He said. They were married in August.
A quiet ceremony in the chapel at Ashvale Park. Maximilian’s country estate in Wiltshire where the wisteria on the south wall had been climbing the stones since 1743 and showed no signs of stopping.
The Dowager Duchess cried, which she would have found undignified if she had been less pleased. Ada’s mother cried louder and with considerably more volume having long ago decided that she was entitled to.
Lord Edmund Hereford sent a very gracious letter of congratulation which Ada read and set aside with a respect for him that had not diminished. He was, she thought, exactly what he appeared to be and that was more than most people managed.
She hoped sincerely that he found someone who deserved him. The ton talked as the ton always talks.
They said it was the strangest match of the decade. The Duke of Ashvale who had declared himself too old to choose a bride.
Married to a girl 20 years his junior. The niece of Lady Whitmore of all people.
A Bath Seminary graduate with no particular fortune and no particular connection beyond the one she had apparently been quietly building for 10 years. They said it quickly.
And then they said it less. And then they stopped saying it.