“You will have it back tomorrow. Well, I had better get off. I shall see you in church in the morning.”
“Don’t be late,” she said teasingly.
“I shall be there.”
He kissed her again, tucked the miniature and ring into a pocket and set out to walk back to his friends’ house for the last time. Tomorrow night he would not leave Georgie here alone. He would follow her up the stairs and then…
Then he would be a husband, and Georgie would be his wife.To love and to cherish, till death us do part.
What kind of husband would he be? Better than Henry, he hoped, who could not even cherish his wife’s miniature. Jamie could surely do better there.Hewould not lose it at cards, or allow it to end up in a pawn shop. He would keep Georgie’simage safe, and he would keep her safe, too. That was what a husband was supposed to do, after all, to protect his wife, and not get drunk and fall down the stairs and leave her alone in the world. There was never any certainty in life, for illness and misadventure were everywhere, but there was a fecklessness to Henry Hastings that Jamie could only despise.
He would do better than that, he told himself as he walked home under a starlit sky, his feet crunching on the new snow, and even though Georgie would never love him, he would do everything in his power to make her happy.
***
Georgie’s second wedding was surprisingly like her first. The same friends and neighbours crowded into church to see the same rector in his surplice, with the same tears from his sister. Mr Clark was again called upon to give the bride away. Georgie even wore the same pelisse and bonnet, although her gown was a new one.
Only the husband was different. And her feelings, of course. Then she had walked joyfully up the aisle towards Henry’s smiling face, now she felt only calm resignation. Jamie was smiling, though, which was something. He had his friend Dr Ingleton beside him, and the Brannons in a front pew.
In a very few minutes it was done, the register was signed and she had her new marriage lines tucked into her reticule. Then it was back to the rectory for breakfast and a slice of wedding cake, hastily made by Mrs Burnley and Betsy only two days before.
By ten o’clock in the morning, the newly married couple were hurrying through the rain back to the cottage.
“Well, this weather is not an auspicious start,” Jamie said, as he prodded the parlour fire to life.
“You’re not superstitious, are you?”
“Not really, but I had thought I might stroll around town today to show off my new wife. However, I can hardly expect you to get soaked through just to satisfy my male pride. Besides, if you should catch a chill and die of an inflammation of the lungs, I should look pretty foolish. Till death us do part is not supposed to be as quick as that.”
She chuckled. “Silly boy! I’m used to walking in the rain, although it will probably clear up in an hour or so. We can go out then, if you like.”
“Where would you like to go? Shopping? Or would you like to look around one of the colleges or churches? There are some very fine buildings in Oxford. We have no need to rush back to Staineybank, so we can undertake a tour of all the principal sights, if you wish. Whatever you have not seen before.”
“I’d need Mr Payne to explain the features of all the buildings,” she said, laughing. “To be honest, a tour of the principal sights sounds very dull, and shopping sounds expensive. I wouldn’t mind a walk beside one of the rivers, if the sun comes out. But first, I feel I should call upon Henry’s aunt to tell her I’m married again.”
“His rich aunt? Then we must arrive in the duke’s carriage. That should impress her.”
“I think she wouldn’t be impressed by anything I do, even if I’d married a duke myself,” Georgie said, with a wry smile. “Still, the neighbours will enjoy the spectacle.”
Mrs Obadiah Hastings lived in a large house in one of the most favoured locations in Oxford. Even the weather smiled upon her, for the sun emerged just as the carriage drew to a halt. Jamie let down the window and opened the door, then courteously extended his arm to assist Georgie to alight. When had she ever been accorded such civility before? Not from Henry, she was certain.
“That was Uncle Claud’s house,” she said, indicating the familiar building across the road. Her home for several years after her parents had died, and now just another house in a row of similar houses.
“A fine looking place. Who lives in it now?” Jamie said. “A relation, presumably.”
“It was left to a great nephew, but he lived in Hampshire and had no need of it, so it was sold.”
“A pity you could not have had it.”
“It belonged to the family through a will several generations back. My uncle only had it for his lifetime. His meagre savings were all he had of his own, which provided my cottage and dowry, so he did what he could for me.”
“I did not mean to criticise. Ah, the manservant is on the step awaiting us. Shall we see if Henry’s aunt is at home?”
Mrs Hastings was at home and already entertaining two of her friends. They all wore black and looked, Georgie thought, rather like crows, albeit large, overfed crows. They were drinking wine and working their way through a pound cake, already half gone.
“Georgie, dear, what a surprise!” Mrs Hastings gushed with an insincerity that made Georgie’s teeth ache. “I had no idea you were even in town, or I should have called upon you. Lucilla, Jane, you will remember my darling Henry’s widow.”
The two ladies nodded vigorously. “Of course,” one of them said, although Georgie did not recognise her. “But the gentleman…”
