Call Down the Moon (15 page)

“I said, wilt thou, Hugo Philip Michael George, have this woman to be thy wedded wife, and so on, finishing with loving her, comforting her, honoring her, and keeping her in sickness and in health—and forsaking all others, so long as ye both shall live? Did you not hear me, my lord?”

“Oh. Beg your pardon. I didn’t. I mean, I will. I will do all of those things.” Hugo thought he might be sick on the spot.

“Very good,” the vicar said, nodding at him in encouragement. “And Meggie, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband—“

“Madrigal,” she said.

Hugo shut his eyes. It had already begun. “Meggie,” he murmured, “just say you will.”

“I will not,” she said indignantly. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh, for the love of God, this is no time for one of your fits!” he said impatiently. “We’re in the middle of our wedding!”

“I do realize that,” she said, glaring at him. “I am only asking that I be addressed by my proper name, which is Madrigal, when I take my vows. And I do not see how asking to be called by my proper name constitutes a fit.”

“Madrigal?
What sort of a name is that?” Hugo demanded, nonplussed.

“Madrigal is the name I was given by my mother at birth, and the name I was baptized with,” she retorted. “I am sorry if you don’t like it, my lord, but there it is. And I would like to be married using it, if you don’t mind.”

“Meggie, I wouldn’t care if your name was Jezebel. Just get on with it, will you?”

“It is actually Madrigal Anna,” she said. “The full usage would not go amiss, given that you’ve just had your own roster of names trotted out. And there’s no need to be rude.”

The vicar cleared his throat. “Might I suggest you have this discussion later? You are in the middle of your vows, after all.”

Hugo nodded curtly, ready to strangle Meggie. “Proceed, vicar.”

“Wilt thou, er, Madrigal Anna, have this man to be thy wedded husband…”

The rest of the service went without interruption.

Meggie blinked as she emerged into the sunlight. A married woman—she was actually a married woman. She could hardly believe it.

She could also hardly believe Hugo’s performance in the chapel, daydreaming in the middle of his vows, interrupting the vicar, and taking umbrage at her request to be addressed by her full name. This after he had greeted her in the chapel with a smile of such warmth and welcome that it had made her heart sing with happiness.

What sort of man
was
he? She looked down at the shiny gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand, knowing that it tied her to him for life, and began to wonder just what she had done.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he really was a madman. His moods swung back and forth like a pendulum, but not in any predictable fashion.

At the moment he was perfectly affable, shaking hands with the vicar and Mr. Coldsnap and heartily accepting their congratulations as if he’d never had a moment’s disagreeableness inside. Indeed, he was behaving as if he were the only one who had been married.

She might have been a piece of statuary for all the attention he was paying her.

“My dear child,” Ottoline cooed, patting her arm, “it’s so very thrilling, don’t you think? Fancy your given name being Madrigal—why, you could have knocked me over with a feather, and Sister, too.”

Dorelia glared at Ottoline. “Nothing knocks me over with a feather. I will, however, allow that yours is an original name. And the ring it has: Madrigal Montagu. Lovely. Simply lovely. It’s a pity you must be called Lady Hugo, not nearly as melodic. Do you play the pianoforte, dearest? You should, with a musical name like yours.”

“I do, but not very well,” Meggie said, forgetting how annoyed she was with Hugo. At least
someone
liked her name. And she could hardly help but get caught up in the twins’ excitement; it burst from them like fireworks. “Sister Prudence at the orphanage taught me a little, not because of my name, but because she thought I might end up being a governess and would need the skill.”

“A governess? Goodness, no. How very unsuitable that would have been,” Dorelia said.

“Unsuitable?” Meggie repeated uncertainly, worried that Dorelia had worked out the truth about her parentage after all.

“That is what I said. You were destined to be mistress of Lyden Hall, child, not to work for some second-rate family who would look down their noses at you.”

Meggie laughed. Apparently Dorelia had simply decided to elevate Meggie’s standing now that she’d married Hugo. “You are very kind, Aunt Dorelia, but I’m afraid that I was destined for nothing more than a life of servitude, one way or another. My being here is a complete accident.”

