Page 84 of Someone to Trust
Wren was standing close to the door of the house with Alexander close by. She was half smiling, though she made no move to draw closer—or to duck back inside the house. She was a woman who would surely always stand her ground.
Colin took his mother’s gloved hand in his and leaned forward to kiss her cheek through her veil. “I wish you well, Mother,” he said. “We must not be estranged.”
“Oh, hardly that,” she said. “You have always been my favorite, dearest. And you must know that you are a favorite with Ede too. But how naughty of you, to have suspected that I might have been unfaithful to your father while he was still alive.”
“It is not true, then?” he asked her.
“Of course it is not true,” she said. “Would I lie to you? I abhor lies of all things.” She looked around her, a queen surveying her court. “I thank you all. You are most kind. But Ede and I must be on our way. We are blocking the road and everyone is already saying that I hold up traffic wherever I go.”
Lord Ede handed her back into the carriage and followed her inside. The footman closed the door, took his place on the box beside the coachman again, and the carriage proceeded on its way along the street.
“Well,” the Dowager Countess of Riverdale said. “Well.”
“Fairy,” Sarah said, pointing after the carriage.
“That is not a fairy, silly,” Robbie said from his perch astride Joel Cunningham’s shoulders. “That was an old lady.”
Lady Jessica Archer and Lady Estelle Lamarr laughed out loud before Viola shushed them and looked reproachfully at the Marquess of Dorchester, her husband, whose lips were twitching.
“Oh dear,” Lady Matilda Westcott said. “Whatever has happened to the old rule that children are to be seen and not heard?”
Colin took Elizabeth’s hand in his. “Are you ready to go?” he asked her.
“Home to Roxingley?” she said. “Oh, yes, indeed, Colin. I was never more ready.”
Ten more minutes passed before their carriage finally drew away from the curb, and even then they both had to lean close to the window in order to wave to the family, who might have been seeing them off to the ends of the world for the next eternity or so if their lifted hands and fluttering handkerchiefs and even a few tears were anything to judge by.
And then they were alone. And on their way. Home.
Colin turned in his seat to look at Elizabeth and took her hand again and laced their fingers. She was gazing back at him with eyes that both shone and twinkled.
“The farce at the end of the drama?” he said.
The twinkle was very close to laughter. “Your mother’s marriage to Lord Ede?” she said. “And her lovely sense of drama in arriving outside the house at that precise moment? It would be unkind to call it farce.”
He grinned at her.
And then they were both laughing until they were helpless with it.
Would his mother lie? Well, of course she would. Did it matter? She was who she was, and his father—whichever of two men that was—was whohewas. In the meantime,hewas Colin Handrich, Lord Hodges, and he was going home with his new wife.
Whose face was filled with laughter and joy, just as his own must be.
He loved her, and she had told him that she loved him.
He trusted her word, and she knew she could trust his.
Life, at least in this precious present moment, was very, very good.
