“Andwe don’t have much time,” he finished. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“No,” she said at once.
She elected to leave it. She would not needle him about his “hard-met and soul-wrenching decision.” She would not demand that he explain hiscurrent situation.
If she was married to Declan Shaw, even a rushed-up marriage, in total secrecy, by some middle-of-the-night priest, she would be safe from marrying the duke. It would be enough.
And Declan would be hers. Whether it was “for the moment” or forever—fine, he couldn’t say for sure. Helena could.
Sheknew.
As for consummating the marriage, she would also say nothing.
Here again, she knew.
They arrived at St. Patrick’s in Soho Square. Just as Declan said, the church was presided over by a priest called Father Thomas. He was a slight, irreverent man who was putting cream in bowls for mewing alley cats.
Declan called out in greeting. The priest squinted at him as if he’d forgotten which midnight favor he’d promised this night.
“It’s me, Father. Declan Shaw. Peter’s son?”
“Oh yes, so it is,” said Father Thomas. “The couple in the very great rush. I remember now. Lovely. So be it, better rushed than wasting anyone’s time. Right this way. Do mind the cats.”
The small church bustled with activity. The corridors were crowded with what appeared tobe street urchins asleep on cots, watched over by a snoozing nun. A bright kitchen bustled with more nuns serving hot soup to exhausted, ragged-looking vagrants. The door to a room marked “Infirmary” opened and closed to admit a doctor. More nuns followed, carrying basins of steaming water, bandages, and finally a red, mewling infant.
“But your church is so active at this early hour, Father?” Helena asked.
“Oh yes. God’s children sometimes feel the most desperate in the middle of the night. If we intend to be ‘a light in the darkness,’ midnight is our busiest hour.”
“So very noble,” she said, “thank you for... accommodating us.”
“There are all kinds of desperation, aren’t there?” He winked at them. “We don’t stand on ceremony at St. Patrick’s. I became a priest to serve. Now, should we have a witness?”
Helena and Declan were married in view of two nuns, three street vagrants, and a prostitute with hair the color of an orange. Father Thomas managed the whole thing in thirty minutes.
Despite the rush, despite Declan’s clear preference for the reversibility of the thing, tears filled both their eyes when they spoke their vows. They repeated the ancient words solemnly, with the feeling and emphasis that sounded like a Heart Oath to God and each other.
When they finally spilled, hand in hand, from the walled churchyard and into Soho Square, she whirled on him, took his face in both hands, and kissed him.
He sighed blissfully and pulled her to him. She whispered, “Make love to me.”
He answered with an anguished moan and kissed her again. They fell against the church wall, locked in an embrace.
“You’ll see your error now,” she teased, rolling away from him, panting against cool stones. “You’ve married me. You’ll not escape my... my—”
“Relentlessness,” he provided. He sought her hand between them. They leaned side by side on the wall.
“I was going to say, ‘superior reasoning and clear logic,’ but alright. You cannot drive me away.”
He did not answer, which meant he did not deny it. She smiled into the moonlit square. After a moment she said, “Declan, I want you to tell me whatever it is. Thisthing. Whatever you feel would cause me to annul this perfectly lovely wedding.”
He turned to her on the wall. “You deserve a real wedding. Befitting the daughter of an earl.”
Helena stuck her tongue out and made a gagging sound. “I deserve to know what great horrible secret you harbor that will drive me away.” She made the gesture of her fleeing in terror.
Another silence. He turned away, studying the stones of the wall.
“You are mad, Declan Shaw,” she said, “if you believe there is anything you can tell me that will drive me away. I love you.”
