Only Beloved (8 page)

“Just kindness?” Agnes asked. “Do you love him, Dora?”

“We have agreed,” Dora said, “that we are too old for that nonsense.”

Agnes shrieked and jumped to her feet.

“Shall I fetch a Bath chair to convey you to the wedding?” she asked. “Shall I have one sent to Stanbrook House to convey George?”

Dora swung her legs off the window seat, and they both dissolved into laughter again.

“I am fond of him,” Dora conceded. “There. Are you satisfied? And I do believe he is fond of me.”

“I am bowled over by the romance of it,” Agnes said,
one hand over her heart. “But I do not believe you for a moment. At least, I do not believe it is just fondness you feel for each other. I was watching him while you played the pianoforte a couple of evenings ago, you know. He was positively beaming. And it was not just with pride. And I saw the way you looked at him after you had finished playing, before you were swamped with the attentions of the guests. Oh, Dora, this is your
wedding
day. I am so happy I could burst.”

“Please don't,” Dora said.

A tap on the door at that moment heralded the arrival of a maid with a breakfast tray for Dora, and Agnes took her leave, promising to be back within the hour to help her dress for the wedding. Dora looked at the buttered toast and the cup of chocolate without appetite, but it would be very embarrassing if her empty stomach began to protest during the nuptial service. She set about clearing the plate.

Yes, it was her wedding day. But Mama would not be there to witness it, though apparently she lived not far from here. Did she know? Was she aware that Dora was to marry the Duke of Stanbrook today? And would she care if she did? He had been willing to invite her, and for a moment Dora was quite illogically sorry she had said no.

“Mama.” She murmured the name aloud and then shook her head to clear it. What an idiot she was being.

Soon Dora's wedding day began in earnest. Agnes returned as promised and was followed soon after by their sister-in-law, Louisa, and their father's wife—Dora never had been able to bring herself to call the former
Mrs. Brough her stepmother—and by Aunt Millicent. Agnes's own maid, with much advice and assistance from the ladies, arrayed Dora in her wedding outfit. She had chosen a midblue dress some people might judge to be too plain for the occasion, though Agnes and all the friends who were with her at the time had assured her that the expert cut and style made it not only smart but perfectly suited to her. She wore with it a small-brimmed, high-crowned straw bonnet trimmed with cornflowers, and straw-colored shoes and gloves. Agnes's maid styled her hair low at the neck to accommodate the bonnet, but prettily coiled and curled so that it did not look as prim as it usually did.

Everyone—except the maid—proceeded to hug her tightly when it was time for them to leave for the church, and all spoke at once, it seemed. There was a flurry of laughter.

And then, just when everything was quieting down with only Agnes left and Dora was composing herself for what lay ahead, there was a brisk knock on the door and Flavian poked his head about it, pronounced her decent—whatever would he have done if she had not been?—and opened the door wider to admit himself and Oliver and Uncle Harold. Flavian looked her over with lazy eyes and told her she looked as fine as fivepence—whatever that meant—and Oliver told her she looked as pretty as a picture and he was as proud as a peacock of her. Her brother had never been known for his originality with words. He then proceeded to fold her in his arms and attempt to crush every rib in her body while he assured her that if anyone deserved
happiness at last, it was she. Uncle Harold merely looked sheepish and pecked her cheek after telling her she was looking fine.

Their father, Oliver informed her, was waiting downstairs to escort her to church.

Papa was neither an emotional man nor a demonstrative one—and that was a giant understatement—but he looked steadily up at Dora a few minutes later as she descended the stairs to the hallway.

“You look very pretty, Dora,” he said. He hesitated before continuing. “I thank you for inviting Helen and me to your wedding and for asking me, moreover, to give you away. It was never our intention, you know, to make you feel obliged to leave home after our marriage.”

Dora was not at all sure it had not been Mrs. Brough's intention. She had had what she had called a frank talk with her stepdaughter not long after Agnes's marriage to William Keeping and a year after her own marriage to Papa. She had explained that though Dora had had the running of the house since she was little more than a girl, she must not feel obliged to continue doing so now that it had a real mistress. Perhaps, she had suggested, Dora would care to visit her aunt in Harrogate for an indefinite period of time. Or perhaps she would like to make her home with Agnes and Mr. Keeping and allow her sister to look after her for a change. Dora had been hurt, since she had been trying very hard not to involve herself in the running of the home. At the same time, there had been a certain sense of relief in being set free to pursue her own future.

