A June Wedding

  Emily Murdoch

  © Emily Murdoch 2016

  Emily Murdoch has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  To Haydon. One day, you may inherit an Earldom. I will remind you of this dedication, and ask for a very nice library.

  Also, thank you for being an incredible brother.

  And to Joshua. Always.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Acknowledgements

  Historical Note

  Chapter One

  The front door finally closed, and to Victoria’s ears, it was the sweetest sound that she had heard in months.

  “Thank the Lord that’s over,” she said, sinking into the nearest chair while her mother frowned at her.

  “Victoria, really. That is most unladylike of you – and to show gladness that another pleasant ball is over? I am this moment overcome with disappointment that we are absent from the enjoyable company of such entertaining and genteel young men.”

  Victoria tried her hardest not to roll her eyes as her mother handed her pelisse to their butler. “Mama, if my brother Stuart had not inherited the Earldom of Cheshire in the last year, then half of those eligible young men would be entertaining another young gentlelady and her mother.”

  Mabel Walsingham did not take kindly to this remark. “Victoria Walsingham, your brother Stuart has done everything he can to ensure that you have enjoyed this season, and you should be grateful!”

  This time Victoria did roll her eyes, as her fingers moved up to remove the pins digging into her head and keeping up the curls of chestnut hair.

  It had been the same remark that she had heard, with variations of course, for the last few months, and now that it was the end of May, Victoria was looking forward to not hearing it for many months to come.

  “Mama, you must admit that Stuart’s sudden – and completely unexpected – rise to become the fifteenth Earl of Cheshire has completely changed things,” said Victoria wearily. The night of dancing at Almack’s had tired her more than she thought, and she raised her feet to sit cross legged like a Turk in the chair in the hallway. “I mean, look!”

  She gestured to the large hallway that they were standing in, and raised her eyebrows. The chandelier’s candles were burning low, as they had been alight for several hours, and the large grandfather clock chimed two o’clock in the morning. The plush red carpet that clothed the entire room also snaked up the large staircase that swept down into the hallway. The chairs were gilded with gold, and the brocade around the curtains was of the finest to be had in all of London.

  Her mother sniffed. “I do not know to what you refer.”

  “Mama,” said Victoria, “you know exactly what I mean. This sort of accommodation would have been far beyond the reach of a country doctor’s widow before Stuart became so noble, and we should not forget it.”

  “Nonsense.” Mrs Walsingham’s tone was decided, and she swept out of the hallway into the drawing room.

  Victoria sighed. Her mother had said no more, but that did not mean that her only daughter did not understand her. It was now time for the ritual discussion of the evening, and neither hell nor high water would be able to distract her from such a conversation, despite the lateness of the hour.

  Placing her sore feet once more on the floor, Victoria kicked off her dance shoes that perfectly matched the vermillion gown that she was wearing, and followed the path that her mother had taken. The fire was still lit in the drawing room, and her mother had seated herself in the chaise longue nearest the door.

  “Now,” said Mrs Walsingham, as though there had been no break in their conversation, “you danced first with a Mr Grange, I think, who looked most unsuitable to my eye.”

  “He was a terrific dancer, Mama, and had such fascinating conversation,” returned Victoria, falling into the armchair that was near the slowly dying fire. “He had such a knowledge of the latest battles in France, and...”

  “Definitely unsuitable,” her mother interrupted her with a look of shock. “Discussing the battles in France? Before a young lady of good breeding? No, you will not be dancing with Mr Grange in the future. The second, I believe, was a Mr...”

  “Mama,” sighed Victoria, settling into the armchair properly and throwing her ankles over the arm rest, before promptly returning them to the floor as she saw the scandalised look in her mother’s eyes, “must we dissect the evening so? Is it not enough to say that the evening was pleasant, the room too warm, the conversation engaging and the night now over?”

  Mrs Walsingham looked sternly at her daughter. “Victoria Walsingham, you are young, beautiful, and unmarried. Why on earth do you think we attend these balls in the first place?”

  “But if Stuart was not the fifteenth Earl of Cheshire,” Victoria protested, a furrow appearing in her brow, “then I would just be Miss Victoria Walsingham, the daughter of a country doctor, the sister of a London doctor, and I think I would be a great deal more content.”

  “Nonsense.” Mrs Walsingham leaned over and rang the bell beside the fireplace as her daughter sighed. “It is no use making that lamentable noise, Victoria: you may not like the fact that our family has risen to fortune, if not a little fame, but...”

  Victoria giggled. “A little fame? Mama, as soon as we enter a room, my ears cannot keep up with the whispers that move across the room faster than lightning!”

  “Ah, but that is all to the good, my dear, for do you not see that without those little whispers of which you are not fond, Sir John Hampton would surely not have sought your hand!” Triumphant were the tones of Mrs Walsingham, but Victoria was not to be conquered so easily.

  “And if I did not now have a dowry of twenty thousand pounds,” Victoria said drily, “I doubt Sir John Hampton, with his gambling debts and his pregnant mistress to support, would have listened to them!”

