And she remembered Alexander and Wren’s wedding last year. Wren had left for the church—also St. George’s—from this house while Alex had stayed with Cousin Sidney the night before. Viola and Abigail and Harry had been staying here.
Today it was her turn. Her mother and Wren were to travel to the church with her, at her request. And Alex too, of course. He would be giving her away. They were waiting for her in the hall, and all three looked up to watch her descend the stairs.
“You were quite right, Elizabeth,” Wren said when she was halfway down, “and Mama and I were wrong. You look beautiful as simplicity itself. You do it better than anyone else I know.”
“You do have a style all your own, Lizzie,” her mother conceded, “and are wise to insist upon keeping to it.”
“I believe, Lizzie,” Alexander said, “that despite my lukewarm response to the announcement of your betrothal, I am happy about it after all. I believe the two of you suit, and Wren agrees with me.”
“I do.” Wren had tears in her eyes. “I want the very best in life for Colin, and I want the same for you, Elizabeth. Why would you not find it together? It makes perfect sense that you would.”
“If you make me weep before I even get to the church, you two,” Elizabeth warned them as she joined them in the hall, “I will not speak to you for a month.”
The sun came out from behind a bank of clouds as the carriage approached Hanover Square and drew up before St. George’s. It was not by any means the largest or the most magnificent church in London, but it was the preferred venue for society weddings during the Season and always attracted a small crowd of the curious, who came to watch the bride arrive and, somewhat later, to see the newly married couple depart for the rest of their lives together.
“Five minutes late,” Alexander said as he handed her down onto the pavement and consulted his pocket watch. “Maybe four and a half. Just right. Mama and Wren, we will give you time to go inside first.”
Elizabeth could hear her pulse beating in her ears as she watched them ascend the steps and disappear inside the church.
“Nervous?” Alexander asked.
“But of course,” she said, smiling at him and taking his arm. “Weren’t you last year?”
“Of course,” he said, grinning back at her. “And I have had not a single regret since. I wish you the same, Lizzie.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I am not marrying Colin just because I believe I ought, you know.”
“I do know,” he said, covering her hand on his arm with his own. And they climbed the steps together and stepped inside the church.
Doubts assailed her anyway at this most inopportune of times. What if shehadagreed only because the plans she had made for herself had been dashed and the future had looked bleak? What ifhehad offered only because he believed he had compromised her and brought the wrath of his mother upon her? What if the gap in their agesdidmake a difference and would make true happiness impossible? What if…?
But the arrival of her mother and sister-in-law must have been taken as a signal, and the great pipe organ had begun to play, and the congregation—looking larger than she had expected—was standing and turning to look back to watch her progress along the nave on Alex’s arm. She saw friends and acquaintances and family, all smiling their encouragement. And…ah! She saw Lady Hodges, all in dazzling white with a delicate veil covering her face, Lady Elwood beside her with Sir Nelson, and Lord Ede on Lady Hodges’s other side, next to the aisle.
They had come.
And she saw Colin, standing before the empty pew in front of his mother and sister, resplendent in fawn and dull gold, tall and slim and lithe and handsome, watching her come. He looked anxious and a bit pale, and then her eyes met his and he smiled. But how did she know that when she was still some distance away from him and the rest of his face was not smiling? But she knew. His eyes were smiling, and her own smiled back into them.
And suddenly all seemed right and she forgot doubts about the past and fears for the future, and everything becamehereand everything becamenow. It all turned magical, though that must be entirely the wrong word to use of solemn nuptials conducted within a consecrated church.Mystical, then. It all turned mystical—warm and intimate and wonderful and the rightest of right things she had ever done in her life.
The same conviction surely looked at her through his eyes.
Alexander gave her into Colin’s keeping, and they stood before the clergyman in his formal vestments, and they were married. Just like that. In what seemed an extraordinarily brief span of time but with an eternity of consequences.
They were man and wife.
Oh surely, she thought, they had done the right thing. He had married her because he wanted to—he had said so and she trusted him. And she had married him because she wanted to. She had told him so and he knew he could trust her. What could be more perfect?
They were married.
His face beamed at her even though he was still not actually smiling. She smiled fully at him with all the power of her conviction that this was right, what they had just done.
It was time then to move to the vestry to sign the register, and Wren and Alexander rose to accompany them. Elizabeth signed the register as Elizabeth Overfield for the last time, and first Wren and then Alex hugged her while Colin signed his name. Wren hugged him tightly and held him close for several moments before relinquishing him to Alex’s firm handshake and slap on the shoulder.
And then they were face-to-face again as man and wife, and he offered his arm to lead her from the vestry into the church and back up the nave. They bowed and smiled to family and friends and all who had come to celebrate the day with them—all except his mother and Lord Ede, who had left, it seemed. Sir Nelson and Lady Elwood had not, however, but were still seated in the second pew from the front.
A few moments later they emerged into sunshine to the applause of the people gathered outside. And to a few familiar faces—those of Mr. Parmiter and Mr. Croft and Mr. Ormsbridge, as well as Cousin Sidney and Bertrand and Estelle Lamarr and Winifred Cunningham.
“They left early for a purpose,” Colin warned, turning a grinning face toward her. “Shall we make a dash for it?”
