Seven days of being buried in papers. Accounts, timber contracts, solicitor’s letters. All to purge a certain woman from my mind.
None of the work sufficed. Whenever his pen paused, Isla’s face rose. Her full-lipped mouth always seemed ready to laugh or wound. He walked the aisle towards the doors, through which a broad shaft of sunlight penetrated. His mind conjured the furious lift of Isla’s chin.
The way she had looked in his dressing room when she ought not to have been there. He had avoided her. His mother approved. Now he needed to escape from her vinegar. Escape from everything the wedding preparations reminded him of.
The verger fussed about white ribbon. Edward escaped and took the gravel path around the little lawn. The morning had the hard blue of early summer. Bees harassed the lavender. Beyond the hedge a groom exercised a horse and the soft thud of its stride reached him like memory.
I will marry a woman whose company I have denied to myself. I would give her my name because honor requires it.
He reminded himself this was convenience, not romance. Leaves whispered above him, punctuated by the chirp of small birds. A small cry followed, the sort made for audiences. Lady Charlotte Pembroke came along the path as if by chance, sunlight making a halo of her hair.
“Your Grace,” she said. “Or perhaps I still have permission to call you Edward?”
Edward nodded gruffly.
“How fortunate. I feared I would have no word from my oldest friend.”
“Lady Charlotte.” Edward bowed formally, wishing the churchyard was empty except for the birds and the bodies.
Lady Charlotte smiled and reached for his arm.
“Would you escort me around these pretty grounds. Like we used to take turns around Ranelagh Gardens?” she asked, presenting her low cut dress beneath his nose.
“Would you mind if we did not?” Edward said, turning his body back towards the church and denying her his arm at the same time. “I am requited inside.”
“But you have only just stepped outside,” Lady Charlotte said, quietly.
“Edward! Edward!” called Lady Eleanor from within the darkness of the old church.
Saved by the bell.
“I fear that a groom’s work is never done,” he said, striding back towards the church.
There was another cry and it brought Edward up short. Looking back he saw Lady Charlotte fall to the ground, clutching at her ankle. She had fallen in a small cluster of trees, effectively screened from the view of anyone looking out of the church door.
“I placed my foot badly. Tripped over a root,” she gasped, hands hiding the ankle of her right foot. “Do not trouble yourself, Your Grace. You have duties to attend to.”
Edward walked back to her, leaning down to offer his hand. She watched him from beneath lowered lashes. As she came toher feet she put both down on the ground firmly. There was no hint of pain. Suddenly, she was clutching his shoulders, leaning heavily against him while contriving to pull him further into the shade of the trees.
“How clumsy I am. Weddings are such violent things. The end of hopes, the beginning of other people’s dreams.”
Edward seized her by both elbows, set her on her feet and stepped back. She came with him, clinging to him.
“You are unhurt,” he accused.
“Not entirely.” she breathed. “Simply desperate to get your attention. Edward, do not spoil your life.”
“You will not speak of my marriage as if it were a mistake made from weakness,” he said.
“You think it a triumph?” Her smile was thin. “A Scottish girl who wanders into a man’s stables, who is carried half undressed through a ballroom. Do not tell me you cannot see the web.”
Anger rose, quick and clean. “Do not mistake the theatre of talk for truth. She struck her head. I carried her.”
Her words, though, had struck him deeply. He had responded without thought, in defense of the woman who was to be his wife. But that was honor. Charlotte’s words had echoed his own worst fears.
“You forget the beginning. She sought you. She trapped you. Families do such things when cupboards are bare. You know it, or you would not have avoided her all week.”
“Who told you I was avoiding her or anyone?” Edward demanded.
