And Lady Dew got to her feet to share the hug. "When you have children, Nessie," she said, "they must call us Grandmama and Grandpapa. They will be our grandchildren, you know, just as surely as if you had had them with Hedley." It was almost too much to bear.
Vanessa was glad they stayed out of her dressing room the next morning.
Mrs. Thrush insisted upon being there, of course, fussing over Vanessa and getting in the way of the maid who had come down from London to work for Meg and Kate. And everyone else came there. "Lord, Nessie," Stephen said, looking her up and down in her pale spring-green dress and pelisse with the absurdly festive flower-trimmed straw hat that Cecily had spotted at one of the milliners they had visited in London. Her hair curled and bounced beneath its brim. "You look as fine as fivepence. And years younger than you did when you went away to London." He was looking very smart indeed, with far more /presence /than he had had when they left Throckbridge. Vanessa told him so and he waved off the compliment with a careless hand.
Kate was biting her lower lip. "And to think," she said, "that just a few weeks ago Meg was darning stockings, Stephen was translating Latin texts, I was romping with the infants at school, and you were at Rundle Park, Nessie. And now here we are. And today brings the greatest change of all." Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip again. "Today," Margaret said firmly, "Nessie begins her happily-ever-after.
And she looks absolutely spendid." She was dry-eyed and rather tight-jawed. But there was such fierce affection in her eyes that Vanessa could not look into them for longer than a few moments at a time for fear of breaking down.
They had sat up far too late last night, Vanessa propped against the pillows of her bed, Margaret seated at the foot, her legs drawn up to her chin. "I want you to promise me," she had said, "that you will not lose your ability to be happy and to spread happiness about you, Nessie. No matter what. You must not lose yourself. Promise me." She was afraid that living with Viscount Lyngate would drag at Vanessa's spirit. How foolish she was. The opposite would be true. She would make him smile and laugh. She would make him happy.
She had promised him that she would. She had promised his mother the same thing. More important, she had promised herself. "I promise," she had said, smiling. "You goose, Meg. I am not going to the guillotine tomorrow. I am going to my own wedding. I did not tell you before, but on the day he asked me to marry him - we were out at the lake - he kissed me." Margaret stared at her. "I liked it," Vanessa said. "I really /really /liked it. And I think he did too." That part was probably untrue, but it was not an outright lie because she had not asked him and so did not know for sure. Anyway, he had certainly /wanted /her.
Margaret rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped about her knees. "I /need /kisses, Meg," Vanessa had said. "And I need more than kisses.
I need to be married again. I think sometimes men believe that only they need…kisses. But they are wrong. Women have such needs too. I am glad I am getting married again." And it was not even a complete lie, she had thought. She really did want more of his kisses and more /than /his kisses.
She wanted love and happiness too. If she tried very hard, perhaps she could achieve one of the two.
This morning, though, as Stephen held out his arm and she took it so that he could lead her downstairs and out to the carriage for the short ride to the chapel, she was not so sure that she wanted any of this.
She was going to marry a stranger. A handsome, virile, frowning, impatient, morose, sneering…
Oh, dear.
He had also gone down on one knee to propose marriage to her even though it had been unnecessary since /she /had already proposed to /him/ - and he had probably ruined his pantaloons on the wet grass in the process.
She settled herself on the carriage seat, leaving room for Stephen beside her, and felt a little as if she /were /on the way to the guillotine after all.
Foolishly, she wanted Hedley.
There were no more than thirty wedding guests all told. Even so, they almost filled the small private chapel.
The nuptial service was not a long one. That fact had always surprised Vanessa at the weddings she had attended - including her own first wedding. And this one was no different.
How could such a momentous and irrevocable change in two lives be effected in so short a time and with such little fuss? The only real moment of drama came with that short pause after the clergyman asked if anyone knew of any impediment to the proposed marriage.
As on all other such occasions that Vanessa knew of, that pause remained unfilled today, and the service swept onward to its inevitable conclusion.
She was aware, as soon as Stephen placed her hand in Viscount Lyngate's, that her own was cold, that his was firm and steady and warm. She was aware of his immaculate tailoring - he wore unadorned black and white, as he had at the Valentine's assembly - of his height and the breadth of his shoulders. She was aware of his cologne.
She was aware of the quickened beating of her heart.
And she was aware of an era slipping away from her as her name changed and she became Vanessa Wallace, Viscountess Lyngate.
Hedley slipped farther into her past, and she had to let him go.
She belonged to this man now.
To this stranger.
She raised her eyes to his as he slipped her new wedding ring on her finger.
How was it possible to marry a stranger?
But she was doing it.
So was he. Did he even realize how little he knew her? Did it matter to him?
The ring safely in place, he looked up into her eyes.
She smiled.
He did not.
And then, a dizzyingly short number of moments later, they were man and wife. And what God had joined together, no man was to put asunder. No woman either, presumably.
They signed the church register and then walked along the short nave of the church together while Vanessa smiled to the left and the right at their guests. Meg was dry-eyed, Kate was not. Stephen was grinning. So was Mr. Bowen. The viscountess - now the /dowager /viscountess - was dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. The duke was looking at them from beneath craggy eyebrows, a ferocious frown on his face. The duchess was smiling sweetly and nodding her head. Sir Humphrey was blowing his nose.
Everything else was a blur.
The first thing Vanessa noticed as they stepped out of the chapel - she had not noticed on the way in - was that the grass of the churchyard and the hedgerows beneath the trees were dotted with crocuses and primroses and clumps of daffodils.
Somehow spring had arrived late and almost unnoticed. How could she possibly have missed it? It was the end of March already, and spring was always her favorite time of the year. "Oh," she said, looking up at the man beside her with a bright smile, "look at all the spring flowers. Are they not lovely?" And the sun was shining, she noticed. The sky was a clear blue. "The ones in your hat?" he asked her. "They are indeed." And for one brief moment, before their guests came spilling out of the church behind them, it seemed to her that his eyes came close to smiling.
She laughed at the absurd joke - and felt suddenly breathless and weak-kneed. This man was her husband. She had just promised to love, honor, and obey him for the rest of her life. "Well, Vanessa," he said softly.
Ah. No one ever called her that - except his mother. How lovely her name was after all, she thought foolishly as she smiled back at him.
They were the last words he spoke privately to her for several hours.
Even during the carriage ride to Finchley Park for the wedding breakfast they had company, since the viscount's Aunt Roberta had had quite enough of her sister's whinings about drafts and carriage sickness during the ride to church and chose to ride back with her nephew and his bride. And since she had a word or two of warning to pass along to young Merton about all the pitfalls that would be awaiting him when he stepped into the wicked world of London later in the spring, she insisted that Stephen ride with them too.