On the Way to the Wedding (39 page)

But she had not signaled for his help, either.

And that did not sit well with him.

Suddenly Colin perked up.

“What is it?”

Colin motioned to the right with his head. “A carriage,”

he said, “being brought ’round from the mews.”

Gregory’s eyes widened with horror as the front door to Fennsworth House opened. Servants spilled out, laughing and cheering as the vehicle came to a stop in front of Fennsworth House.

It was white, open, and festooned with perfectly pink flowers and wide rosy ribbons, trailing behind, fl uttering in the light breeze.

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It was a wedding carriage.

And no one seemed to find that odd.

Gregory’s skin began to tingle. His muscles burned.

“Not yet,” Colin said, placing a restraining hand on Gregory’s arm.

Gregory shook his head. His peripheral vision was beginning to fade from view, and all he could see was that damned carriage.

“I have to get her,” he said. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” Colin instructed. “Wait to see what happens. She might not come out. She might—”

But she did come out.

Not first. That was her brother, his new wife on his arm.

Then came an older man—her uncle, most probably—and that ancient woman Gregory had met at his sister’s ball.

And then . . .

Lucy.

In a wedding dress.

“Dear God,” he whispered.

She was walking freely. No one was forcing her.

Hermione said something to her, whispered in her ear.

And Lucy smiled.

She smiled.

Gregory began to gasp.

The pain was palpable. Real. It shot through his gut, squeezed at his organs until he could no longer move.

He could only stare.

And think.

“Did she tell you she wasn’t going to go through with it?”

Colin whispered.

Gregory tried to say yes, but the word strangled him. He tried to recall their last conversation, every last word of it.

She had said she must behave with honor. She had said she must do what was right. She had said that she loved him.

But she had never said that she would not marry Haselby.

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“Oh my God,” he whispered.

His brother laid his hand over his own. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Gregory watched as Lucy stepped up into the open carriage. The servants were still cheering. Hermione was fussing with her hair, adjusting the veil, then laughing when the wind lifted the gauzy fabric in the air.

This could not be happening.

There had to be an explanation.

“No,” Gregory said, because it was the only word he could think to say. “No.”

Then he remembered. The hand signal. The wave. She would do it. She would signal to him. Whatever had trans-pired in the house, she had not been able to halt the proceedings. But now, out in the open, where he could see, she would signal.

She had to. She knew he could see her.

She knew he was out there.

Watching her.

He swallowed convulsively, never taking his eyes off her right hand.

“Is everyone here?” he heard Lucy’s brother call out.

He did not hear Lucy’s voice in the chorus of replies, but no one was questioning her presence.

She was the bride.

And he was a fool, watching her ride away.

“I’m sorry,” Colin said quietly, as they watched the carriage disappear around the corner.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Gregory whispered.

Colin jumped down out of the tree and silently held out his hand to Gregory.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Gregory said again, too bewildered to do anything but let his brother help him down. “She wouldn’t do this. She loves me.”

He looked at Colin. His eyes were kind, but pitying.

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“No,” Gregory said. “No. You don’t know her. She would not— No. You don’t know her.”

And Colin, whose only experience with Lady Lucinda Abernathy was the moment in which she had broken his brother’s heart, asked, “Do you know her?”

Gregory stepped back as if struck. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”

Colin didn’t say anything, but his brows rose, as if to ask, Well, then?

Gregory turned, his eyes moving to the corner around which Lucy had so recently disappeared. For a moment he stood absolutely still, his only movement a deliberate, thoughtful blink of his eyes.

He turned back around, looked his brother in the face. “I know her,” he said. “I do.”

Colin’s lips drew together, as if trying to form a question, but Gregory had already turned away.

He was looking at that corner again.

And then he began to run.

$

Twenty-one

In which Our Hero risks everything.

“Are you ready?”

Lucy regarded the splendid interior of St. George’s—the bright stained glass, the elegant arches, the piles and piles of flowers brought in to celebrate her marriage.

She thought about Lord Haselby, standing with the priest at the altar.

She thought about the guests, all more-than-three-hundred of them, all waiting for her to enter on her brother’s arm.

And she thought about Gregory, who had surely seen her climb up into the bridal carriage, dressed in her wedding fi nery.

“Lucy,” Hermione repeated, “are you ready?”

Lucy wondered what Hermione might do if she said no.

Hermione was a romantic.

Impractical.

She would probably tell Lucy that she did not have to go through with it, that it did not matter that they were standing On the Way to the Wedding

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just outside the doors to the church sanctuary, or that the prime minister himself was seated inside.

Hermione would tell her that it did not matter that papers had been signed and banns had been read, in three different parishes. It did not matter that by fleeing the church Lucy would create the scandal of the decade. She would tell Lucy that she did not have to do it, that she should not settle for a marriage of convenience when she could have one of passion and love. She would say—

“Lucy?”

(Is what she actually said.)

Lucy turned, blinking in confusion, because the Hermione of her imagination had been giving quite an impas-sioned speech.

