The Lady's Spell Bonus Scene

Clara

“How many more are there?” Horatio asked in Clara’s ear as their guests began to stream in for the wedding breakfast.

“I do not know,” she confessed in a whisper. “Your mother and my mother are the ones who got their hands on the guest list.”

“They must have invited everyone they know.” He broke off and offered a charming smile to the next guests.

“Congratulations, Mr. Fitzroy. It’s so good to see you settled at last. My well wishes to you both.”

“Thank you, erm…sir,” Horatio said, bowing to the gentleman and urging him to step forward into the room where they were holding the wedding breakfast. Once the gentleman had passed, Clara could no longer hold in her laughter, and raised her hand to giggle behind it. “You know, don’t you?” he asked in a small whisper.

“That you could not remember his name?” Clara asked. “Yes, I did notice.” He shot her a playful glare as she shook her head. “It’s the wedding breakfast, then all will be over, and we will be alone again.”

“I can’t deny I’m looking forward to that.” Horatio took her hand and lifted it between them. Rather than kissing the back, he turned her hand over and kissed the inside of her wrist. It was a tender touch, one that had Clara’s heart fluttering in her chest. “Don’t keep blushing like that. I’m supposed to be on good behavior for this wedding breakfast.”

She laughed at his teasing remarks and they both turned their attention back to more arriving guests. Clara couldn’t deny there were many of them. At the church, she had noticed it was full, though she had been distracted from the act, far too busy staring at Horatio and thinking of their lives that were about to begin together. He was dressed handsomely, in a dark green suit, with a waistcoat lined with gold. Clara found her eyes kept darting over him and judging by the way his own eyes kept looking over her, he was rather fond of her gown too. Made of white and gold silk, gathered with small sleeves and a narrow waistline, it flattered her figure well, before falling to the floor in soft pleats. Even now when Horatio was supposed to be greeting more of their guests, he was looking her way.

“Horatio,” she hissed, watching as he fought his smile and looked to greet their parents.

“Oh, I knew how it would be!” Eleanora was professing loudly to Marianne. “Did I not say years ago when they were young that they would be wed?”

“Mother, have you been drinking the champagne already?” Horatio asked, earning a tap around his arm from his mother in reprimand.

“She said it in passing, yes,” Marianne said, “but none of us knew it for certain.” Behind the mothers, Patrick and Gregory walked up. Gregory quickly kissed Clara on the cheek and wished her well. She squeezed her father’s hand, glad of his well wishes. “Yet, I think I was the one who recently said they were bound to end up together.”

“Are we returning to this argument?” Patrick asked where he stood behind the two ladies. “They have each been arguing they are the one responsible for you two getting married.”

“They are?” Horatio spluttered as Clara laughed. “Do we not have anything to do with it?”

“It’s a fair argument,” Gregory said as he shook Horatio’s hand. “Come, let’s get you some more of that champagne you two have obviously been sneaking.” The four of them walked off as Horatio’s jaw hung slack and he stared at Clara.

“They take responsibility for it?”

“I think that responsibility resides with the next pair,” Clara said as James and Betchey hurried in. Betchey had borrowed one of Clara’s gowns for the occasion and looked quite beautiful in it. They kissed one another on the cheek warmly.

“I’m so thrilled for you,” Betchey said hurriedly. “I won’t stay long. Have you seen the queue of people out there you have yet to greet?” Even before Betchey had finished asking the question, James was drawing her into the wedding breakfast room, leaving Clara and Horatio to stare at one another.

“Perhaps we were wrong,” he mused. “They didn’t invite half of the county. They invited the whole county!”

“Perhaps so.” Clara shifted her attention forward, as another she loved very much walked in. It was Daniel, who looked surprisingly well today, his pallor pink.

“Sister.” He clasped her hand warmly then offered to shake Horatio’s hand too. “It’s about time you two got yourselves sorted.”

“Don’t tell me you, like everyone else, wish to take credit for knowing we were always going to marry,” Horatio said, rolling his eyes.

“Ha! No chance of me saying that.” Daniel shook his head. “I had no idea how you felt, my friend, but I’d be a fool indeed never to see where my sister’s heart was.” He smiled as he looked at Clara, and she stared at him, wide-eyed. She had never said anything to Daniel, whom she cared for, but it seemed he had known all the same. “Oh, yes, not so much a fool, am I?” he teased. “Congratulations to you both.”

He shook Horatio’s hand once more and followed the others into the breakfast room.

“I think we need some of that champagne ourselves,” Clara mused as more began to hurry in through the door. Horatio took her hand and lifted it to his lips again, kissing the back, allowing his eyes to drift down her gown as he had done all day. “You like this gown, do you not?”

“I do, but I was thinking more of the lady wearing the gown,” he teased in a whisper. “How many more people do you reckon there are?”