“Ha!” Ottoline poked her finger into Meggie’s shoulder. “Do you mean to tell me you don’t believe in fate? You with your B.G.? Sometimes I have to wonder about the young, I really do. They have no common sense, none at all, isn’t that right, Sister?”

“It is only lack of experience,” Dorelia said tartly. “You can’t really blame Madrigal for not recognizing destiny when she sees it. That’s more in the line of your B.G., Ottoline. In any case, the child’s modesty is pleasing.”

“True,” Ottoline agreed. “Madrigal’s modesty is one of the first things I noticed about her. Very pretty behavior, I said to myself. She will suit well.”

Meggie wondered if they always spoke about other people as if they weren’t there beside them, or if it was just she whom they treated in this fashion.

Mr. Coldsnap appeared at Meggie’s side, his narrow face wreathed in a smile. “Lady Hugo, this is an honor,” he said, bowing over her hand. “Reginald Coldsnap, steward of Lyden Hall, at your service. Allow me to welcome you to your new home and wish you every happiness.”

Since no one had ever bowed over her hand before, Meggie felt rather foolish, but Reginald Coldsnap’s genuine pleasure warmed her heart. So far the only person at Lyden who had been in any way disagreeable to her was Hugo.

Everyone else had been kindness itself.

“How do you do,” she said, smiling back at him. “Thank you for your welcome and your good wishes. This is all very new to me.” She felt a concentrated gaze boring into her and realized that Hugo stood only three feet away. He was not listening to the vicar, who was talking a blue streak at him, but to her. “Lyden is so very large, and I am only accustomed to living in a simple manor house,” she added for his benefit.

Hugo could make of that what he would, and he could also answer any questions that might arise from her statement. He’d only told her not to mention the sanitarium, and she hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to lie, either.

“Lyden is large indeed, my lady. I have rattled about it for going on forty years now. I must say, it will be a pleasure to have a young mistress about the place. We have been nothing but old bones here for far too long.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Perhaps with luck we will be soon be hearing the patter of little footsteps in the nursery.”

Meggie blushed, not sure what the polite response was to that pointed statement. “I will do my best to oblige you as quickly as possible,” she said, taking a shot in the dark.

Hugo choked.

“That is to say, I love children myself,” she quickly amended, thinking she was never going to please Hugo. “I hope to be blessed with many, God willing.”

“A very pretty sentiment,” Dorelia said, taking Meggie by the arm. “Now say your farewells to dear Reginald, child.”

“Are we going somewhere?” Meggie asked, managing a quick curtsy to Reginald Coldsnap before Dorelia tugged her over to Hugo and the vicar.

“Don’t ask silly questions,” she hissed. “Vicar, what a nice service you performed, despite Lord Hugo’s unorthodox approach to the marriage service. Madrigal, dearest, don’t you think the vicar did a nice job?”

“I do, and I thank you, sir, for using my baptismal name. I haven’t heard it in years.” Hugo slipped his hand under her elbow and squeezed it in some sort of warning. “I imagine my husband hasn’t heard the full force of his very grand name unleashed in years either,” she added, resisting the temptation to yank her arm away.

“I understand completely, my dear,” the vicar said. “Had I known your full name beforehand, naturally I would have used it. It is customary.” He glowered at Hugo.

“Oh, you mustn’t blame Hugo,” Meggie said quickly. “He’s never known me as anything but Meggie. I should have thought to say something to him, but I’ve been called by my familiar name for so long that I didn’t even think about my other one until the moment.”

“It is of no matter,” the vicar said. “Well, I must be on my way and you must be on yours. Do you go abroad for your wedding trip?”

Meggie’s mouth fell open and she gaped at the vicar. “A-abroad?” she stammered. “Oh, no. I’ve never even been outside of Suffolk.”

Hugo pinched Meggie’s elbow again, this time hard, and she snapped her mouth shut obediently, thinking she was going to be black and blue by the time he finished muzzling her.

“For the moment we plan only to settle in our new home,” Hugo said smoothly. “My presence is needed here, and my wife will want to make the house her own. Later, perhaps, we will travel.”

“If you will allow me to say, Lord Hugo, I think you very wise to turn your immediate attention to Lyden and postpone your personal pleasure for later. I applaud your attention to duty.”

