Page 52

After seeing Lady Romella and Helene off, Lord Monweithe had waited downstairs for Elizabeth, his only companion his port bottle.

At first, he took to the port when vague doubts about the correctness of this hasty marriage flitted through his mind.

As the minutes passed, so did those doubts, to be replaced with a sense of injury and an insidious fear the marriage would not take place; that Elizabeth’s seeming biddability of late was a sham to cover her plans to humiliate him further.

With the second glass of port came the conviction that those indeed were her plans, and an equally strong conviction arose on his part to see the marriage go through.

The older she became, the harder it was for him to even look at her.

Though her hair was darker and her eyes brighter than his dear departed wife’s, in face and form, she was her twin.

At one time he had irrationally blamed Elizabeth for her mother’s death.

That was long ago. There were times when she was growing up he had wanted to draw her to his chest to hug, only to be met with bitter, waspish, angry words.

He’d never known how to reach that tiny, wraithlike creature with her condemning gold eyes.

He knew she had been devastated by her mother’s death, yet at the time, he’d had no room in his heart to comfort her—so great was his own grief.

Unthinkingly, he pushed her away, pushed her into the cursed shrew she was.

Through the years, he’d never been able to rectify his error and give her the love she needed.

Perhaps marriage would cure her. Yes, he decided, babes were what she needed.

That, and a change of scene, away from her own family.

He would not let her throw away a chance for happiness.

He owed her that chance and owed himself some peace, he’d decided foggily before storming up the stairs.

“What missish nonsense is this?” Lord Monweithe paced Elizabeth’s room in a tight circle, his color rising. “If you’ve no notion of going through with this marriage and think it a play to embarrass your family, you’ve overextended yourself,” he declared flatly.

“I’ll see you married or I’ll swear I never had an elder daughter named Elizabeth and throw you out on the street!” Elizabeth gaped at the injustice. Fearful he was serious, her sense of aloneness and being unloved grew in proportion. Bile rose, burning her throat. She swallowed convulsively.

“Married or not, I would not stay a day longer in this house with a sanctimonious old woman, an empty-headed young one, and a man so enamored with appearances and conventions!” Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper while she held her head high and angrily held back tears.

“But I will see this farce of a wedding through, if only to maintain my place in society so I may be a constant reminder to you, a constant thorn in your side with the knowledge of your failure as a father.” She crossed the room to the dressing table, staring down at its surface.

“Hold your tongue!” Sir George roared. Beads of perspiration gathered on his brow.

“Why?” Elizabeth choked out, whirling around to glare at him. “You have already sold me; the wedding remains a mere formality. Since Mama died, I have been like a dead thing to you. You are merely getting around to burying the rotted corpse.”

Appalled at her words, Elizabeth twirled away from her father to stare sightlessly out the window.

Never had she come so close to revealing herself, and never in fourteen years had she even dared mention her mother to her father.

An awful silence filled the room. The maid, her back to the combatants, busied herself with straightening brushes and bottles, while her sharp ears listened carefully, so she could repeat to her peers below stairs word-for-word everything that was said.

The Earl mopped his brow, the earlier fogginess being replaced with a searing pain in his head. Carefully, he ignored what Elizabeth said, save her statement that she would go through with the wedding.

“If you’re going to go through with the wedding, we’d best be off before the guests think we are not coming and rise to leave.”

Elizabeth nodded curtly, thankful he chose to ignore her comment.

She picked up a handkerchief from the dressing table and under cover of her veil, dabbed at the corner of her eyes before turning to her father.

He was holding the door to her room open.

With her head high, she swept through it and on down the stairs ahead of her father.

At the foot of the stairs, Jovis waited with her bouquet.

Regally, she took it from him and disdained the warmth of a proffered cloak.

Lord Monweithe scowled, saying nothing, a wordless truce having sprung up between them.

He took her arm to lead her to the waiting carriage.

Elizabeth murmured a polite “thank you” as he handed her into the vehicle, but otherwise remained silent as they traversed the few short blocks between their home and St. George’s in Hanover Square.

In that time, she sadly convinced herself the marriage was for the best. It was unfair to her family to bear with her any longer.

