“The ball was very jolly,” she said, “in large measure because you came and I met you at last. You have made my happiness complete.”
“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed, looking pleased. “But I must be off.” He spotted Gwen beside the door and made her a bow. “May I thank you again, ma’am, for your extreme kindness in giving up your room for me last night?”
There had not been another available either at the abbey or at the dower house or at the inn. Gwen had slept on a truckle bed in Aunt Clara’s dressing room.
And then, less than two minutes after he had left, Neville and Lily appeared.
“We simply had to run up and see Lauren on our way to church,” Lily said by way of apology. “Oh, Lauren, how absolutely gorgeous you look. I am so happy for you. So happy.” She hugged Lauren, regardless of the danger to their finery—and of the growingly visible bulk of her condition.
Lauren hugged her back. “I love you, Lily,” she whispered.
“Well, I would think so too,” Lily said, quite unabashed. “If it were not for me, this would not be your wedding day, would it?”
Trust Lily to bring all that out into the open.
And then it was Neville’s turn. Like Aunt Clara, he said nothing—not even her name. But he wrapped his arms tightly about her and hugged her close. She twined her arms about him and closed her eyes.
Neville. Her dearly beloved Neville. The dearest, dearest brother a woman ever had. She knew—though they had not spoken of it—just how much today meant to him. It was the day when he would finally see her happiness complete, the day he could finally let go of his terrible guilt.
“Be happy,” he said, releasing her at last and smiling at her. “Promise me?”
“I promise.” She smiled back. “I love him, you see.”
“If we do not leave immediately, Neville,” Aunt Clara said, “the bride is going to race us to the church. What a disgrace that would be.”
They all laughed, and Aunt Clara bent one last, lingering look on Lauren as she left with Neville and Lily.
Lauren was left alone with Gwen. She turned and looked at her, her smile fading.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I should have suggested Alvesley for the wedding after all.”
Gwen understood. How could she not? They had been sisters and dearest friends for all of twenty-three years.
“No,” she said. “Your dignity and your courage have not failed you for more than a year and a half, Lauren. They will not fail you now.”
Lauren’s maid tapped on the door then and poked her head around it. She was still looking tearful. Baron Galton awaited Miss Edgeworth and Lady Muir in the hall below, she announced.
It was all so very reminiscent. . . .
It had been spring the last time—March. It was late October this time. The weather was just as lovely, cool but sunny. The trees surrounding the dower house and lining the short stretch of driveway before the carriage reached the park gates and drove out to the village and the church beyond were decked out in all the glorious colors of autumn. The driveway was carpeted with leaves already fallen.
The village green was dotted with villagers. A denser crowd of them clustered about the churchyard gates. The roadway surrounding the green was lined with empty carriages of all kinds. Their coachmen stood idly about, gawking at all the excitement, their colorful liveries distinguishing them from the villagers.
Ah, yes, eerily reminiscent.
Standing inside the church porch a few minutes later while Gwen stooped to straighten her hem and arrange her train, Lauren could sense crowds of people filling the church just beyond the line of her vision. The vicar would be waiting at the altar rail. So would Kit and Sydnam. She could visualize all the people outside, waiting for the ringing of the church bells to herald the completion of the marriage ceremony, waiting to catch a glimpse of bride and groom as they came out of church, newly married.
And she could almost feel a small, shabbily clad woman dashing up the churchyard path and into the porch and brushing past Lauren to hurry on into the church to bring the world crashing to an end.
Her grandfather was waiting patiently, smiling benevolently at her.
She thought she would surely faint. Worse, she felt horribly bilious. Panic clawed at the edges of her control. Then Gwen looked up at her—and stood up to take her hand and squeeze it tightly in both her own.
“Lauren,” she said softly, “it is all over now. The past is gone. The future awaits you. This is today—your wedding day. Your real wedding day.”
The great pipe organ began playing. Lauren’s grandfather offered his arm. And they stepped inside the church, into the long nave.
For a few moments she could see everything, as if it were all etching itself onto her memory for all time. Faces turned back to watch her approach, most of them familiar, almost all of them smiling. She even noticed individuals—Joseph, daring to wink at her, Claude and Daphne Willard, Aunt Sadie and Uncle Webster, the Duke of Bewcastle and Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, Elizabeth and the Duke of Portfrey, Cousin Peter, Kit’s grandmother, nodding and beaming, Lily and Neville, Aunt Clara, the Earl and Countess of Redfield.
But only for a few moments. Then her eyes focused on the end of the nave, where a man stood watching her come. He was not as tall as either the vicar on one side of him or Sydnam on the other. But he was handsome beyond belief and dressed with consummate elegance in a black, form-fitting tailed coat with ivory satin knee breeches and embroidered waistcoat and sparkling white linen and stockings. Lace frothed at his throat and wrists.
Kit!
He looked formal and solemn. But no! As she drew closer, Lauren could see that his eyes smiled. Not with his customary merriment and roguery, but with something that took her breath away even though she had known beyond any doubt for a whole month that he loved her. He had written daily from Alvesley—sometimes twice daily, once three times—to tell her so, often in outrageously florid language that he knew would have her laughing.
His eyes drew her to him. They warmed her from head to toe, they devoured her, they made her beautiful and desirable and very much wanted. His eyes adored her.
She wondered suddenly if she was smiling and discovered that she was.
She was also as terrified as she had been all through a sleepless night, all through the dressing for her wedding, all through coming to church and standing in the porch. Terrified that even now, even now when Grandpapa was answering the vicar’s question and giving her hand into Kit’s, something would happen. The wedding service— her wedding—had begun, she realized, but she could not concentrate on it. She thought it altogether possible that she might be going to faint.
He had never seen her more beautiful. Her dress of shimmering white satin was unadorned except at the hem and around the bottom of the train, at the edge of the short sleeves and about the scooped neckline, where it was delicately scalloped and decorated with silver embroidery and hundreds—perhaps thousands—of tiny pearls. Her bonnet, slippers, and long gloves were all white, the former adorned with the finest lace veil, which fell over her face. The only touches of color were the violet ribbon beneath her bosom, its ends trailing to her hem, and the small posy of violets and dark green leaves she carried in one hand.
He had never expected his wedding day to be the happiest of his life. Weddings—with the possible exception of the wedding night—were tedious, rather embarrassing affairs for the man, he had always thought. But today he was prepared to concede that there was something to be said for the old clichй. A great deal, in fact. She looked rather like the old marble Lauren Edgeworth at first. But then, when her eyes focused upon him and she came closer, she smiled.
His heart turned over. Another clichй. Perhaps weddings were clichйs personified. He had missed her during the past month. And yesterday he had scarcely been able to get near her. Today . . . well, today was the happiest of his life.