“I am very glad you both came, Papa,” she assured
him quite truthfully. Her father had never gone out of his way to earn her affection, but he had never been unkind either, and Dora loved him.

He offered her his arm and led her out to the waiting carriage. The sun was still shining from a clear sky. The air was warm and welcoming. Numerous birds, hidden among the branches of the trees in the park, were singing their hearts out.

Oh, let it all be a good omen, Dora thought.

A
t five minutes to eleven it was unlikely there was an empty space in any of the pews at St. George's Church on Hanover Square. Indeed, a few of the male guests were standing at the back and were even beginning to encroach upon the side aisles. Society weddings during the Season invariably drew a crowd of invited guests, but when the groom was a duke and the bride a virtual unknown, then the crowd was sure to be larger than usual. Even King George IV had explained that he would have been delighted to attend if a long-standing obligation did not oblige him to be out of town on the day in question.

The organist was playing quietly, muting the low hum of conversation.

George, seated at the front with his nephew, ought to have been feeling nervous. It was almost obligatory, was it not, for grooms to feel their neckcloths tighten about their throats and their palms grow clammy at this stage of the proceedings? But it was Julian who was showing signs of nerves as he patted one of his pockets
to make sure the ring had not escaped its confines during the past five minutes.

George himself was feeling perfectly composed. No, actually he was feeling something more positive than that. He was aware of a boyish sort of eagerness as he awaited his bride. He was going to savor every word and every moment of the nuptial service with her at his side. The ceremony would usher them into the future they had chosen for themselves. It would be a perfect beginning to a marriage of perfect contentment—or so he firmly believed. He had hoped for it when he went into Gloucestershire to offer her marriage, but he had become convinced of it during the past month. She was the wife for whom he had unconsciously longed perhaps all his life, and he dared believe he was the husband she had dreamed of and been denied as a very young lady. Fate was a strange thing, though. He would not have been free for her at that time even if they had met.

“Is she late?” he murmured when it seemed to him that it must be at least eleven o' clock.

Julian pounced upon this small sign of weakness. “Aha!” he said, turning his head and grinning. “You
are
feeling it. But I very much doubt she is. Miss Debbins does not seem the sort who would ever keep someone waiting. But if she is late, she is certainly not going to be any later. I believe she has arrived.”

Even as he spoke the bishop appeared at the front of the church, formally and gorgeously vested and flanked by two lesser mortals, mere clergymen. He signaled George to rise. The organ fell silent for a moment—and so did the congregation—and then began to play a
solemn anthem. There was a rustling of heads turning to look back and a murmur of voices as the bride came into view and began to make her way along the nave on the arm of her father.

George's first strange thought as he turned and saw her was that she looked exactly like herself. Her blue dress, long-sleeved and round necked, simply designed and unadorned, suited her to perfection. Her straw bonnet was neat and small brimmed, and her hair beneath it was smoothly styled. She was wide-eyed and glanced neither to left nor to right as she approached, but she looked composed, even serene. Her eyes found him almost immediately and remained fixed upon him.

He felt a wave of warm affection for her and an utter certainty that everything was as it ought to be. He was going to be happy at last. So was she—he would see to that. He smiled, and she smiled back at him with a look of unguarded pleasure.

Then she was at his side, her father bowed and moved away to sit beside Lady Debbins in the front pew, and they turned together to be married. The congregation was forgotten, and George felt a sense of peace, of rightness. It was his wedding day, and within the next few minutes this woman beside him would be his wife. His own.

“Dearly beloved,” the bishop said, and George gave his attention to the service. He wanted to remember every precious moment of it for the rest of his life.

“. . . now come to be joined,” the bishop was saying a few moments later in that distinctive voice of clergymen everywhere that carried to the farthest corner of
the loftiest church. “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else for ever hold your peace.”