  Her mother opened her mouth in shock, and probably to censure her daughter both for listening to the rumours about poor Sir John and for believing them, but Victoria was spared further reprimand by the entrance of a footman, summoned by Mrs Walsingham’s previous bell.

  “Ah, Bridge,” Victoria said eagerly, “has any post come since we left?”

  She need not have asked, of course: in his left hand was a large silver platter, and resting upon it were three letters, all enclosed with dark red blobs of sealing wax. Her eyes wandered over them greedily, and her fingers fidgeted with the silk of her gown.

  “I have been expecting word from Antonia for a good number of days now,” she said with a smile on her face. “Are any from...”

  “Bridge,” Mrs Walsingham said curtly. “To me, please.”

  Victoria glanced up at the footman, but his eyes were distant and cold. Victoria sighed, and leaned back in the armchair. If she had been born the sister of the fifteenth Earl of Cheshire, she thought bitterly, then she would have probably known Bridge from birth, and he would have had a soft spot for her, and perhaps slipped her the letters addressed to her, even before her mother’s very eyes.

  As it was, Bridge had only been hired six weeks before, and had no loyalty to either woman before him. But Mabel Walsingham, as the matriarch of the family, had the letters placed into her own gloved hands, and before Victoria could spy exactly who they were addressed to, they were tilted out of Bridge’s view.

  “Thank you, Bridge,” said Mrs Walsingham gently. “That will be all.”

  Within a moment, he was gone, and Victoria glared at her mother irritably, brushing a wayward curl out of her eyes. “Mama, it is almost three o’clock in the morning, and I would much like to be in bed – but first, I need to know if Antonia has written to me! Can you see her hand in those letters?”

  Mrs Walsingham studied the three letters before her for a good two minutes before she replied. Victoria sighed, and gazed towards the fire. She should probably go to bed now, rather than wait for the age it would take her mother to decide what to do with those letters.

  “Mama?”

  Mrs Walsingham looked up sharply. “You will have your letters in my own time, Victoria, do not rush me!”

  “I was only going to ask,” replied Victoria meekly, or as meekly as she could make her face and tone appear to be, “whether we can now retire back home, to Badanholt End. The season is finished, at least the part that we would wish to attend, and I am sick of London. It is too hot and crowded; I wish to be back in the country for the summer. It is almost June, and I am tired of the hypocrisy of London. Please.”

  Her mother stared at her for a moment. There was real passion in her daughter’s voice now, and a real desperation to be gone.

  Mrs Walsingham sighed. “It is certainly true that even I am tiring of the constant engagements that we are, by our station, forced to attend.”

  “And some of the company, Mama,” Victoria rolled her eyes, “you cannot force me to abandon my entire acquaintance, even though Stuart is now such an important man in the ton. I miss seeing the FitzRoys, and I cannot remember the last time I attended an engagement that had half of our real acquaintance.”

  Mrs Walsingham sniffed. Her family’s rise to fame and fortune,
after all, were through her line. “I do not see our new acquaintance as being any less real than the original, Victoria; we simply have more people to see than we used to.”

  The letters shifted in her hands, and Victoria tried not to make it too obvious that she was desperate to see them. Antonia’s last letter had left her in high anticipation – she had just been about to ask her father’s permission to take in two orphans from the poor house in nearby Badanholt Town, and though her intentions were selfless and her passion fearless, Victoria was slightly concerned that her father Mr Chalmers may not see her request in such a beautiful light.

  “Mama, is that letter from Antonia?” Victoria asked, trying to keep her tone nonchalant.

  Mrs Walsingham sighed. “The trouble is, Victoria, that as each day goes by I cannot help but feel you getting older.”

  Victoria laughed, and flicked her heels up over the arm rest again. She could hear the faint chimes of three o’clock, and her eyelids were heavy, but she could not let her mother continue this conversation without being challenged. “Mama, I am nineteen! I am hardly over the hill – if anything, I am not even approaching the hill!”

  “I would have so loved to see you wed at eighteen,” Mrs Walsingham said wistfully.

  “Well I did not.” Victoria’s tone was sharper than she had meant, but she was tired of going over this same conversation. “And believe it or not, Mama, my life is not one to be given away to the nearest and most convenient man with a recognisable name and a large enough pocket book! Did you not consider that I may not wish to marry at all?”

  “I seem to remember a very different opinion from you not a year ago,” her mother replied tartly.

  Victoria’s face flushed. The fire, dying down as it was, suddenly felt hot and harsh against her pale skin. Her head hurt, and though her mind was desperate to wander to some particularly painful memories of fourteen months ago, she would not let them, she would not...

  “Forgive me.” The edge had disappeared from Mrs Walsingham’s voice, and as Victoria looked up she could see that her mother was truly repentant. “I should not have spoken so. I know that if you could have married...”

  “And yet I did not,” cut in Victoria, “and as usual, Mama, I would prefer not to speak of it.”

  The two women fell quiet, both gazing into the fire as if looking at days gone by. Who knows how long they could have stayed there, silent, and yet with so much unsaid between them, if Bridge had not opened the door to startle them.

