“Not if there is a s-special license,” Flavian had said. “And thereisone. I have just c-come from London with it.”
“Why, you old rogue, Flave,” Ralph had said. “Thisis the use to which you put my curricle?”
And there had been more noise and backslapping, and Lady Darleigh had rushed off to find her cook and housekeeper, and rushed back a while later with the news that the state bedchamber in the east wing was to be prepared for tomorrow night so that the bride and groom could spend their wedding night in luxury and privacy. George had offered to give Agnes away, but, after thanking him, she had said she would rather have her sister do that for her if there was no church law against a woman performing the office. And Flavian had asked Vincent to be his best man, which would be, Vince had replied, beaming with pleasure, a bit like the blind leading the blind.
And then, some time later, the outside guests had left, including Agnes Keeping, and it was close to midnight, and Flavian had felt drunk without the benefit of liquor and so exhausted that he could scarcely persuade his legs to carry him to his room, and might not have made it there if George and Ralph had not accompanied him to his door. He might not have got undressed either if his valet had not been waiting for him and insisted that he wasnotgoing to be allowed to sleep in his evening clothes.
But here he was, almost eleven hours later, as fresh as a daisy and waiting at the front of the village church for his bride to arrive. His friends and their wives were sitting in the pews behind him, and the vicar’s wife and the Harrisons were in the pews across the aisle.
Vincent was afraid he would drop the ring—Flavian had remembered to buy one, though he had had to guess the size—and then not be able to find it.
“But I would,” Flavian said, patting his friend’s hand. “I would like nothing better than to g-grovel about on the stone floor of a country church on my w-wedding day in my white knee breeches and s-stockings.”
“That is supposed tocomfortme?” Vincent asked. “And wait a minute—it is supposed to be the best man soothing the bridegroom’s nerves, not the other way around.”
“A bridegroom is s-supposed to have n-nerves?” Flavian asked. “Better not warn me about it, old chap, or I m-might discover I have some.”
But he did not—unless it was a sign of nerves that he half expected his mother to appear in the doorway behind him, twice her usual size, forefinger twice its usual length as it pointed full at him while she ordered him to cease and desist.
He was feeling... happy? He did not know what happy felt like and was not sure he wanted to, for where there was happiness, there was also unhappiness. Every positive had its corresponding negative, one of the more annoying laws of existence.
He just wanted her to come. Agnes. He wanted to marry her. He wanted tobe marriedto her. He still could not free his mind of the notion that he would be safe once he was. And he had still not worked out what his mind meant by that.
Some things were best not analyzed.
His valet was a wonder and a marvel, he thought. What on earth had possessed him to pack knee breeches, and white ones at that, for a three-week stay in the country with the Survivors’ Club?
Fortunately, perhaps, for the quality of his thoughts, there was a minor stir at the back of the church, and the vicar came striding down the aisle, resplendent in his clerical robes, to signal that the bride had arrived and the marriage service was about to begin.
***
Agnes donned her moss green morning dress and pelisse with the straw bonnet she had bought new just last year. There was no time, of course, to purchase new clothes for her wedding. It did not matter. It was just as well, in fact. If she had had time to shop or to sew, then she would also have had time to think.
Thought, she suspected, was her worst enemy at the moment. Or perhaps it was thelackof thought that was the long-term enemy. She hadno ideawhat she was getting herself into.
What on earth had possessed her?
But, no, she would not think. She had said yes last night because she had found it impossible to say no, and it was too late to change her mind now.
Besides, if she had said no, he would be going away tomorrow with everyone else, never to return, and she could not have borne that. Her heart would have broken. Surely it would have, extravagant and silly as the idea seemed.
The state bedchamber...
No, she would not think.
There was a tap on her door, and Dora stepped into her room.
“I keep expecting to wake up, as from a dream,” she said. “But I am glad it is no dream, Agnes. I am happy for you. I believeyouwill be happy. Ilikethat young man, though I would still not trust that eyebrow of his any farther than I could throw it. Andthatimage does not bear scrutiny, does it?”
“Dora.” Agnes clasped her hands very tightly to her bosom. “I feel dreadful. About leaving you.”
“You absolutely must not,” Dora said. “It was inevitable that you would remarry one day. I never expected that you would be here with me forever. All I ask is that you be happy. I have always loved you more than anyone else in my life, you know, which is a shocking thing to say when I have a father and a brother and nieces and a nephew. But you have always felt almost as much like a daughter to me as a sister. You were five when I was seventeen.”
When they had been left alone except for their father, who had retired into himself after their mother left, and been an almost invisible presence in their lives. Oliver, their brother, had already been at Cambridge.
“Dora.” Agnes hesitated. She had never asked, had thought she never would. It was certainly not a question for today. But it came out anyway. “Arewe sisters?”
Dora stared back at her, eyes like empty caves, mouth half-open.