“Not at all, Vicar. The well-being of my tenants must be my first priority. I will not have peace of mind until they do. With luck and hard work, the time should not be long before they are prosperous again, and when that time does come, then I shall take my wife on a wedding trip. Not before.”

The vicar shook Hugo’s hand vigorously. “Thank you, my lord. You ease my own mind, which has been sore with worry these last two years. You will have many grateful souls singing your praises.”

“I do not know about that, sir, but I can tell you that when I rode out today to speak to my people, they seemed relieved indeed to know that things will be changing. I intend to hasten those changes by infusing a large amount of capital into the estate…”

Meggie listened carefully to the exchange, astonished to learn that Hugo cared so much about people he’d never even met. She felt the strength of the vicar’s gratitude and his respect for her new husband. She’d felt the same respect in Reginald Coldsnap as well.

A man who put his responsibility to those who depended on him above his own desires truly was a man to be respected. Just when she’d been questioning the strength of his character, he’d proved her wrong. She felt ashamed that she’d ever doubted him. Clearly his erratic behavior had been caused by nothing more than the strain of taking on so many new burdens, herself included.

All the reservations that had plagued her for the last eighteen hours melted away in the face of Hugo’s obvious goodness.

She was fortunate indeed to be married to such a man.

Overcome by a wave of remorse at her own unsteadiness of character, Meggie covered the hand that gripped her elbow with her own and lightly squeezed his fingers. She was trying to let him know that she was sorry for her earlier temper.

Hugo stopped dead in the middle of a sentence and glanced down at her coolly. The coolness vanished the instant he met her gaze, turning to brilliant blue fire.

Meggie caught her breath. She knew that look. She’d seen it only three times before—the first through Sister Agnes’s window, again last night in her room, and again briefly in the chapel when she had first stepped to his side.

It was the look of Hugo Montagu’s naked soul.

“Will you excuse us, Vicar?” he said. “You and I will meet again soon to discuss the situation in more detail. I shall write to arrange an appointment.”

“Yes. Yes, indeed,” the vicar said, his cheeks coloring like two ripe cherries, as if he’d divined the nature of Hugo’s thoughts. “Indeed. Good day, Lord Hugo, Lady Hugo. Lovely day. Do enjoy it.”

He vanished around the comer.

Meggie looked around to find that she and Hugo were completely alone. “Oh,” she said, turning her gaze back to his. “This
is
nice. What shall we do now?”

“That depends entirely on you,” Hugo replied, running a finger down her cheek. “You no longer look as if you wish to claw my eyes out, which is helpful.”

“Hugo—forgive me,” Meggie said, staring at the ground, cursing herself for the quick temper she’d been plagued by all her life.

Even the nuns at the orphanage had been unable to tame it, despite the myriad punishments they’d inflicted on her. Sister Agnes had been far more gentle with her, but had not failed to point out the same flaw each time Meggie transgressed. “I did not mean to be so difficult. I sometimes act without thinking. I do try to control myself, but I do not always succeed.”

His finger slipped under her jaw and he gently raised her face to his. “You must not chastise yourself, sweetheart. You are what you are, and at least you know your limitations. What is important is making an effort to improve, to become better.”

“I will,” she said earnestly, utterly lost in his gaze. “Truly I will.”

He bent his head and touched his mouth to hers, his lips moving softly on hers in the lightest of caresses.

Meggie trembled at his touch, wanting nothing more than to throw her arms around his neck and drag him back into the kiss they’d shared the night before.

She managed to restrain herself. If Hugo had thought that the proper thing to do, he would have done it. Daylight hours were clearly reserved for circumspect behavior among the socially correct.

It did seem a pity, she thought as she reluctantly pulled her mouth away.

“Meggie,” he whispered against her temple. “Meggie, what am I to do with you?” The words came out on a long sigh of what sounded like a mixture of longing and regret.

She understood both sentiments completely: the sun still burned high in the sky, and they had what seemed like an eternity to fill before it finally set.

“Shall we go look at the sea?” She reached her hands up, cupping his face between her palms, relishing the slight scratch of beard, the finely honed planes of cheek and jaw. “There are hours left before dusk, and I would be so happy to spend them there. If you don’t mind, that is. I have never seen the sea.”