“They would be disappointed if we did not,” Elizabeth said, setting her hand in his and running down the steps with him while they were showered with a veritable barrage of flower petals and the crowd applauded again and laughed. Someone whistled.
They were both laughing and breathless by the time they reached his carriage, though it was no sanctuary. It was an open carriage. Colin handed her in and took his place beside her a few moments before the vehicle rocked on its springs and moved forward.
The church bells rang a merry peal behind them, but the sound was all but drowned out by the ugly metallic rattle and screech of all the hardware that had been tied to the back of the carriage. They drove out of Hanover Square in all the din, their hands tightly clasped, their persons and the carriage seats and the horses’ backs and the coachman in his immaculate livery liberally strewn with bright flower petals.
“If we look unconcerned,” Colin yelled, “do you suppose no one will realize that we have just been wed?” They laughed into each other’s eyes and she marveled yet again at the reality of it all. Her wedding day.Theirwedding day.
They were married.
“Lady Hodges,” he said.
“Yes.”
And he leaned toward her and kissed her on the lips just before the carriage turned out of the square and disappeared from the view of those at the foot of the steps and spilling out of the church onto the square.
They could not hear the cheers and applause. Or even the whistles.
Twenty-one
The wordbreakfastas it applied to a wedding feast was always a misnomer. For one thing, the food that was served was anything but what one would normally expect of breakfast. For another, the celebrations continued for most of the day, for several hours in the ballroom while toasts and speeches were dealt with in addition to the meal, and then for a few hours longer in the drawing room, with a somewhat smaller gathering.
It was during the move from the one room to the other that Colin singled out his sister, who he sensed was about to take her leave with Nelson.
“Blanche,” he said, touching her elbow, “come and stroll in the garden with me for a short while?”
She glanced through a window of the ballroom, but there was no excuse to be found there. The sun was still shining from a cloudless sky, and warm air was wafting through the open French windows. Nelson had been drawn into a conversation with John Croft and Sidney Radley. Elizabeth was being borne off to the drawing room by her friend Miss Scott on the one side and the Dowager Duchess of Netherby on the other.
“For a very short while, then,” Blanche said, taking his offered arm. “We are expected back.”
“I was very, very pleased that you came to the church,” he told her as they stepped outside. “And Mother. And even Lord Ede. And thank you for coming to the breakfast too. I suppose it was not an easy thing for you to do.”
For this, after all, was Wren’s home, and the two sisters had been estranged since Wren left Roxingley at the age of ten. Almost twenty years ago.
“No,” she said after a small hesitation, “it was not. Would it have been better, Colin, if I had not come to warn you of that announcement and you had married Miss Dunmore? Did I drive you into contracting this marriage to spite Mother?”
“There are two things I cannot quite imagine,” he said. “One is my wanting tospiteour mother. I would like to have a relationship with her even if it can never be a close one. The other thing is that I would hardly marry just to spite a third party. Marriage is for life, and I hope for a happy one. No, Blanche. You did something for which I will always owe you a debt of gratitude. And I married Elizabeth because I wanted to. Because I hope and expect to be happy with her.”
“She ismyage, or very close,” she protested.
“Yes,” he said. “And I value and esteem her more than I do any other woman I have met. I thought she was beyond me, but she has assured me that she wants this marriage too. And I trust her word.” Colin paused then for a minute. “But that is not what I wanted to speak with you about. I have something I need to ask you. Blanche, why have you remained with our mother all these years? Why has Nelson?”
“Someone had to,” she said. “Rowena was gone and Ruby eloped and fled to Ireland when she was only seventeen. Justin killed himself and you completely cut yourself off from Mother. She needed us. All of us. But suddenly I was the only one left. And I was the one with a sense of responsibility. I was the eldest, after all.”
“Sheneededus?” he asked, drawing her down to sit beside him on a rustic seat beneath a willow tree, which would shade them from the sun.
“Of course,” she said. “She always needs other people, Colin, most notably her family. Her dream was that we would all surround her with our love—and our beauty—for the rest of her life.”
He stared at her, feeling a bit aghast.
“Nelson…loves me,” she added.
“I am glad you have him at least,” he said.
“You think I am blind to the truth,” she said, looking fully at him for the first time, two spots of color in her cheeks. “I am theeldest, yet there was always someone more favored than I. You most of all. No one else quite existed for her after you were born. But first Father treated her cruelly and sent you away to school and then you left of your own volition after he was dead and Mother had planned a grand house party to welcome you as the new Baron Hodges.I stayed.I was the only one of us who stayed. I have given up my own life for her. But you are still the favorite.”
Her voice was rather cold and expressionless, but he read a world of hurt in it. Had she never felt loved? And was she still hoping? How differently she had seen their world. Had he missed it all because he was young, and at school so much of the time? Had he run instead of trying to stay and understand? Was it too late to try now? It was what he had been telling himself since Christmas he must try to do. And Elizabeth did not seem to think it was too late.
“Blanche.” He covered her hand with his own. “Will you be my sister?”
