Ashmore cleared his throat.
“Oh, my love, I dared not hope. Not after all you’ve gone through. I would like to kiss you, but blast it, can I do this without an audience?”
“Well, there it is. I will seek Morley. Where the deuce has the fellow disappeared to?” Ashmore fled through the veranda door.
Gabriel must have decided that waiting until everyone had left was too long to bear, so he kissed Birdie right there and then.
The dowager duchess woke up with an abrupt snore. “Did I miss something?”
Lucy clapped her hands. “Oh, how wonderful! We will have a wedding here, yes? Did you get a special license, Duke?”
Gabriel nodded. “I did, indeed. As Miss Hilversham kept insisting that our wedding might not be valid, I decided not to leave things up to chance. Even if it is a valid marriage, I was thinking there is no harm in being married again, properly.” He looked down tenderly on Birdie. “With your friends and with everything that a proper wedding ought to include.”
“Wedding? Most irksome to take a nap and to find, upon one’s awakening, that the entire house is in the middle of wedding preparations. I vow I shall never nap again.” The dowager duchess sniffed.
“Birdie is marrying her duke for the second time. Isn’t it wonderful, grandmamma? I will tell you all about it. We will have to start preparations immediately, won’t we, Arabella?” Lucy bustled to the door, dragging Arabella with her. She opened it and stood face to face with Philip, who took a startled step backwards.
“Dash it, I’ve been looking for Ashmore but can’t find the fellow. I’ve had the most sudden inspiration for an amendment to the transportation device that I think will be more amenable, with different technology, not the hydraulic power—” Philip Merivale, Duke of Morley, cut himself short, and gaped at Gabriel. “But—Sir! Captain! Captain Eversleigh! Am I dreaming?”
Then Philip did the oddest thing: he gave a military salute. Gabriel, however, had turned a deathly shade of pale.
“Merivale. This cannot be. For you are dead!”
Chapter 25
“He is very much alive and breathing.” Arabella drew her dazed husband forward. “I should know best, because I’m married to him.”
“I saw you fall at Hougoumont. A cannon. Your head—” Gabriel breathed heavily. “I was the only one in my company to survive after Napoleon ordered the shelling of the place.”
“Sir! My head is safe and sound on my shoulders, sir. I believed you to be dead, sir. I was told everyone fell in battle, save for myself.” Philip looked dazed.
Could it be possible? But he’d seen it so clearly. One moment the man had stood next to him, the other, he’d been gone. Merivale, one of his best men, supremely intelligent, father of two children and a third on the way. Had he imagined it all? He’d mourned him like no other. Gabriel reached out for Philip’s hand and pumped it.
“In the general chaos of the battle, it would’ve been easy to confuse things. Especially if you, yourself, were wounded as well.” Birdie stepped up to them.
“I have never been happier to see a man alive,” Philip said shakily, and clapped Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel clapped him back, and in the general shoulder clapping process, clearing of throats, and blinking back of tears, the dowager duchess’ voice intruded grumpily:
“Well, wonderful. Now that we have firmly established that neither man is a ghost, may we proceed to have some tea?” She thumped her stick on the floor impatiently.
The weddingin the Ashmore chapel was a simple, but lovely affair. Birdie wore a dress of cream and gold, with a gauze overdress, gloves and a pretty bonnet adorned with Ashmore’s roses. Philip had insisted on being the one to give the bride away. As Birdie walked down the aisle on his arm, she beamed at her friends, who sat in the pews, moist-eyed and smiled back tremulously. She felt she was in a dream. Could anyone be as happy as she?
Gabriel gazed at her from the alter with such a look of love in his eyes that she fairly choked up.
The reverend, an elderly man with a shock of white hair, stood in front of the altar and looked at them both benevolently when Birdie reached Gabriel’s side. “Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today—” he began.
“Stop!” Birdie interrupted hastily.
A gasp went through the chapel. The reverend gaped.
Turning to Gabriel, Birdie said, “We need to say our vows properly. Remember?”
Gabriel pressed her hand and smiled down at her. “You are entirely right.” He took Birdie’s hands in his and turned to face the congregation. “I would like everyone who has gathered here to witness that I will love, obey, respect, serve, comfort and care for this wonderful woman, my very own Roberta Talbot, through all the days of my life,” he declared.
Birdie smiled up at him tremulously. “I will love you today, tomorrow, and forevermore through easy and difficult days,” she said. “I will trust and honour you, laugh and cry with you, and whatever may come, I will always be there for you.”
The reverend, somewhat amused by this unorthodox ceremony, closed his Bible and beamed at the couple. “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Birdie lifted her mouth to his. Gabriel lowered his lips, warm and sweet on hers.
