But it was too late for second thoughts. She, like Hugh, had to make the best of the vows they’d just made.
He gave a grunt of amusement. “Lately life and I have had a rather combative relationship.”
Just like that, Morwenna’s ghost intruded. Jane stiffened and tried to pull away, but his hold tightened. “Don’t bristle up. I’m sorry I said that.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She forgot how perceptive he was. “I don’t want either of us walking on eggshells.”
“But I have no right to ride roughshod over your feelings.”
“You’ve hardly done that,” she said, even as she wished Morwenna Nash to the bottom circle of hell, however charming she might be. She wasn’t exactly jealous of the other woman. But this taste of how the memory of his lost love would dog her marriage promised trouble.
“I see you’ve spent the past three weeks worrying if you’ve made the right decision. I should have stayed. It wasn’t fair to leave you alone to organize everything.”
She hadn’t minded. The pressure of putting the wedding together had distracted her from fretting about leaving Cavell Court, not to mention what she and Hugh would do tonight. She wasn’t precisely afraid, but when she thought about sharing his bed, butterflies the size of elephants started danced in her stomach.
“You needed to arrange everything in Derbyshire. I understood. You wrote.” Short, businesslike notes, but at least he hadn’t forgotten her, once she was out of sight.
He looked surprised. “Of course I wrote.”
“And it’s not the easiest journey from Dorset to Derbyshire. You’ve spent a good deal of the last few weeks on the road.” He’d been to London, too. Last night when he arrived, he’d looked tired. But beneath his physical weariness, she’d seen the weight oppressing his spirit.
“Nonetheless I should have courted you,” he said stubbornly.
She couldn’t agree. A courtship would only underline that he went through the motions, while his heart lay elsewhere. The matter-of-fact arrangement suited her much better.
“There’s no need when you’ve won me already,” she said in a flat voice.
“You know, I’m not entirely sure that I have,” he said, and his unusually austere tone struck her silent.
*
Chapter Five
*
Jane had spent three weeks dreading the wedding breakfast. Too many of the guests knew about Garson’s history with Morwenna Nash—it was the kind of scandal the world feasted on, even the world of a small Dorset village—and were aware that Jane was very much his second choice.
But to her surprise, everyone present seemed genuinely pleased for the bridal couple, including Hugh’s friends Silas and Caro Nash. Given Silas was Hugh’s best man, Jane couldn’t avoid him and his wife—much as the more cowardly part of her might like to. When she said she wanted to meet new people, she didn’t mean members of Morwenna’s family. Or at least not on her wedding day.
She was sipping champagne at Hugh’s side when the Nashes approached through the cheerful throng. Jane’s stomach knotted with nerves, but she resisted the urge to run away.
“Hugh, isn’t it time you introduced your old friends to your lovely wife?” the tall man with the untidy mass of tawny hair asked, clapping her new husband on the back with the familiarity of long acquaintance.
“If you promise to behave,” Hugh said with a smile.
“I like that!” the glamorous woman in the stylish bronze taffeta dress protested. “I always behave.”
“Only when you feel like it, my darling,” Lord Stone said, and Jane couldn’t miss how love brightened his eyes when he teased his wife.
The champagne on Jane’s tongue suddenly tasted as sour as vinegar. She could never picture Hugh treating her with such overt affection. While she’d entered this marriage with no expectation of love, witnessing the Stones’ closeness today of all days was a little too hard to bear. With an unsteady hand, she set the glass down on the marble console table behind her.
Hugh took her hand. He seemed to be doing that a lot today. She almost became used to the warmth that rippled up her arm every time he did it. “Jane, may I present Silas Nash, my best man, and his charming wife, Caroline, Lady Stone?”
She and Lady Stone curtsied, while Lord Stone bowed. They were a striking couple. He had an interesting, quirky face, and she was beautiful, with large blue eyes under elaborately arranged dark hair threaded with diamonds.
“I’m delighted to meet you at last,” Jane said, every word a lie. She knew that she’d have to meet all of Hugh’s friends at some stage, and that most, if not all of them were closely associated with Morwenna. But today, she felt too insecure in her new role as Lady Garson to cope with many more reminders of her husband’s previous amour.
She felt bad about her lack of sincerity, when Lady Stone smiled with an open friendliness she hadn’t expected to encounter in Morwenna Nash’s sister-in-law. “We’ve been itching with curiosity to see you, too, Lady Garson, ever since Hugh told us he’d found the woman he wanted to marry. Our very best wishes for your future happiness.”