Now a Bride by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780440423690
Google: 9r6tBHuRK18C
Goodreads: 11390588
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-06-12T12:00:00+00:00

THEY HAD NOT really intended stopping in the village of Trellick. It had been a long journey, and they were eager to be at Pinewood. It felt like home even though Ferdinand had spent only a few weeks there in May, and all that time he had been feuding with Viola over which of them was the lawful owner. He had loved it from his first sight of it, though. And for her, of course, it had been home for longer than two years. It had been a gift from her father, the late Earl of Bamber, and with the gift he had rescued her from a life worse than hell and given her the chance of a wholly new life, a chance she had grasped and used to the fullest.

They could scarcely wait to be home—together. To begin yet another phase of their lives—together.

When the carriage left the main road and descended the hill to the village and skirted about the green before crossing the bridge onto Pinewood land, however, they could see that the Reverend Prewitt and his wife were standing at the end of the vicarage garden in conversation with the Misses Merrywether. All four of them, naturally enough, had turned to watch the carriage, and soon their faces were wreathed in smiles. Viola smiled back and waved from the window. Ferdinand leaned across her and waved too—and then impulsively rapped on the front panel for the coachman to stop.

These people were their friends.

And then he was handing Viola down onto the green, and they were crossing the road to the vicarage.

“Lady Ferdinand,” the vicar said, beaming genially. “And Lord Ferdinand. We heard about your marriage, and we wondered if you would arrive home today. It is what we were talking about when your carriage came into sight. ‘That is them,’ I said to the ladies, ‘as sure as I am standing here. Mark my words.’ Welcome home.”

And he shook Ferdinand heartily by the hand while his wife hugged and exclaimed over Viola and the two sisters followed suit. There was a great deal of talk and laughter.

Not to be outdone, Ferdinand hugged the ladies too. The vicar’s wife hugged him back, Miss Merrywether looked slightly startled but not ungratified, and Miss Prudence Merrywether blessed her soul, tittered, and blushed to the roots of her gray hair just visible beneath her cap and bonnet.

“Oh, you ever were the charmer, my lord,” she said. “We have missed you at choir practice. And Miss Thornhill too, of course—Lady Ferdinand, that is.”

“We will be back,” Ferdinand promised. “And where has the ladies’ sewing circle met for the past few weeks?”

“In the church hall,” Miss Merrywether said, “where it always used to be held. There is quite enough space there, my lord.”

“But there is so much more light and comfort in the drawing room at Pinewood,” he said. “You must all return there next week, if you please. I still have not finished reading Pride and Prejudice, have I, and I do not enjoy reading aloud to an empty room.

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