Free The Oak Leaves by Maureen Lang Page B

the other night.”
    “A pity.” He kissed her cheek, then drew Cosima nearer with a hand to her elbow. “But when I tell you my news you will understand.” Reginald allowed a moment of silence as the two women studied one another. In that time Cosima guessed the other was older than her first impression. With little lines along the edges of her mouth and eyes and beginning to form on her neck, the woman must be close to the age of Cosima’s mother.
    “Lady Hamilton,” said Reginald slowly, “may I present to you Cosima Escott, my fiancée.”
    “Fiancée . . .” Initial surprise transformed immediately to pleasure. In the next moment, Lady Hamilton thrust off her gloves and tossed them with the flower basket to a nearby side table, pulling Cosima into a warm embrace. “Fiancée! Oh, how wonderful!” Then she opened one half of the embrace to pull Reginald into the circle. Despite Reginald’s smile, Cosima felt his stiffness as clearly as Lady Hamilton’s warmth.
    “Come, sit and tell me everything.” She led them to settees near the tea service, where a maid was already pouring. “I want to know how you met, when you plan to marry, where you will be living—and oh! Reginald, I have a lovely idea. Why not be married right here, if you plan to marry in London? We have the gardens out back, the gazebo and canopy of heaven itself. I’ve dreamed of a wedding here for simply decades and would love to see such a dream come true.”
    “Peter and the girls will fulfill that dream for you, Lady Hamilton,” said Reginald gently.
    She nodded, still smiling but no longer looking at Reginald. Instead she looked at Cosima. “My, but you’re lovely, Miss Escott. Let’s see, Escott . . . you must belong to the London Escotts in one way or another, but surely not from John, since I know both of his daughters. You are related to Merit Escott, aren’t you?”
    “Merit Escott is my grandmother.” Cosima ignored her inner reluctance to admit such a relationship. Merit Escott might be related to her by blood, but in reality the name represented nothing of the familial title “grandmother.”
    “Yes, Cosima is Charles’s daughter, from Ireland,” said Reginald. If he’d expected to shock Lady Hamilton, he failed, for the smile on her face never wavered.
    Lady Hamilton reached over and patted Cosima’s hand. “So Reginald has brought you all the way from Ireland. How lovely! Tell me, wherever did you meet one another?”
    The woman’s obvious excitement would have delighted Cosima had she more enthusiasm about the possibility of a forthcoming wedding. But their “courtship” was little more than an arrangement, a barter for whatever social betterment Reginald thought he might find in marrying her. And what was she getting out of this prospective marriage? A future, as her mother called it.
    But the truth did not seem appropriate for this woman, with her romantic notions of a wedding celebration under the canopy of heaven.
    Feigning shyness, Cosima looked at Reginald.
    “Cosima’s cousin Rachel Escott should receive all the credit, Lady Hamilton.” Reginald took up the story gallantly. “If it weren’t for Rachel, I might never have heard about Cosima. As it was, Rachel told me of a cousin she’d never met—how she lived in a fine old estate across the sea and how Rachel wished she could meet her someday. You know, few of us in this younger generation care about what happened before we were born. When Rachel told me she was fairly certain Cosima was not wed, my interest was immediately piqued. I sent my Mr. Linton over to verify the story first, of course, but no sooner had he sent word with the news that Cosima was indeed free to receive my courtship than I packed my bag and set out to claim her.”
    “How romantic!” Lady Hamilton laughed and touched Reginald’s forearm. “I’ve always said you’re a man of action, Reginald. Peter says so too.”
    He glowed under her compliments, and Cosima didn’t