Hermione smiled gently. “Are you ready?”

And Lucy, because she was Lucy, because she would always be Lucy, nodded.

She could do nothing else.

Richard joined them. “I cannot believe you are getting married,” he said to Lucy, but not before gazing warmly at his wife.

“I am not so very much younger than you are, Richard,”

Lucy reminded him. She tilted her head toward the new Lady Fennsworth. “And I am two months older than Hermione.”

Richard grinned boyishly. “Yes, but she is not my sister.”

Lucy smiled at that, and she was grateful for it. She needed smiles. Every last one she could manage.

It was her wedding day. She had been bathed and per-fumed and dressed in what had to be the most luxurious gown she had ever laid eyes upon, and she felt . . .

Empty.

She could not imagine what Gregory thought of her. She had deliberately allowed him to think that she planned to call off the wedding. It was terrible of her, cruel and dishonest, but she did not know what else to do. She was a coward, 3

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and she could not bear to see his face when she told him she still intended to marry Haselby.

Good God, how could she have explained it? He would have insisted that there was another way, but he was an ideal-ist, and he had never faced true adversity. There wasn’t another way. Not this time. Not without sacrificing her family.

She let out a long breath. She could do this. Truly. She could. She could.

She closed her eyes, her head bobbing a half inch or so as the words echoed in her mind.

I can do this. I can. I can.

“Lucy?” came Hermione’s concerned voice. “Are you unwell?”

Lucy opened her eyes, and said the only thing Hermione would possibly believe. “Just doing sums in my head.”

Hermione shook her head. “I hope Lord Haselby likes maths, because I vow, Lucy, you are mad.”

“Perhaps.”

Hermione looked at her quizzically.

“What is it?” Lucy asked.

Hermione blinked several times before fi nally replying.

“It is nothing, really,” she said. “Just that that sounded quite unlike you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“To agree with me when I call you mad? That’s not at all what you would say.”

“Well, it’s obviously what I did say,” Lucy grumbled, “so I don’t know what—”

“Oh, pish. The Lucy I know would say something like,

‘Mathematics is a very extremely important endeavor, and really, Hermione, you ought to consider practicing sums yourself.’ ”

Lucy winced. “Am I truly so offi cious?”

“Yes,” Hermione replied, as if she were mad even to question it. “But it’s what I love best about you.”

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And Lucy managed another smile.

Maybe everything would be all right. Maybe she would be happy. If she could manage two smiles in one morning, then surely it couldn’t be that bad. She needed only to keep moving forward, in her mind and her body. She needed to have this thing done, to make it permanent, so she could place Gregory in her past and at least pretend to embrace her new life as Lord Haselby’s wife.

But Hermione was asking Richard if she might have a moment alone with Lucy, and then she was taking her hands, leaning in and whispering, “Lucy, are you certain you wish to do this?”

Lucy looked up at her in surprise. Why was Hermione asking her this? Right at the moment when she most wanted to run.

Hadn’t she been smiling? Hadn’t Hermione seen her smiling?

Lucy swallowed. She tried to straighten her shoulders.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. Why would you ask such a thing?”

Hermione did not answer right away. But her eyes—those huge, green eyes that rendered grown men senseless—they answered for her.

Lucy swallowed and turned away, unable to bear what she saw there.

And Hermione whispered, “Lucy.”

That was all. Just Lucy.

Lucy turned back. She wanted to ask Hermione what she meant. She wanted to ask why she said her name as if it were a tragedy. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. And so she hoped Hermione saw her questions in her eyes.

She did. Hermione touched her cheek, smiling sadly.

“You look like the saddest bride I’ve ever seen.”

Lucy closed her eyes. “I’m not sad. I just feel . . .”

But she didn’t know what she felt. What was she supposed 3

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to feel? No one had trained her for this. In all her education, with her nurse, and governess, and three years at Miss Moss’s, no one had given her lessons in this.

Why hadn’t anyone realized that this was far more important than needlework or country dances?

“I feel . . .” And then she understood. “I feel like I’m saying goodbye.”

Hermione blinked with surprise. “To whom?”

To myself.

And she was. She was saying goodbye to herself, and everything she might have become.

She felt her brother’s hand on her arm. “It’s time to begin,” he said.

She nodded.

“Where is your bouquet?” Hermione asked, then answered herself with, “Oh. Right there.” She retrieved the flowers, along with her own, from a nearby table and handed them to Lucy. “You shall be happy,” she whispered, as she kissed Lucy’s cheek. “You must. I simply will not tolerate a world in which you are not.”

Lucy’s lips wobbled.

“Oh dear,” Hermione said. “I sound like you now. Do you see what a good influence you are?” And then, with one last blown kiss, she entered the chapel.

“Your turn,” Richard said.

“Almost,” Lucy answered.

And then it was.

She was in the church, walking down the aisle. She was at the front, nodding at the priest, looking at Haselby and reminding herself that despite . . . well, despite certain habits she did not quite understand, he would make a perfectly acceptable husband.