“I suppose it’s a blessing that you found her instead of my fool daughter and her husband.” She muttered to herself. “What did they expect, keeping the girl locked up like one of their collections? You there!” The hovering manservant snapped to attention. “Get down to the kitchen and warm a large pot of coffee—you and nobody else. If anyone asks, you’re bringing it to me. Bring it here and mind no one catches you.”
Nodding, the young man hurried away.
“You can safely turn Diantha over to me, young man.” She spoke with the crisp air of a military officer. At the mention of her name, the girl looked up before sagging back onto her shoulder. Alarmed, Kieran reached to relieve the small woman of the burden. She waved his assistance away impatiently.
“You get yourself back to your hotel. I’ve a great deal of work to do if she’s to show up at church unimpaired.”
He regarded the pair of them with concern. “I quite understand, madam, but will you not need help getting her into bed?”
Despite the circumstances, the old womanchuckled. “My late husband weighed nearly two hundred pounds in his prime and I certainly helped him to bed often enough. Now shoo!”
On the short walk to his hotel, Kieran shook his head in disbelief. Despite her condition, he had enjoyed his fiancée’s company more in the last hour than he had in the previous six months.
Chapter 2
Accompanied only by James Quinn, his lordship stood attentively before the altar of St. Martin’s the next morning. As the moment for the bride’s expected arrival came, he joined the assemblage in peering down the long nave to the church doors. Unlike the guests, however, he remained unsurprised at her absence. As much as she had had to drink the night before, he had half expected to receive a note from the Quinns delaying the ceremony.
He should have known better. His prospective mother-in-law had expended too much time, effort, and money on this ceremony to delay it because of the bride’s indisposition. The church swam with swags of exotic blossoms in shades of peach and pink. They hung between the arches along the main aisle and fountained up in filigree holders attached to every other pew. Additional vases of blooms rose in waves on the altar steps behind him.
If the woman had crammed any more of the bloody things in, he thought, the entire church would drown in a sea of petals. The vulgar femalenow sat alone in the front pew on the bride’s side, dressed in an elaborate toilette of aquamarine blue satin and lace that suited her coloring admirably. Under ordinary circumstances, she would enjoy her solitary place under the gaze of New York’s elite, but she seemed as confused as everyone else as the minutes ticked by. Her fair skin flushed as whispers ran through the crowd and gentlemen surreptitiously consulted their pocket watches.
“Where is the stupid girl?” James muttered the question out of the side of his mouth. From her pew, Mrs. Quinn’s glare snapped to him and he subsided. By now, several guests were staring at Kieran, eager to see if the aloof British aristocrat showed any sign of discomfiture.
He merely shifted slightly on his feet and gazed disinterestedly at the choir stall above the back of the church, currently occupied by a boys’ choir that served as a fashionable charity. To one side of them stood a tenor who repeatedly patted sweat off the jowls overflowing his formal collar.
Beyond the pillars supporting the stall, he watched the bridesmaids take turns peeking out of the great double doors, no doubt searching for any sign of Miss Quinn’s arrival. A flurry of activity ensued when the doors opened, but only the bride’s grandmother entered. Duly escorted to the front pew by Thomas, she seated herself. Catching Kieran’s eye, she gave a slight nod. A tension in his shoulders he had not noticed earlier eased somewhat.
Several more minutes passed until a faint cry from the crowds lining the streets outside indicated that the bridal coach approached.
The cheers grew louder, reaching a crescendo asthe doors opened to admit the bride and her father. The bridesmaids scrambled into order and waited for the organ to begin the processional. After they duly marched up the aisle, it was Diantha’s turn.
She leaned heavily on her father’s arm as they slowly made their way toward the altar. It might have been a trick of the light, or perhaps because the creamy shade of the dress did not entirely suit her, but his bride looked quite pale under the sheer veil covering her face. As she reached his side, he realized her skin had a distinct greenish tinge. From that and the desperate grip of her hand on his arm after her father handed her off, he guessed she suffered ill effects from the night before.
The miserable expression on her face reminded him of some of his own early experiments with spirits. Recalling them, he patted her hand sympathetically. He leaned close to the small ear under the fashionable coif. “There now, my dear. We’ll get through the day together.”
Diantha barely heard him through the hammers pounding in her head. She had a vague memory of wishing to do something outrageous the evening before, and of drinking some of Papa’s cognac. She had no recollection of returning to her room even though she had awakened in her own bed.
Her only other memories of the previous night consisted of a few fuzzy images, or perhaps she had dreamed them. In one clear vision Lord Rossburn, very handsome indeed in evening dress, stared down at her with something like amazement. In another, someone smelling of bay and lavender carriedher down hall after endless hall. She liked that one very well indeed, and had experienced a severe shock when the arms cradling her so tenderly dissolved into Mama and Granny shaking her awake.
The morning had been a nightmare. On top of marrying his supercilious lordship, she suffered from the worst headache she had ever experienced in her life. Mama’s fussing and scolding only made her head and stomach ache more and her eyes had developed an unaccountable sensitivity to light.
As she mounted the steps to the altar, a whiff of the banked roses and jasmine blossoms floated into her nostrils. She supposed she suffered from a severe case of nerves, for even the most pleasant scents made her feel downright ill today. Earlier, her favorite breakfast of an omelette, steaming chocolate, and buttered toast had failed to ease her misery, for everything had smelled and tasted dreadful.
Thankfully Granny understood how she felt. “Send the meal back down, Mally! For heaven’s sake, Dina just needs something light in her stomach.” She waved the offending food away. “Leave the toast and send up a pot of hot tea for Miss Quinn.” When it arrived, she had shooed her daughter and the servants out of the room, and sat with Diantha while she ate and drank. With her stomach partially settled she could face the ordeal of dressing for her wedding. Even so, when she came down the marble stairway, she found her father scowling at the Tiffany pocket watch he carried.
He had looked her up and down and grunted. “You’ll do. Now come along, you’ve made us a quarter of an hour late.” Ignoring her cry of agonyat stepping into full sunlight, he chivvied her into the waiting carriage.
A sense of unreality now enveloped her as she took Lord Rossburn’s arm. He looked stunningly handsome, as always. The severe charcoal gray of his morning suit proved a perfect foil for the dark hair neatly combed back from his forehead. Unlike most fashionable gentlemen, he did not wear a beard. Diantha’s female acquaintances had discussed the titillating cleft in his chin at length at the round of teas and balls in their honor.
To her surprise, the cool aqua eyes held an expression of concern as he encouraged her to lean on him. He even spared her a tiny smile. As he led her to kneel before the priest, she reflected glumly that she must look truly dreadful to elicit such concern from her normally aloof fiancé.
The rector, a man whose comfortable view of the Christian faith found favor in high society, pronounced the words of the ceremony almost as though he meant them. Diantha dared a glance at his lordship while he repeated his vows. As usual, the expression on his face was one of bored tolerance. Greatly disheartened, she spoke her own vows in a flat voice scarcely audible to anyone but her groom and the divine. Numbly, she heard them pronounced man and wife.
When he lifted the veil for the kiss, she composed her face into the serene visage she supposed everyone expected of a new bride. His lips left a warm trail on her cheek and lingered near her ear. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted as his soft breath brushed her ear.
“Will you be able to get back down the aisle?”Disregarding the rector’s confused expression, she managed a slight nod.
“Yes, thank you.” Her lips remained fixed in a slight smile as she breathed the reply. How he knew of her headache and roiling stomach she did not know, but he sounded more sympathetic than most of her family.
