“So we will go walking on the beach instead,” she told him. “No, running.”
“We will?” He stretched. “When we could be making love instead?”
“We will go running on the beach,” she said firmly. “In fact”—she grinned cheekily at him—“the last one to the rock and up to the very top of it is a shameful slug-a-bed.”
“Awhat?” he said, shouting with laughter.
But she was gone, into the other room, out through the door, leaving it wide open, leaving behind her only an echo of answering laughter.
Neville grimaced again, sighed, cast one longing look at the dying fire, chuckled, jumped to his feet, gathering his clothes about him as he did so, and went in pursuit.
27
Lily had not judged the Duke of Portfrey quite correctly. He wanted a wedding for her at Rutland Park, it was true. She was his daughter, and he had finally found her and brought her home where she belonged. It was from home that he would give her away to the man who had won his blessing to be her husband.
But he left the choice to the size of wedding to Lily herself. If she wanted the wholetonthere, then he would coerce every last member to come. If, on the other hand, she preferred something more intimate, with only family and friends in attendance, then so be it.
“The wholetonwould not fit into the church,” she told him. It was an ancient Norman church, set on a hill above the village, a narrow path winding upward through the churchyard to its arched doorway. It was not a large church.
“They will be squeezed in,” he assured her, “if it is what you wish.”
“Are yousureyou would not mind,” she asked him, “if I were to choose a wedding with just relatives and some friends?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head. “I know, Lily, that this wedding will take second place to your first. But I want it to be aprecioussecond place. Something you will remember fondly for the rest of your life.”
She threw her arms about his neck and hugged him tightly. “It will be,” she said. “It will be, Father.Youwill be there this time, and Elizabeth will be there, and all of Neville’s family. Oh, it will not take second place, I promise you, but anequalplace.”
“A smaller, more intimate wedding it will be then,” he told her. “It is what I hoped you would choose, anyway.”
It was not as small or as intimate as his own wedding to Elizabeth, though, which took place at Rutland at the beginning of November, with only Lily and the duke’s steward in attendance. And yet nothing, he said afterward, could possibly have made the day happier for him or his bride.
Elizabeth, always beautiful, elegant, dignified, serene, glowed with a new happiness that put the bloom of youth back into her cheeks. She threw herself with eager energy into the plans for the wedding of her stepdaughter and her favorite nephew.
And so on a crisp, frosty, sunny morning in December, Neville waited before the altar of the church in Rutland for his bride to make her appearance. The church was not quite full, but everyone who was important in his life and Lily’s was there, with the exception of Lauren, who had insisted despite all their protests on staying at home. His mother was there, sitting in the front pew with his uncle and aunt, the Duke and Duchess of Anburey. Elizabeth, the Duchess of Portfrey, was there in the pew across the aisle from them. All the uncles and aunts and cousins were there. Captain and Mrs. Harris had come as well as a number of Portfrey’s relatives. Baron Onslow had got up from his sickbed in Leicestershire in order to attend his granddaughter’s wedding.
And Joseph, Marquess of Attingsborough, was at Neville’s side as his best man.
There was a stirring of movement at the back of the church and a brief glimpse of Gwen as she stooped to straighten the hem of the bride’s gown. The bride herself stayed tantalizingly out of sight.
But not for long. Portfrey stepped into view, immaculate in black and silver and white, and then the bride herself stepped up beside him and took his arm. The bride, in a white gown of classically simple design that shimmered in the dim light of the church interior, her short blond curls entwined with tiny white flowers and green leaves.
There was a sigh of satisfaction from those gathered in the pews.
But Neville did not see a bride dressed with elegance and taste and at vast expense. He saw Lily. Lily in her faded blue cotton dress, draped in on old army cloak that was still voluminous even though she had cut it down to size. Lily with bare feet despite the December chill, and unfettered hair in a wild mane down her back to her waist.
His bride.
His love.
His life.
He watched her coming toward him, her blue eyes steady on his and looking deep into him. And he knew in that moment that she was not seeing a bridegroom in wine velvet coat with silver brocaded waistcoat and gray knee breeches and crisp white linen. He knew she was seeing on officer of the Ninety-fifth, shabby and dusty in his green and black regimentals, his boots unpolished, his hair cropped short.
She smiled at him and he realized that he was smiling back. Portfrey was placing her hand in his and turning to take his seat beside Elizabeth.
Neville was back in the church at Rutland Park with his elegantly, expensively dressed bride. His beautiful Lily. Beautiful in her wildness, beautiful in her elegance.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered…”
