Lucas stood in the doorway of the drawing room, remembering another quite recent occasion when he had been doing the same thing. He had been looking in then upon a roomful of guests at one of Aunt Kitty’s tea parties. He had stood here, gathering his courage to step inside and begin circulating—that dreaded word when one was not particularly sociable, especially when one knew hardly anyone. Then he had spotted his aunt just before Jenny’s waving arm had caught his attention. A moment later so had the woman who was seated beside her.
Lady Philippa Ware.
Today he would be marrying her.
“Ah, you are back, Luc,” his sister Charlotte said, coming briskly toward him, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked though she could not have had much sleep last night. Her hair was disheveled and the sleeves of her dress were rolled up above her elbows. “Did you get everything you need?”
“I did,” he said.
“Thering, Luc?” Aunt Kitty called from across the room. She was balanced on a stool, rearranging vases on the high mantel. “Did you get thering?”
“I did,” he said.
“The rightsize?” she asked him.
“The right size,” he assured her. She had sent Gerald to Stratton House early this morning with a note for the Dowager Countess of Stratton and a verbal request for Lady Philippa’s ring size. Lucas had purchased a plain gold wedding band and another set with a single large diamond. It would have been a betrothal ring if there hadbeena betrothal of longer duration than fourteen hours or so. As it was, he would present her with both rings today.
“You have given it to Gerald?” his aunt asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “I sent him home to bed after he returned from Stratton House, if you will remember.”
Gerald had been up all night, and he had been busy. He had accompanied His Grace’s secretary as they dashed about London achieving the impossible. They had returned before breakfast with a special license and an assurance that a clergyman designated for the task by the archbishop himself would perform the nuptials at Arden House at precisely two o’clock this afternoon.
The drawing room, Lucas could see, had been transformed into a flower garden. There were vases and epergnes everywhere,covering every available surface that was above floor level and encroaching even upon the floor itself. A linen-and-lace-draped table stood before the window at the far end of the room. A branch of candles, as yet unlit, stood upon it, along with a silver cross. A few rows of chairs had been set up to face it. Not very many chairs, but more than Lucas had expected. Were they all going to be occupied with his family and hers? It occurred to him, though, that at least she would have all her immediate family about her, as would he. When he had taken her home last night, he had met the eldest brother—halfbrother, actually. Ben Ellis, that was. And he had met the young student, Owen Ware, who had somehow been spirited from Oxford to London.
“You are going to have to move out of the doorway, Luc,” Charlotte said, waving her arms at him in a shooing gesture.
He turned to see a couple of footmen behind him. They were carrying a large roll of...carpet?Red?It was indeed carpet, but it was white. He watched them set it down across the doorway and unroll it all the way across the room and between the rows of chairs to the table so that anyone attending the wedding would not have to set their feet upon anything so mundane as the Persian carpet beneath it. The footmen even managed to turn a corner skillfully with it without leaving behind them treacherous folds or lumps for someone to trip over. Charlotte was busy directing them, though it was clear they did not need any direction. Aunt Kitty, still perched on the stool, added a few contradictory suggestions. Jenny, seated in her wheeled chair, was making some adjustments to one of the enormous bouquets of roses—red, of course—that flanked the table.
There was aharpin the room by the fireplace, Lucas noticed suddenly. It had not been there yesterday or any day before that. Dared he ask? He decided against doing so. He would only distracthis female relatives from what was clearly a very busy time for them. And he was, after all, only the bridegroom.
All of this was not at all what he had expected last night when he had been sent by his grandfather—with the silent acquiescence of his grandmother—to make his offer to Lady Philippa, who, His Grace had assured him, would accept it. She had capitulated to their bullying, then, he had thought, half sympathetic to her, half annoyed that she had not after all held firm. He had expected a dour, chilling, very private nuptial ceremony this afternoon in this huge, normally barren room. It had not occurred to him that anyone would try to make aweddingout of it.
Whathadoccupied his mind through much of the night was the very real possibility that his grandfather would not survive it. His Grace had very definitely suffered a rather severe heart seizure, Dr.Arnold had reported to the family. But his condition had stabilized during the night and might improve if he was kept very quiet in his bed and in a darkened room and if he avoided company and any sort of excitement.
None of them who had been present when he gave his report this morning—Aunt Kitty, Charlotte, Sylvester, Jenny, Gerald, or Lucas himself—had informed the physician that there was to be a wedding at the house today. None of them had promised to keep the duke from attending it. How could they have done so in all good faith? Trying to stop Grandpapa from doing what he had set his mind upon was akin to King Canute trying to order the tide to stop coming in to wet his feet and the legs of his throne.
One of the chairs that had been set out, Lucas noticed now, the one just to the right of the white carpet in the front row, was his grandfather’s favorite wing chair. The one next to it was his grandmother’s more modest armchair. All the others were upright chairs not specifically designed for comfort.
“I really must dash home,” Charlotte said as she rolled down her sleeves and patted her hair ineffectually. “Will you have a carriage summoned, Luc? I must make sure the children are getting ready. Goodness, is that the time? After eleven o’clock?”
It was indeed. Lucas went to do his sister’s bidding. Three hours from now he was going to be a married man.
It was a stomach-churning realization.
Unless Lady Philippa Ware came to her senses before then, that was.
—
Philippa traveled to Arden House in a carriage with her mother, Devlin, and Stephanie. Her mother alternately patted her hand and lightly rubbed it the whole way from Grosvenor Square while Stephanie nodded and smiled encouragingly and Devlin gazed out of the window, his expression blank and stern—if an expression could be both at the same time.
Philippa appreciated his silence and the way he did not look at her. She appreciated too the wordless reassurances her mother and her sister were beaming her way. She was not feeling nervous, however. Or if she was, then it was an anticipatory sort of nervousness, not a doubtful one. Mama had suggested this morning that it was not too late to call off her wedding or at least postpone it until she had given herself more time to consider. Devlin had suggested the same thing an hour later. He had offered to go in person to Arden House to tell the marquess so. Nicholas, half an hour after that, had made the same offer. He had reminded her of other times when she had acted impulsively and regretted it afterward.Notthat he had anything against the Marquess of Roath, he had assured her. Far from it, in fact. He seemed a fine sort of chap and there could be no doubting his eligibility. And he could understand, Nicholas hadsaid, why they all wanted to please the old duke, who had looked for a few moments at Almack’s as though he were beyond being pleased or displeased by anything more in this life.
“But when all is said and done, Pippa,” he had said cheerfully, “it is your life and your happiness at stake. Love him, do you?”
“Yes, Nick,” she had said, because it had been the easiest thing to say and he had been looking at her with such kindness and anxiety that she had simply wanted to hug him and maybe shed a tear or two on his broad shoulder.
She was committed to the decision she had made last night. She was not going to start having second and third thoughts until she did not know which direction was up and which was down. She loved the Duke and Duchess of Wilby and their family. Perhaps she even loved... But her feelings for the Marquess of Roath were far too complex for any neat label. Not that there was anything neat about love. Had anyone ever defined the word to encompass all its many meanings and manifestations? She was beginning to believe therewasno definition. Love was too vast a thing. It was not even a thing, in fact, but what else did one call it? And the wordvastmust itself have limits. She did not believe love had any.