“A few,” she said with a sigh as they both glanced at the door. “You should steel yourself.”

“I will. Yet I am still very much looking forward to them all going home, and we are man and wife alone. At last,” he added, before quickly kissing her on the cheek.

Horatio was the one to recover first, offering an easy smile to their next guests as Clara blushed from his kiss. It struck her as she watched him with their guests that he was himself. Never did he offer false charm or smooth words that he did not mean these days.

He is the Horatio I always knew him to be.

* * *

“Clara, you do know it’s typical for a married couple to spend their first night together, don’t you?” Horatio’s teasing tone from the doorway had her laughing. She lifted her head from the letter she had been writing and peered through the candlelight to where he waited for her in the doorway.

He was certainly tempting her to abandon what she was doing and retire for the night. He stood in the hallway in his trousers and a loose shirt, but nothing more. Her mind filled with all sorts of mischievous ideas, and with the flirtatious comments he had whispered in her ear over the last few months, she longed to know what more they could do together.

“You are tempting,” she teased him.

“Not tempting enough, clearly.” He laughed at himself and waved at the distance between them. “I am glad you like your new writing bureau, but…” He gestured through the door to their bedchamber. She laughed once more.

“I will be there momentarily. I promise. I just have to write this letter first,” she insisted, gesturing down to her letter.

“Then hurry,” he pleaded, and disappeared through the door once more. Clara’s eyes watched him go, lingering for a minute more as she considered lowering her quill.

Not yet, this letter is nearly done.

Returning her focus to the letter, she let her eyes dance over what she had read. She was determined that there was one person she had to speak to, now that she was married. No matter how many times she’d given letters to Betchey in the past and asked her to leave them for Bona Dea, to invite her to the wedding, Bona Dea had politely refused, insisting that anonymity was key for her in this county. Clara understood the refusal, but she still wished to talk openly with the woman, and this letter afforded her that opportunity.

‘Dear Bona Dea,

I truly wish I could address this letter with your name and a dearer address, for you mean as much to me now as any of my friends do. I am indebted to you for my current happiness and the promise of my future, and I find I cannot stay silent without making my gratitude truly known.

What I wish to thank you for pertains to my own confidence and comfort in myself. The letter you wrote to me after I fell ill from the belladonna could not have been more aptly written, nor could you have chosen better words to steer me onto the right path.

Since then, I have become my true self. What startles me is how happy I am for it. I find I enjoy baking, something I never expected to like, though you’ll find me much in the kitchens these days, much to the surprise and joy of my cook. She is fond of teasing and saying I clutter up her kitchen, but she truly looks happy when I can recreate something that vaguely looks like her original recipe. I also ride much more these days, and with Horatio. The two of us do not just ride to our favorite haunts of Corfe Castle and Studland anymore, but far and wide. He has promised to take me travelling soon to Scotland and maybe to Cornwall too. Such adventure and excitement await!

I have you to thank for it all.

Had you not written that letter and told me what I needed to hear, who knows how long I might have wallowed in my self-pity. Instead of laying there, struggling to get better, I pushed the matter, lived my life to the full, and am loving every minute of it.

What’s more, what you had to say about love was also true. Any gentleman we seek to love should love us for who we are, not for the beauty we attempt to capture or the fashions we try to follow. I’m thrilled to say that Horatio is that man for me after all. We were married today, and though I know you could not come to the wedding, I have enclosed a little gift from myself.’

Clara paused and looked at the small piece of wedding cake she had wrapped up in muslin and a box beside her. She planned to leave it with the letter in the oak tree in the village, for Bona Dea to collect.

She’d often heard that wedding cake could bring good luck to other young women, for their own happiness. There was also an odd tale Clara had heard once of placing wedding cake under one’s pillow at night would make you dream of your future husband.

A silly superstition, I am sure, but what’s the harm?

Clara smiled as she turned her attention to the last part of the letter.

‘In all, there’s nothing left to say, but thank you. I hope someday we shall meet under different circumstances again. Pray, do let me know if there’s anything you need of me in return for your kindness. I would love to be of help to you if I can be.

Your friend,

Lady Clara Fitzroy.’

“Clara?” Horatio’s voice called from the other room once more. She smiled as she closed up the envelope and placed it with the wedding cake box. “Do I have to come in there and drag you into this room?”

“Hmm. I’m tempted to stay here just to see you do it,” she teased him, watching as he suddenly appeared in the doorway of the chamber. “Horatio!” He marched toward her and lifted her from the chair, carrying her all the way back to the bedchamber.

Any temptations she might have felt to protest or tell him off, were muffled by her laughter, and soon halted altogether. For as he kissed her, she wondered why she had busied herself with writing the letter, when she could have been here with Horatio.

The End...

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Clara and Horacio lived happily ever after...

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Who is the lady behind the letters... and what would be the cure for her own aching heart?

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