  “My apologies,” he said smoothly, “but I must ask, Madam, if you intend to retire to bed in the next hour; your lady’s maid would typically be rising in a few hours, and she has not yet been to bed.”

  “Oh, Mama!” Victoria turned to Bridge. “Tell Kelson that Mama will be up shortly, and that we apologise for the inconvenience.”

  Bridge bowed, and left the room – and evidently her mother waited for him to leave before she rounded on her daughter.

  “Victoria Walsingham, you would do well not to apologise to the servants, especially on my behalf!”

  Victoria shook her head slowly at her mother. “Kelson was up before six o’clock this morning, and she has been waiting for you all this time. Just because we have only had servants in the last few years does not mean that we can immediately become unfeeling towards them. That is not the sort of noble house that I want to become.”

  Mrs Walsingham pursed her lips. “I suppose then, that you will want your letters?”

  Victoria leaned forward eagerly. “Letters? Are all three for me, then?”

  “One is for me,” said Mrs Walsingham eventually, “and the other two for you, though I confess that only one hand is known to me. Really I should read it first, to ascertain exactly whether or not it is illicit correspondence from a young gentleman of ill repute...”

  Her tone was hopeful, rather than censuring, but Victoria’s snort of laughter was enough.

  Her mother sighed. “Very well then. Here you are.”

  Victoria’s hand was outstretched, ready and waiting for them, and just one glance at the top letter was enough to convince her that it came from Antonia’s hand. Finally, she thought, an update from my dearest friend! She slipped the light parchment underneath the second. The handwriting was unknown to her. It was strong, and large, and dominated the space.

  She blinked. It was not a hand she recognised, but in the corner of her mind there was an inkling that it was from someone that she knew. Who, of course, she could not put her finger on – Antonia and her brother were her only correspondents.

  “Ah, another invitation from Mrs Hallowfell,” sighed Mrs Walsingham. “I’m sorry, Victoria, but I do not care how invigorating you find the company of her eldest son, Mr Hallowfell is still destined for the Catholic Church, and so...”

  The words continued, but Victoria’s notice of them slowed, until her mother’s words became nothing more than a gentle wash of chattering waves. She had slipped her finger behind the seal of the second letter, and broken it. The envelope unfolded, to give way to a piece of pure white paper, edged in lace. There were only a few words inscribed on it, but each one seemed to ring a gong in the silence of her mind.

  You are cordially invited to the wedding of

  Miss Hestia Royce

  to

  Isaac Quinn

  at Badanholt Church of St Mary

  on June 18th at 2pm

  Chapter Two

  “Not long now.” Mrs Walsingham spoke with what she obviously thought was a smile, but it looked more to Victoria like a grimace. “Then we’ll be home.”

  The coach was hot, and if Victoria had been able to think of any other way to return home, then she would have suggested it. But the idea of riding home on horseback, though appealing to her, was instantly and forcibly ignored by her mother. The mother and sister of the fifteenth Earl of Cheshire would travel by landau carriage, or not at all.

  Summer was finally upon the country of England, and it had brought with it the stifling temperatures that within two days of Victoria’s last ball, had driven all of good society out of London. Mrs Walsingham had, finally, been forced to accept that there was really no point in them staying at all if all the town had retreated to their country estates, and to Victoria’s relief the arrangements were made quickly to return home, to Badanholt End.

  But not quickly enough for Victoria to escape her own treacherous thoughts.

  “You will have to talk to me about it sometime,” said her mother softly. She was wearing a white shawl over her light blue summer gown, and in the dappled light that was permitted to sweep through the curtains at the windows, Victoria could almost see her mother from ten years ago; softer, more gentle, more willing to listen.

  She had not specified what she meant, but Victoria knew. “How much further would you say it is to Badanholt End?”

  “Two hours. Maybe three, I am not sure whether the driver will be required to change horses,” replied Mrs Walsingham evenly, “and if you think that you can distract me from Isaac Quinn and this wedding business, then you are quite mistaken.”

  “Mama, please,” Victoria said quietly, raising her hand to her forehead. It was not particularly ladylike to admit it, but she could feel the perspiration gathering in the curls around her forehead, and no matter how many pins she tried to use to control her chestnut mane, it was never enough. “It is too hot to think of such unpleasant things.”

  “Where else are we to discuss it?” Mrs Walsingham asked. “Badanholt may be our home, but it is full of people with far too much gossip than sense, and everywhere you go, you will need to guard your tongue. At least here,” and she gestured around the coach that was filled only with themselves and several books that they had attempted to read on their journey, “it is only you and me.”

  Victoria did not answer. The corset that Kelson had insisted she wear, even though she would be travelling all day, was digging into her ribs around her waist, and when combined with the heat, was starting to make it rather difficult to take in full breaths. Her gown may be made of the lightest white cotton, but it could have been made from the heaviest silk for all that she knew.

  Just hearing his name from his mother’s lips was torture enough, and she tried to prevent herself from picturing him once more – but unbidden, his face appeared before her, his smile, that lock of hair that always fell across his eyes when he began too well.