He was addressing the congregation. Next he would ask the same question of the two of them, and then they would speak the vows that would bind them together for the rest of their lives. Despite himself, though, George felt the twinge of anxiety that all brides and grooms must experience during the beat of silence that followed the admonition. Someone coughed. The bishop drew breath to continue.

And the unthinkable happened.

A voice broke the silence from far back in the church before the bishop could resume—a male voice, distinct and loud and slightly trembling with emotion. It was a familiar voice, though George had not heard it for a number of years.

“
I
can show just cause.”

And somehow it seemed to George that he had been expecting this, that it was inevitable.

There was a collective gasp of shock from the pews and a renewed rustle of silks and satins as the members of congregation, almost as one body, swung about in their seats to see who had spoken. George turned too, his eyes briefly meeting those of his bride as he did so. Even in that momentary glance he could see that she had turned suddenly pale. His blood felt as though it had turned to ice in his veins.

Anthony Meikle, Earl of Eastham, had made it easy for everyone to see him. He had stood and stepped out
into the center of the nave. Or perhaps he had not been sitting down at all. Perhaps he had just arrived.

The bishop and the clergymen with him remained calm. The bishop held up a hand for silence and got it almost immediately.

“You will identify yourself, sir, and state the nature of the impediment,” he said, still using his formal ecclesiastical voice.

Hugo, looking thunderous and menacing, was on his feet, George noticed almost dispassionately. So was Ralph a couple of places farther along the same pew, the slash of his facial scar making him look more fiercely piratical than usual.

In a dramatic gesture that looked too theatrical for any reputable stage, Eastham raised his right arm and pointed a slightly shaking finger at George.

“
That man,
” he said, “
the Duke of Stanbrook
, is a murderer and a villain. He killed his first wife by pushing her off a high cliff on his estate in Cornwall to her death on the jagged rocks below. The Duchess of Stanbrook was my sister and would never under any circumstances have taken her own life. Stanbrook hated her, and he murdered her.”

“Half sister,” George heard someone murmur and realized it was himself.

There was a swell of sound from half the congregation, shushing sounds from the other half, and finally an expectant hush.

Anthony Meikle, now the Earl of Eastham, had made the same accusation immediately after Miriam's
death twelve years ago to anyone who would listen—and a number of people did. He had made it despite the fact that he had been unable to offer anything by way of proof or even credible evidence. After the funeral he had vowed revenge. This, presumably, was it.

His rare appearance in London was explained. It struck George that he might have guessed that this or something like it would happen.

“You have evidence, sir, to prove this most serious of charges?” the bishop asked. “If you do, your proper course of action would be to take it to a magistrate or other law enforcement officer.”

“
Law enforcement!
” Eastham exclaimed, his voice throbbing with contempt. “When he is a duke? He should hang by the neck until he is dead, and even that end would be too good for him. But of course it will not happen because he has the protection of his rank. I charge him with the truth nonetheless, and I charge you
,
my lord bishop, to do your duty and put an end to this farce of a marriage service. The Duke of Stanbrook must not be allowed to take a second wife when he murdered the first.”

George turned his head to look at his bride again. She was as pale as chalk, and he wondered if she was about to faint. But she was looking steadily and apparently calmly at Eastham.

“I am afraid, sir,” the bishop said, his voice stern, “that I must judge against your protest and continue with these proceedings. Your unsubstantiated accusation has failed to convince me that there is any valid impediment to the nuptials I am here to solemnize.”

“There is none,” George said. He made no attempt to raise his voice, though the silence was such that he did not doubt everyone could hear him. “I was the only witness to my wife's death, and I was too far away to save her.”

“You are a filthy
liar,
Stanbrook,” Eastham cried, and he took a few menacing steps forward. But Hugo and Ralph were already out in the nave and bearing down upon him, and Flavian was not far behind. Percy was pushing his way out of a pew on the other side of the aisle.

“Sir.” The bishop's voice rang through the church with solemn authority. “Your objection to these proceedings has been heard and overruled. You will be seated now and hold your peace, or you will remove yourself from the church.”

Eastham was not given the opportunity to choose. Hugo hooked an arm through one of his while Ralph did the like for the other, and between them they hurried him out backward, though he did not go quietly. Flavian and Percy followed after them. Percy did not reappear.

