Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,126
“You’re not a pickpocket, are you?” he asked in a tone of mild concern as she reached into his coat. Perceiving that he wasn’t going to stop her, she began to fish inside his coat pockets. Finding the tin of peppermint creams, she pulled it out. “Only one more for now,” he cautioned. “Too many sweets will bring on a toothache.” She took one white morsel, closed the tin, and gave it back to him, every movement delicate and precise.
He studied her, this small person who would bring about such large changes in his life. Charity. The name didn’t exactly roll off a Welshman’s tongue. Moreover, virtue names—Charity, Patience, and so forth—were given so often in workhouses and orphanages nowadays that they had begun to acquire the connotations of an institution. A girl from a comfortable family might escape the stigma, but for an actual orphan, it would be a lifelong reminder of her origins.
No daughter of a Winterborne would have a name meant to humble her.
“Charity isn’t a name we usually give to girls in Wales,” he said. “I’d like to call you something that sounds a bit similar.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“Carys,” he said. “It means ‘little loved one.’ Do you like it?”
She nodded, and caught him thoroughly off guard by sitting in his lap. She weighed no more than a cat. Bemused and disconcerted by her ready acceptance of him, Rhys adjusted her on his legs. “Carys Winterborne. It’s a fine name, aye?” He glanced at Helen, and saw that her eyes were glistening. “We can call her anything you—”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, smiling through her tears. “Beautiful.” She reached out to caress his face, and nestled into his side.
For the rest of the way home, they both leaned against him . . . and it felt right.
Chapter 34
“FERNSBY, I’M ELOPING.”
After settling Helen and Carys at his house, Rhys wasted no time in going to his office and summoning his private secretary for an emergency meeting.
The statement was received with impressive sangfroid: Mrs. Fernsby displayed no reaction other than adjusting her spectacles. “Where and when, sir?”
“North Wales. Tonight.”
It wasn’t soon enough. Now that an actual wedding ceremony with Helen was within his grasp, he was in a fever to make it happen. He felt damnably giddy, poised at the brink of doing something foolish.
The feeling reminded him of an afternoon, late the previous summer, when he had been drinking with Tom Severin and some of their cohorts in a public house. They had watched some bees that had flown in through a window and settled on an abandoned pewter quartern with a few drops of rum left in it. The bees had guzzled the rum and had become noticeably inebriated, trying to fly away in dizzy, aimless loops, while one bee had simply reclined with its heels up at the bottom of the mug. Rhys and the others had found it uproarious, especially since they had been drinking steadily and were full up to the knocker themselves.
Now Rhys had far more sympathy for the bees, knowing exactly how they had felt. This was what love did to a man, turned him into nothing more than a half-crocked bee, flying upside down and in circles.
“If you intend to marry by special license,” Mrs. Fernsby said, “there might be a problem.”
He gave her a questioning glance.
“As far as I know,” Mrs. Fernsby continued, “the Archbishop only grants special licenses to peers or peeresses in their own right, members of Parliament, privy councilors, and judges. I’m not certain whether Lady Helen has the right or not, since hers is only a courtesy title. I’ll try and find out.”
“Tell the Archbishop to make an exception if necessary. Remind him that he owes me a favor.”
“What favor?”
“He’ll know,” Rhys said. Filled with vigor, he paced around his desk. “We’ll take my private train carriage to Caernarvon. Arrange for a suite at the Royal Hotel for at least a week.”
“Will you want Quincy to travel with you?”
“Aye, and find a lady’s maid to come with us.”
Now Fernsby was beginning to look perturbed. “Mr. Winterborne, one can’t simply ‘find’ a lady’s maid. There’s a process—putting notices in the paper—conducting interviews—reading recommendations—”
“Fernsby, of the hundreds of women I employ, can you not find one who can arrange a lady’s hair and button the back of a dress?”
“I believe there’s slightly more to the job than that, sir,” she said dryly. “But I will find someone.”