"Love is a Choice" by Gratiana Lovelace, 3/15/13 (Completed)

Ch. 15 (PG-13): Visiting Lady Katharine's Family in London, Part 1

“Love is a Choice”, Ch. 15 (PG-13):Visiting Lady Katharine’s Family in London, Part 1,    April 15, 2013 Gratiana Lovelace

(An original story by Gratiana Lovelace; All Rights Reserved)

[From time to time, I will illustrate my story with my dream cast of:  Richard Armitage as Lord Rafe Wingate, Carla Gugino as Lady Katharine Wingate, Lesley Nicol as Mrs. Plunkett, Emilie Francois as Anna, Mark Strong as Sir Collin MacGregor, Alan Bates as Lord Charles Wingate, and Christian Bale as Stuart MacGregor, Daniel Day-Lewis as Sir  Antony Southwick, Michelle Pfeiffer as Lady Charmaine Southwick and others, etc.]     [Story Logo 1abcd]

Author’s Mature Content Note:  “Love is a Choice” is a story of love and romance set in the early to mid 1800’s.  I like Regency sensibilities with regard to comedy of manners, but Romantic period modes of dress.   Ha!  As such there will be some passages in this story involving heartfelt love scenes (perhaps some R rated) and some passages involving highly dramatic moments.  I will label the maturity rating of those chapters accordingly.  Otherwise, the general rating for this story is PG or PG-13 due to some mature situations and topics.  If you are unable or unwilling to attend a movie with the ratings that I provide, then please do not read the chapters with those labels.  This is my disclaimer.

Author’s Recap from the previous installment:   The  MacGregors and Lord Rafe and Lady Katharine Wingate departed Dearing Manor in Warwick this Thursday morning with heavy hearts for having to part from one another.  It has been a lovely first three days of Lord Rafe and Lady Katharine’s marriage and wedding trip--once you get past her bolting from her groom  and him later offering to annul their marriage because he has an illegitimate daughter who has surfaced and will now live with his parents.  But the family and their close friends rallied around young Anna Wingate and relationships are being formed--with her Papa Rafe and his wife Katharine/Kathy, with Anna’s little cousins Lottie and Henry, and with young Stuart MacGregor.  The matter of delicately revealing  Anna’s existence to Lady Katharine’s parents--Sir Antony and Lady Charmaine Southwick--will be the main goal of their few days visit with them.  And Lord Rafe also hopes to meet Lady Katharine’s Grandmere who is so fond of giving silk as gifts.

“Love is a Choice”, Ch. 15 (PG-13):  Visiting Lady Katharine’s Family in London, Part I

Their private carriage ride from Warwick to London on Thursday was a smooth one for Lord Rafe and Lady Katharine--blessedly uneventful with regard to no broken wheels nor highwaymen, etc.  They enjoy the uninterrupted time to chat and share and kiss and cuddle with each other.  They also have a picnic basket with yummy foods to munch on.  So they only stop at two inns along the way for he and Lady Katharine to rest a bit as necessary.  And were it not for Lord Rafe’s consideration of his wife’s comfort--and her heightened sense of modesty--he might have suggested that they enjoy the swaying of the enclosed private and spacious carriage in a more intimately marital way.  But he looks forward to them being alone together this evening--even if they are staying at her parents’ home. 

It is a long eight hours carriage ride and they reach Lady Katharine’s parents’ London home after darkness begins to fall--but they will still have an hour to bathe and change for dinner at eight o’clock.  Lady Katharine’s parents are very punctual about meals and such.  So it would have made a bad impression upon her parents were they to have been delayed along their journey. 

Indeed, as they enter the large Grosvenor Square [(2) right] London home of the Southwick’s, the home has almost a museum quality feel to it--because the furnishings are so perfectly and artfully chosen and arranged, in Lord Rafe’s view.  This home’s décor is due to Lady Charmaine Southwick, a lady of quality with impeccable taste and style.  But Lord Rafe also notices an almost imperceptible change in his wife, Lady Katharine, as they enter her childhood home--as he sees her posture stiffen,  her manner become strained, and the smile fade from her face.