The Duke and Duchess of Moreland were to host a wedding breakfast at Moreland House following the nuptials. The bride and groom were to leave for the country immediately after for a brief honeymoon before the arrival of the houseguests who had been invited to Cedarhurst Park to celebrate Miss Wrayburn’s eighteenth birthday. Those guests were the envy of the ton. They were to have all the pleasure of witnessing the early progress of such an unlikely union.
But for now it was Katherine’s wedding day.
She was wearing a new pale blue muslin gown that fell in soft folds from its high waistline to the silver-embroidered hem. Similar embroidery trimmed the short puffed sleeves and the modestly scooped neck.
Her new straw bonnet was lavishly trimmed with blue cornflowers and was held in place beneath her chin with wide blue silk ribbons.
The white gold chain about her neck with its faceted diamond pendant, which to her mind resembled a large teardrop, had been a betrothal gift from her bridegroom.
She wore long white gloves and silver slippers.
She knew she was looking her best. She needed to. Today had very little to do with her except that following it she would be married forever after to Lord Montford. No, today was all about respectability, belonging, accepting the rules and conventions of society. She was a member of society whether she liked it or not. She had been ever since Elliott, still Viscount Lyngate at the time, had ridden into Throckbridge to inform Stephen that he was the Earl of Merton. She owed it to her family to fit into society as best she could.
And when all was said and done, her family was all that really mattered. She loved them. She was doing this primarily for them, though they would be perturbed if they knew it. All of them at one time or other during the past month had found time for a private tete-a-tete with her and had urged her to put an end to the betrothal and wedding preparations if she really did not want to marry Lord Montford. Each had offered his or her undying support if she made such a decision.
Margaret and Vanessa were in her dressing room now. They had both stopped in the doorway to exclaim with admiration and assure her that she looked beautiful.
“And we were quite right about the color,” Meg said, coming closer to take Katherine’s hands in her own-with a painfully tight grip. “It is the very best color and shade for you. It matches your eyes and flatters your hair. Oh, Kate, are you quite, quite sure…”
Meg had even offered to move somewhere in the country with her if she wished-far away from London and Warren Hall and even Throckbridge. They would be quiet and happy together in a small cottage for the rest of their lives, and the beau monde could go to Hades-Meg’s own words.
Poor Meg! This was all harder on her than on anyone else with the possible exception of Katherine herself. She had given years of her life since their father’s death-all of her youth and most of her twenties, in fact-to the care of her brother and sisters. She had even given up Crispin Dew, the man she had loved and perhaps still did. Her one goal had always been to see them well settled in life. But more important even than that, she had wanted to see them all happily settled.
Katherine smiled and returned the pressure of Meg’s hands.
“Of course I am sure, silly goose,” she said, as she had said numerous times before. “I was horribly embarrassed by all those foolish stories a month ago, it is true, and I was terribly angry at having my hand so forced. And of course I was not best pleased with Lord Montford either since in many ways-though not in every way-he was the cause of it all. But that is all in the past now, and I am well content with what has come of it. I am twenty-three years old and eager to marry at last-and I am to do it with the man of my choice. I really am enormously fond of him, you know.”
She was overdoing it. That word enormously especially did not ring at all true. But Meg was looking reassured nonetheless.
“Then I am content too,” she said, tears brightening her eyes. “And I do believe he has a regard for you too, Kate. Oh, I think so, and I thought it even before all this nastiness happened. I will forgive him all his sins against you if this turns into the love match I dream of for you.”
Vanessa took Meg’s place and hugged Katherine tightly.
“You know,” she said, “I did not at all love Elliott when I married him, and he certainly did not love me. How could he when I was the one who proposed marriage to him, poor man. I believe he could barely tolerate me, in fact.”
She laughed merrily and stepped back.
Elliott had been looking about him for a bride when he first assumed guardianship of Stephen, and being an unromantic soul at the time, he had fixed his choice on Meg for pure convenience’s sake. But Meg had been waiting for Crispin Dew, who had gone off to war. Nessie had known, though, that Meg had a strong sense of family duty and was very likely to say yes to Elliott purely because she would think the marriage in the best interest of her family. And so Nessie, in a grand gesture of self-sacrifice, had proposed to Elliott before he had a chance to propose to Meg. And he had married her.
“But now,” Nessie said, her rather plain face suddenly beautiful with animation, “we not only love each other dearly, we are also deeply in love. If there is the will to love, Kate, then love itself will follow in lavish abundance. I promise.”
“But I already do love Lord Montford,” Katherine protested. “And he loves me.”
She was overdoing it again.
“Of course.” Vanessa’s smile suggested that she knew it but that she was filled with hope anyway. “Of course you do. Oh, I so want you to be happy. I want both my sisters to be happy. And Stephen too, though he is far too young to worry about yet.”
She blinked back tears and laughed again.
And then Stephen himself appeared in the doorway, looking splendidly handsome and very grown up in black and white.
“Kate,” he said, coming inside and reaching out his hands to take hers in a strong clasp, “my favorite sister, I would feel bound to say if you were not all three my favorites. I wish I could have been an older brother so that I could have offered some of the care and protection that you all always gave me. I wish I did not have to give you up so soon. But Monty is a decent man despite everything. I am convinced of it. There is nothing vicious about him. I could never have been his friend if there had been. He will treat you well.”
“Of course he will.” She laughed at his earnestness. “And soon your friend will also be your brother-in-law.”
“I thought I had better come up,” Elliott said from the doorway, “to remind you all that we are expected at St. George’s sometime today. It occurred to me that perhaps you had forgotten.”
Katherine remembered seeing him for the very first time at a Valentine’s assembly in Throckbridge, the evening before he came to their cottage to break the news to Stephen. She had thought him-every lady present had thought him-the most handsome man she had ever set eyes upon with his dark good looks, which she had learned later came from his Greek mother-except for his blue eyes. Now he was Nessie’s husband and Isabelle and Sam’s father, and she could see him only as someone very dear.
Oh, Nessie had been fortunate in her choice.
“I am not going to deliver a sentimental speech or offer any sage words of advice, Katherine, you will be relieved to know,” he said. “It would all make us later still. But I must say that you look very fetching indeed.”
“Thank you, Elliott.” She took a few steps toward him and he opened his arms. She went into them and they hugged each other.