“Yes,” she said. “I am just terrorized, as I always am in new and scary situations. Lord Tramondeley knows all about it.” It helped to just say it, for some reason.
The lord had nodded. “It’s true, I know all about it.”
The curate had not seemed to take a terrible amount of comfort from that assurance, but he continued on.
She was married. They had done it in the late afternoon, nobody in the family liking a morning service. Her father had arranged for a lovely early dinner and Valor drank a large glass of wine to settleherself. Mrs. Right sat on her other side, to the great exasperation of Lady Marchfield, but Valor was comforted by it as the lady had acted as her mother all her life. Perhaps what settled her most of all though was Tramondeley. He was such a calm brick of a man. He’d said everything would be all right and so that must be true.
The far end of the table was taken up by her young nieces and nephews, or Pelham’s Pirates, as they had named themselves. Young Miles and his second-in-command, Isabelle, were kept busy keeping the younger ones in order, chasing after them when they escaped, and explaining there was no reason to cry over anything green on their plate as they did not need to eat it.
The arrangements that had been made before Valor and Tramondeley set off for the Dales were that they were to spend the first night in Lord Ledderbey’s house, which she had been apprised was really the duke’s house, as he had rented it in the first place.
Lord Ledderbey would stay in the duke’s house and he’d promised to look after Sir Galahad overnight. Valor thought her new husband had been a little surprised to discover that Sir Galahad would accompany them, but if he was, he covered it very well and said, “Of course he must.”
After the dinner, they were cheered by all their family and ran across the square. Valor was both eager to be alone with Lord Tramondeley and nervous about it.
She reminded herself that she had proved she could be brave. She must be brave. She would not allow Lord Tramondeley to ever regret his choice. She must be brave.
Valor knew very well that she was not quite as bold as her sisters when it came time to shut the door to the world and be alone with her husband, but she was determined. As it happened, Tramondeley understood her very well. He had his own particular approach to his skittish bride. Once they were alone, he pulled away after a kiss and said, “I ought not go further.”
When he was assured he might go further, he went a bit further. And then he pulled away and said, “I ought not go further.”
Valor could hardly say how it happened, but somehow she was up the stairs and she was not frightened. There were stops and starts and it was all up to her. The first time she’d said he might go further and then further again and then even further again was a bit of a shock, even though she understood what was to happen. After that, though, she rather enjoyed herself. A lot, actually.
And so it was that marital relations were more than satisfactorily established between them. Over time, shyness was entirely lost and Weston’s strategy became a game in their marriage. He would say, “I ought not go further.” She would say, “You really better go further.” Or if she wished to hint to him, she might wait until he read the paper or wrote letters or some other mundane activity and say, “Did you plan to go further with that?” His answer was always to throw aside whatever he was doing and chase her up the stairs.
The stairs in the Dales often saw such activity during the wedding trip. Mrs. Right and Thomas had come to run the house, with a cook hired from a nearby village. The staff kept themselves well out of the way of the couple and rather enjoyed themselves below stairs as the duke said the cellars were open for their convenience.
Tramondeley was quite adoring of the house and the landscape of the Dales, as it was so different from Cornwall. They took long walks, hopping over the low stone walls they encountered and one time running from a bull they encountered. They thought about taking some of the horses out, but it turned out that on top of only wishing to go for a horse-walk, rather than a horse-ride, she did not trust any other horse but Tulip and Tulip was still on her way home. They visited the village and Thomas showed them the building that was to hold his and Charlie’s little tavern. Once Tramondeley was apprised of the agreement that had been reached with the duke, he vowed to carry on the tradition when the time came.
After a month, the duke and Lord Ledderbey arrived. According to the duke, they’d gone slow as Lord Ledderbey found the journey tiring. According to Lord Ledderbey, going slow had meant more overnight stays at inns and he could not say with any confidence that those innkeepers were happy to see the duke. He’d never seen so many sighs and rolled eyes directed at one gentleman in his life. There had been a very frightening cook at one of them who’d hurled all sorts of threats in the duke’s direction.
