He led her outside and, to his surprise, his grandmother walked with them.
“Do you always smile so?” she asked Genevieve. His wife’s eyes widened and he had to take a breath.
“Grandmama, do not—”
“I was not so joyous on my own wedding day, which was done at similar notice to yours,” his grandmother rebutted.
“Grandmama,” he said, feeling something in his forehead throb. “Please, be gentle.”
“There is nothing but gentleness here,” she replied, snapping her fan shut. He felt Genevieve tense next to him, her arm slightly constricting around his own.
“Grandmama, she is not well-used to a woman of such humor,” he said.
“I am just asking if the young woman always smiles in such a way, am I not allowed to ask these things?” she replied. By now, Genevieve was slightly shaking.
“Grandmother—” he was cut off when Genevieve burst out laughing. His eyes widened. Her smile was wide, her laughter genuine, the sun catching in glints in tears of laughter in her eyes and her auburn hair.
“I am ever so sorry!” Genevieve laughed. “I had not expected to be asked why I smile so much today! I must admit, I have been told this smile is a rather permanent fixture on my face, so if it displeases you, please do not feel you have to look at it.”
Oh.
He had misunderstood. He had believed her to be upset.
Clarissa had not appreciated his grandmother’s ways, but Genevieve had taken it in stride.
His grandmother watched and then nodded.
“I will take that into consideration,” she said before turning and walking away.
“I have not insulted her, have I?” Genevieve asked. Thomas shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I dare say nothing could offend her.”
“That is a relief,” she nodded. “I would hate to have offended her on our wedding day.”
“Do not worry so,” he said, leading her to the carriage.
Helping her inside, he looked at her smile. He could see nothing that would have offended anyone. He stepped inside next to her, looking out at the gathering.
His chest ached. In another world he would be sat across from the love of his life.
He looked back at Genevieve, still smiling.
Would he be able to give her the life she deserved?
Chapter 5
The Harrington estate was, Genevieve thought, the sort of house that knew it was impressive and had grown into that understanding.
She had her first proper sight of it as the carriage crested the long, gradual rise in the road that preceded the turning, and then there it was, suddenly and completely, sitting at the end of its oak-lined drive in the full weight of the afternoon light. Broad and unhurried. The stone facade, the warm color of old honey.
The kind of color that spoke of centuries rather than decades, of a house that had been standing long enough to stop trying to prove anything. The oaks on either side of the drive were enormous, their canopies meeting overhead in places, and the light came through them in long broken shafts and lay across the gravel in a shifting pattern that made the whole approach feel almost ceremonial.
She looked up at those trees, knowing they had been there before her, and they would be there long after she was no longer the lady of the house.
She had been there before. That was the strange thing. She had accompanied Clarissa to a gathering here, perhaps six weeks earlier. She had stood in the entrance hall, drunk tea, and made conversation with people whose names she had already half-forgotten.
She had looked at the house and registered it the way one registers things that had no particular bearing on one's own life. A very fine house. Thomas Harrington's house. Clarissa's future, unfolding in ancient stone and formal gardens.