lordship’s satisfaction. A number of the servants could simply be sent back to Mrs. Rochford’s home, for example. She would surely have need of at least some of them.
Mr. Norton and Mary returned in a carriage that was far more comfortable than the one they had come in. And, despite Mary’s protests, Ruth had been dispatched with her. Jessica could manage perfectly well without her maid until she reached Brierley herself, she had assured Mary not quite truthfully. And it was unthinkable for Mary to travel alone, with only a man for company—though she had done it on the way to London, of course.
Jessica and Gabriel were to leave tomorrow. All their belongings were packed. Tonight was a farewell with the family, though Jessica did not doubt that at least a few of them would turn up at the hotel tomorrow morning to wave them on their way.
The thought of leaving, of being far away in a place she had never seen before, a place moreover that had a rather sad history as far as Gabriel was concerned, brought a lump to her throat. But she swallowed it away determinedly and smiled as she greeted her relatives and the other guests at the soiree.
She was, after all, Jessica Thorne, Countess of Lyndale.
Aunt Matilda would be very pleased with her soiree, she thought later in the evening. Her drawing room was crowded, though not packed to the point of discomfort, and it seemed that all her guests, family and friends alike, were in unusually high spirits. The past week had been a good one for the family despite the stress. They had come together, as they always did, to deal with a crisis that threatened one of their own, and they had prevailed. Jessica had married well, her husband had assumed his title, and the two of them were about to set off for the earl’s home and estate and the beginning of a new life together.
“And as is perfectly clear to us all, Jessica and Gabriel,” Aunt Matilda said to them at one point in the evening, “you have followed the Westcott family tradition and made a love match. We heard about the scene in the tearoom, did we not, Elizabeth? Mama told me even before Charles read it aloud to me from the morning paper the day after.”
“And Colin and I heard it from a dozen people who thought we might be interested to know,” Elizabeth said, looking from one to the other of them with her usual twinkling smile. “I only wish I had been there to see it for myself. What a romantic moment it must have been. It drew cheers.”
Jessica felt herself blushing. Not so much over the reminder of that scene in the tearoom, but because Gabriel was at her side, hearing Aunt Matilda assume that theirs was a love match. She had no idea if it was true and she tried not to think of it. They were indeed embarking upon a new life, and it would be challenge enough, though not nearly as great a one as Gabriel had feared when he had chosen her as his bride. Her specifically. Not because he had loved her, but because he had judged that she had the connections and character and education and experience and demeanor to do an adequate job as his countess.
Those guests who were not family seemed as happy to be at the soiree as everyone else. The new Earl of Lyndale and his countess had achieved a great deal of fame since the masquerade ball, and they were obviously the main attraction this evening. None of which did anything to allay Gabriel’s fraught nerves, Jessica suspected.
One of the guests, a thin, pale young lady who was there with her mother, opened the impromptu concert with three songs to her mother’s accompaniment on the harp. She had a sweet, untrained soprano voice, which did not at all seem to go with her unremarkable appearance. She was someone else, Jessica thought, who held great beauty inside herself until it was time to release it as music.
“She sings like an angel,” Grandmama said loudly enough to be heard by almost everyone after the applause had died down.
Yes, she did.
She was followed by the very young son of Viscount Dirkson’s elder daughter. He played some sort of jig on his violin and got everyone’s toes tapping, even though he paused a few times, breaking the rhythm, while his little fingers felt around for the note