With the duke and Lord Ledderbey came Mr. Huberville. Much to Lady Marchfield’s surprise, the duke finally did have a butler. Mr. Hubert Huberville could not be pawned off on anybody. He remained very terrible at his job but everybody was certain he’d starve on the road if he was dismissed.
He would go on to regularly take what was right and somehow make it wrong. One might imagine Lady Marchfield would feel entirely victorious over it, but the facts of the case proved otherwise. Mr. Huberville was so bad at butlering that it became widely known in Town that the Duke of Pelham employed the most ridiculous butler who ever set foot in London.
The duke, himself, always liking to put people on the back foot, especially his sister, did not mind it one bit. He advertised far and wide that it was Lady Marchfield who had recommended Mr. Huberville. As for the barnacle on a boat himself, once he realized that there was nothing he could do to get fired, he got far more cheerful over his failings.
In any case, the footmen he employed after Thomas and Charlie were gone were always eager to cover up his mistakes because after all, he was an exceedingly kind sort of man. He would go on to supervise a rather lax staff and while he never was very skilled, he intellectually understood the job. He spent much time with his footmen, training them on everything they needed to know. While he might drop anything breakable placed in his hands, he was quitecomfortable of an evening sipping his sherry and communicating his knowledge to willing ears. Quite a few of them moved on to become butlers in other houses.
Charlie and Thomas opened a tavern in the duke’s little village, paying the duke one pound a year and all the ale he could drink. As the duke kept bottles of his own claret there for his use, he did not drink much of their ale.
The vicar, as was expected, did not look approvingly over the idea of a tavern, as he very much feared the menfolk would be often drunk. He did not get far with his complaints though, as nobody especially cared about the vicar’s opinion and most were of the opinion that if God were against ale, he would not have created the ingredients for it. In any case, the women of the village felt free to come in too, as everybody had known Charlie and Thomas since they were young lads. The vicar finally gave up and began joining his congregation at their libations, as he did find that a small glass of the tavern’s ale soothed his fraught imaginings of what the duke might say to him next.
When the time came, Valor and her husband and Lord Ledderbey set off for Cornwall. They took their time so that Lord Ledderbey did not tire too very much, making a week’s stop in London to break up the journey. To Valor’s surprise, Sir Galahad really took to Lord Ledderbey and could be found on his lap more often than not.
The house in Cornwall surpassed Valor’s imagination. She had only seen the sea once and this was a different sort of view. High up on a cliff perch she could look out over the horizon and thank her stars that Tramondeley did not sail out to that expanse under cover of darkness anymore. In the warmer weather, they would leave the windows open and Valor found the regular rhythm of the waves coming on shore very comforting.
And so they would go on traveling between Cornwall and the Dales. Over time, Lord Ledderbey stopped making the arduous trip.He met a lady close to his own age who was a voracious reader just like he was and they spent their days quietly reading by the windows and retiring early.
Lady Letitia did finally wed her baronet. Like most fathers, the duke was worn down by time rather than outright defiance. Lady Letitia began dropping heavy hints about spinsterhood being right around the corner and how she would stay with her father forever. He began to see the sense of the baronet.
Lady Letitia and her baronet would end as close friends to Valor and Tramondeley, as the real lady was not at all like the lady they’d met that first season.
The Count di Compressio, weasel that he was, managed to weasel out of blame for returning home having left the Mosquito untouched, the Hertfordshire estate gone, no bride on his arm, and the family exiled from England forever. He managed all that by writing the marquis that Monsieur Bernard was a double agent working with the English, had exposed him, and nearly had him killed. The count was not at all surprised to discover upon his arrival to the villa that Monsieur Bernard had been poisoned a month prior.
Lady Tallifer was able to rescue her reputation not from what she said but who she was. Nobody at all acquainted with that fluttering butterfly of a lady could for a moment believe she had involved herself in anything dangerous. Further, her side of the family cut off all communication with the marquis.
Though the duke had always claimed his dear-held wish in life was to unload all of his daughters on unsuspecting fools, once he’d done it he did not feel so satisfied. He spent approximately one month alone on his estate and then promptly married Mrs. Right. One might suppose that idea had been brewing between them for quite some time, though nothing had ever been said aloud. Once the girls were successfully launched, the duke could not think what else he’d rather do.