She was a blight on their lives. Just because she could not have love and happiness, what right did she have to deny that to others?

She sighed audibly, drawing her father’s curious eyes upon her, but she did not notice.

At the church, she mutely allowed herself to be handed down and led up the wide church steps.

She paused at the great doors, steeling herself for the walk up the aisle and the end of her life as she knew it to be.

Suddenly she was aware of a flurry among the people gathered at the altar and Freddy Shiperton came hurrying back to them, agitated and stuttering his request to stay where they were.

“Stay? But we’re late as it is. We must get on with this.” The Earl looked around. “Where is St. Ryne?”

Freddy looked pained and wrung his hands. “That’s just it, sir. We don’t know. He ain’t here yet.”

Elizabeth’s world spun around for a moment at the bald pronouncement, and she would have fallen had not a hand come out to steady her.

Mistily, she found herself looking up at Sir James Branstoke.

He smiled at her and murmured softly, so softly she was afraid she did not hear him correctly when he said:

“Patience, good Katharine, and Baptista too.

Upon my life, Petruchio means but well...”

Elizabeth looked at him curiously. “Beg pardon? What?—”

“What’s that you say? He ain’t here?” Lord Monweithe expostulated, again looking around the church as if to repudiate Freddy’s statement. “What’s the meaning of this?” He turned to glare at Freddy. “What do you know about this, Shiperton? I demand an explanation.”

Freddy spread his hands helplessly, his fair complexion flushed with embarrassment. He slid a worried glance in Elizabeth’s direction.

Elizabeth found herself exceedingly thankful for the veil she wore, for she discovered to her dismay that her eyes were stinging with tears threatening to overflow.

She drew every inch of her tiny frame erect and bit her lip to maintain her composure.

Around her she heard whisperings, the snap of fans, and the rustle of material as the guests turned to one another.

The whisperings increased in volume with each passing moment of the Viscount’s absence.

The whisperings became louder until they seemed to shout and reverberate in her head.

“Perhaps—” her father coughed, running his hand nervously through his hair. “Perhaps, Elizabeth, we should return to Rasthough House.”

Elizabeth snapped her head around.

“Or-or mayhap retire to our carriage and await Viscount St. Ryne’s arrival there,” he finished quickly.

Mutely, Elizabeth shook her head, her pride not allowing her to make such a telling move. Her eyes were now so blurred that she could scarcely see, but she refused to raise the handkerchief she clutched in her nerveless hand to her eyes to blot away the tears.

It was nearly one hour after the appointed time for the ceremony when the first party of guests rose to leave.

Elizabeth grimaced at the pitying glances cast in her direction, but held her ground.

Her tears had long since dried, to be replaced with a simmering anger bearing a stiffness of posture and high color to her cheeks.

Suddenly there was an uproar at the great door leading into the narthex, and the guests who had been on the verge of departing milled uncertainly.

A young boy burst into the church, his sides heaving as he panted to catch his breath.

He bent over, hands on his knees, as he gulped air.

“He’s coming!” he gasped out. “His lordship’s coming!” the child cried when at last he recovered his voice.

Lord Monweithe pushed through the crowd to grab the boy by a thin shoulder, spinning him around to face him. “What’s that you say? Speak up, lad,” he said, giving the child a slight shake. “You’ve seen the Viscount St. Ryne? Make no mistake about this. Where is he?”

“He’s coming, sir, down the road.” The boy trembled at the ferocious expression on the Earl's face. “I saw him riding his horse this way,” he explained, throwing up a bony arm to shield himself from the backhanded blow he expected.

Lord Monweithe, however, had no thought of punishment or reward for the lad. Stunned, he walked into the narthex, wishing to see for himself if St. Ryne approached. Uncertainty kept him staring at the closed doors.

Sir James Branstoke approached the fidgety and frightened boy, quietly placed a coin in his palm, and pushed him toward a side entrance. Clenching the coin tightly in his fist, the lad muttered his thanks and ducked out the door.

Suddenly the great carved doors burst open, letting in a whoosh of air and bright light, silhouetting the Viscount against the sky.