But George was only half aware of either what was happening or the renewed swell of sound from the pews. His eyes were fixed upon those of his bride, who had turned away from the spectacle to regard him.

“Do you wish to proceed?” he asked, his voice low. “We will postpone our wedding to another time if you prefer.”

Or cancel it if she chose.

“I wish to proceed now.” She did not hesitate, and her eyes remained steady on his. But her warm, radiant smile had gone. His own expression, he feared, was grim.

A heavy silence had fallen on the church, though it did not feel to George like a particularly hostile one. There was not a steady stream of guests making its outraged way to the doors, only the sound of boot heels on stone as his three friends made their way back to their places. But of course, almost everyone in the congregation would have heard that particular rumor long ago. It had caused a sensation in the neighborhood about Penderris Hall in the days and weeks following Miriam's death, and it was far too salacious a story not to have spread to other parts of the country, most notably London. There would always be those only too eager to cry murder after a violent death to which there had been only one witness, and that the woman's husband. The rumor had died with time and lack of either motive or evidence. It was doubtful that many people still believed it. Indeed, it was doubtful many people beyond the neighborhood of Penderris itself ever had.

The bishop proceeded with the service, picking up exactly where he had left off, and George tried to recapture his earlier mood and glanced at his bride to see if she had recaptured hers.

It was impossible, of course—and impossible to concentrate fully.

They spoke their vows with unfaltering voices, gazing directly at each other as they did so, and he fitted her wedding ring onto her finger while repeating the words the bishop read to him. Neither his own hand nor hers shook with even the slightest of tremors. Yet her hand was ice cold to his touch. He smiled at her and she smiled back. It took a conscious effort on his part,
and doubtless on hers too. There was warmth in her smile but no radiance.

The bishop proclaimed them man and wife, and just like that, almost unnoticed, the moment he had anticipated with such boyish eagerness came and passed and they were married.

Had she known about those rumors surrounding his wife's death? George found himself wondering. Belatedly he thought that perhaps he ought to have raised the matter with her.

He drew her still ungloved hand through his arm when it came time to withdraw to the vestry for the signing of the register, and covered it with his own when he discovered that it was still cold. He curled his fingers about it to warm it, as though it were only her hand that needed comforting.

“I am so very sorry,” he murmured.

“But it was not your fault,” she said.

“I wanted our wedding to be perfect for you,” he told her.

Her eyes looked fleetingly into his. “It was not your fault,” she said again, “any more than it was mine.”

But she had not assured him that it had been perfect.

They were both smiling when they came out of the vestry a few minutes later, the register having been signed and witnessed, the final seal placed on their marriage. A sea of smiling faces watched them from the pews, just as though nothing had happened to spoil the wedding and to set fashionable drawing rooms abuzz with gossip for days to come.

They walked slowly, nodding from side to side,
picking out particular friends and relatives—Agnes with her upper lip caught between her teeth and tears swimming in her eyes; Philippa with her clasped hands held to her mouth; Gwen smiling and nodding beside the flame-haired Chloe; Imogen, her eyes, luminous with tenderness, moving from one to the other of them; Vincent gazing so directly toward them that it was almost impossible to believe that he was blind; Oliver Debbins gazing with frowning concern at his sister, his wife smiling; Ben with . . . tears in his eyes? The other Survivors, George noticed—Hugo, Ralph, Flavian, and, of course, that Survivor-by-marriage, Percy—were conspicuous by their absence, and it did not take a genius to guess where they had gone and what they were up to. Not, at least, when one had been involved in five other Survivor weddings during the past two years, one of them only a little over a month ago.

They were waiting outside the church, along with a sizable crowd of curious onlookers, who set up a cheer when the bride and groom emerged. The four men, as George had fully expected, had armed themselves with great handfuls of flower petals, which were soon being flung into the air to rain down upon George's head and his bride's. He took her by the hand, and they both laughed and made a dash for the open carriage that awaited them. It had been decked with flowers before George left home. Without looking, though, he knew that by now it would have acquired a less pretty cargo of noisy, metallic things tied to the back, ready to set up a deafening rumpus as soon as the vehicle was in motion.