But that might not be the end of the Richard and Rose saga!
Reviews of Richard and Rose:
There’s
intrigue, awesome comeuppance, hot sex, and a great pairing. Plus
Connolly does a good job at incorporating societal structure to
provide conflict. This is no wallpaper historical.
Jane
at Dear Author
There
are lovely, intimate scenes between husband and wife, and their
hunger as well as gentle feeling for one another shines through every
scene.
Snapdragon
for The Long and Short Reviews
HARLEY
STREET is an
exquisite love story. Richard and Rose take the reader on an exciting
adventure full of intrigue, conflict, and LOVE. This is another Lynne
Connolly novel that is a KEEPER.
Camellia
for The Long And The Short of It
I
was completely hooked once I started reading about Richard and Rose.
Cherokee
for Coffee Time Romance & More
Contact Lynne Connolly at lynneconnollyuk@yahoo.co.uk or through her publishers
Her website is http://lynneconnolly.com There are more short stories there, and details of her other books.