The Ideal Wife(17)

She turned her head from its awkward sideways position and looked full at him. He was looking steadily back at her and smiled as Sir Gerald was addressing a remark about the weather to Laura. It was a smile that began with his eyes and caused those creases that would be wrinkles when he was older, and ended with his mouth, dimpling his cheek on its way.

It was the same kind, gentle look he had given her the day before, as if she were a timid child who needed reassurance.

And indeed, Abigail thought, she felt timid and tongue-tied and breathless and weak at the knees—all completely unfamiliar sensations. She wondered when she would return to normal.

She tried to smile back and found that her mouth was trembling quite out of her control. She looked away in mortification.

“What a beautiful day it is,” she said brightly before raising her eyes to note the heavy dark clouds overhead.

All three of her companions appeared to find her words irresistibly witty. They all laughed.

“It must be your wedding day, ma’am,” Sir Gerald said. “Miss Seymour and I have just been agreeing that it is quite the most miserable day of the spring so far.”

“My vote has to go to the beauty of the day,” the Earl of Severn said. “But here we are, without any more time to argue the matter.”



HIS COUNTESS WAS NOT so very plain after all, the earl thought later in the evening. She was standing beside the fireplace bidding her friend good night, while he and Gerald had moved to the door already. Gerald was to escort Miss Seymour home in his carriage.

His bride had looked rather lovely—and very shy—that morning when he had first seen her descending the stairs at Mr. Gill’s house. It was amazing what a pretty, colorful dress and a more becoming coiffure had done for her appearance. And of course she had been bright-eyed and blushing.

But in the course of the day he had discovered a charm in her that he had not expected. She was talking to her friend now with a flushed and animated face. And she had conversed with Gerald with some ease all day. With him she had been shy, but that was understandable under the circumstances.

“I would have to say,” Sir Gerald said now, holding out a hand to him, “that either you are blind or your bride is a changeling, Miles. She is not at all as you described her. I pictured a drab and mute creature. I hope for your sake that she does not turn out to be quite, quite different from what you expect.”

“You hope no such thing, Ger,” Lord Severn said. “You can scarcely wait for the moment when you can crow ‘I told you so.’ I think you may have to wait a long, long time.”

No, she was not mute or uninteresting, the earl decided, turning his eyes on Abigail again. One event of the day more than any other had taken him by surprise and charmed him utterly.

When they had returned to Grosvenor Square after their wedding, his housekeeper had had all the servants lined up in the hall to meet his new countess. He had been vexed. He had expected her to be thoroughly frightened by the formality of the reception.

“If you smile and incline your head,” he had murmured to her, “they will be quite satisfied. I will have you in the privacy of the drawing room in no time at all.”

But she had smiled almost absently at him, released her hold of his arm, and walked along the line of servants, Mrs. Williams at her side making the introductions, talking with each of the servants in turn, even laughing merrily with some of them. And she had stooped down to talk with Victor, the bastard son of a former maid, who had run away with a neighboring groom and a box of silver forks when the child was barely a year old. The earl had had the story from his valet shortly after his arrival in town.

But then, the earl had remembered, she had been a servant herself until a mere hour before. She must feel as comfortable with them as she did with her own class. Of course, many women in her position would be in some haste to put their past behind them and to assume the airs suitable to the newly acquired title of countess. Abigail appeared to be an exception.

He had directed Gerald to escort Miss Seymour to the drawing room while he had waited for his bride to finish listening to an account of the scullery maid’s brother’s new post as tiger to Mr. Walworth.

“They will all love you forever,” he had told his wife as they ascended the stairs to the drawing room.

“It is doubtful,” she had said, flashing him a smile. “I kept them standing for half an hour and have made them late in completing their day’s work. They doubtless wished me in Hades.”

He had laughed. “Your friend calls you Abby,” he had said. “May I have the same privilege?”