Shelovedhim. She did not know what the future held. She did not even know where they would live or what she would do to occupy her days. Would it be in London of all places? But at this moment it did not matter. Shetrustedhim. She was putting her happiness in his hands, and he would not let her down.
“Dearly beloved,” the clergyman said.
And in all the splendor of Bath Abbey, where her parents had married twelve years ago and she had acquired a family of her own for the first time in her life, she gave herself to Nicholas Ware, as he gave himself to her. They became husband and wife, embarked upon their future together as their own family, supported by the love of the two larger families, the Wares on one side, the Westcotts on the other.
When the clergyman pronounced them man and wife, she smiled at last, and Nicholas smiled back. And oh, she almost wished she were not yet in love with him so she could fall all over again. Sheshook with silent laughter at the absurd thought and became aware of the collective sigh that came from the congregation around them.
Nicholas offered his arm and led her to the vestry, where for the last time she signed her name as Winifred Cunningham in the register. She was Winifred Ware henceforth, wife of Colonel the Honorable Nicholas Ware.
And surely the happiest woman in the world.
Nicholas took her hand in his and kissed the back of it.
“Beautiful, beautiful Win,” he murmured.
“It is the white of my gown,” she said. “It has dazzled you. I never wear white.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. Something she said had amused him. And goodness, he washugein his uniform. Not to mention gorgeous. And if he meant to don that impressively adorned shako when they left the abbey, he was going to look larger still.
Sarah, who looked very pretty indeed in her dark green velvet bridesmaid’s dress, came to hug her tight, and she was followed by Owen, who grinned and winked before hugging her and kissing her cheek.
“Be happy, Winifred,” he said. “But you will be. You have a gift for happiness.”
Didshe? That certainly would not have been true of her nine-year-old self. But she had taken her immense good fortune at being chosen for love by Mama and Papa, and she had made happiness out of it.
She would continue to do so. And when she felt herself sink toward depression, as she inevitably would, rare though those occasions were, then she would recall what she had promised back in the summer.
Remember that day.
She set her hand on Nicholas’s sleeve, and they left the vestry as the organ burst into a joyful anthem. They proceeded slowly along the aisle, smiling to left and right—at Mama and Papa and her siblings, at Grandmama and Grandpapa, Uncle Harry, Aunt Abby, Estelle and Bertrand, among others, on the one side; the Dowager Countess of Stratton, the earl and countess, the Duke and Duchess of Wilby, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, Stephanie, Mrs. Haviland, and more on the other side. It was impossible to acknowledge or even see everyone. That would happen at the wedding breakfast in the Upper Assembly Rooms.
And after that…
Well, after the breakfast there would be no return home. Even now all her belongings were being taken to the house on the Royal Crescent where Great-Grandmama used to live, and presumably Nicholas’s baggage was being taken there too from his hotel room. Tonight, and every night in the future, home would be wherever Nicholas was.
She was a married lady.
The bright sunshine of the outdoors was almost blinding as they approached the abbey doors and the paved churchyard, which included the famed Pump Room, beyond. Nicholas came to a sudden halt, and Winifred looked up at him.
“The devil!” he exclaimed. And then, completely contradicting himself, “Good Lord!”
And then Winifred could see for herself what had startled him into such irreverence. For outside the abbey doors, an honor guard awaited them: twelve cavalrymen in full dress uniform, astride twelve black horses, six on either side of the doorway, all absolutely still, as she had seen them once before on a parade ground awaiting the arrival of the king. On a word of command, they raised thelances they held to meet between the two lines in a sort of arch for bride and groom to walk through. General Haviland, also resplendent in dress uniform, stood at attention on the far side of them. He saluted as Nicholas settled his shako on his head and stepped through the abbey doors with his bride on his arm.
Beyond them all, a crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle or, in the case of the young relatives from both sides of the family who had left the church early, to pelt the newlyweds with flower petals they had acquired somewhere even though it was late December.
Nicholas saluted the general and Winifred smiled brightly at him after they had passed beneath the arch. Then Nicholas smiled at her, grasped her hand in a tight clasp, and hurried past the Pump Room, the flower pelters in hot pursuit, and on out to Stall Street, where his carriage awaited them. They were both laughing as he handed her inside, her white cloak and her hair now liberally dotted with colored petals. Winifred turned to wave as the carriage moved forward, accompanied by the predictable din of what sounded like a whole arsenal of pots and pans tied to the bottom of the carriage.
“Oh dear,” Winifred said, turning her face to Nicholas beside her. But she could not hear her own voice.
He did not even try to answer her. He tossed his shako onto the opposite seat instead, set an arm about her shoulders and his free hand beneath her chin, and kissed her.
They did not hear the cheers of siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews.
—
The next few hours passed in a blur for Nicholas. He scarcely had time to look appreciatively at the Upper Rooms, about which he had heard so much, before the guests began arriving fromthe abbey. There was no receiving line. Everyone piled in, one after another. Every one of the men and boys shook his hand. Every one of the ladies and girls did the same, or hugged him or kissed his cheek—or all three. Some of the children wanted to talk to him.
“Did you see thehorses, Uncle Nick?” Ben’s Robert wanted to know.
