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She gave him a speaking glance and smiled at Bertrand. “Savor the wait for your wedding and the anticipation,” she said. “In my case, as you will recall, I had an unexpected visit one evening from an amorous, nearly distraught Marcel bearing a ring and a special license and uttering a garbled marriage proposal, and I married him the following morning without any chance either to wait or to anticipate.”

“For which sacrifice I am not sure I have ever adequately thanked you,” Bertrand said, grinning. “What with the endless pacing and sighing and loss of appetite during the months following your breaking off the engagement, Papa had become next to impossible to live with.”

Bertrand had no choice but to do what Viola had suggested, though there was no way he was going to savor the wait. But the days and hours did inevitably pass, and a mere week and a half after he arrived back at Redcliffe it was time to leave yet again.

But for Ravenswood this time.

He checked the rooms of his new apartment at Redcliffe before he left to make sure everything was as he wanted it and left detailed instructions about which flowers must be displayed there on the day of his return and exactly where they were to be placed.

He wanted perfection. Perhaps that was foolish of him. Stephanie did not want him to be perfect, did she? Which was a bit unfair of her when she was perfect herself.

Chapter Twenty-Five

September could sometimes be lovelier than high summer. These were the days of blue skies and warmth without the searing heat summer could sometimes bring and with a certain slant of light and a suggestion of crispness about the morning air that promised the beauties of autumn still to come. It was a time when flowers still bloomed and trees still bore their green leaves, but one knew the season was inevitably turning toward the more mellow glory of multicolored leaves and the dull gold of an abundant harvest before winter brought everything to a pause with its chill, stark beauty, and then the joy of rebirth that was springtime.

Stephanie’s wedding day was just such a September day, as she saw from the window of her room when she rose early and threw back the curtains. She shivered slightly in the cool air coming through the window and considered herself the most blessed of mortals.

The house was filled with wedding guests from both families. So was her mother’s cottage and several homes in the village and surrounding countryside.

Bertrand was in the village.

He was in the rooms above the smithy. They were small and reached via an outdoor flight of steps built against the side of the building. The pervading smells inside rose from the smithy itself and from Matthew’s workroom. It was where they would spend tonight, and Stephanie could not imagine a more desirable setting. The rooms were small and humble and intimate and cozy and real. Tomorrow they would go to Penallen to spend a week alone by the sea while Ben and Jennifer and the children and Ben’s aunt stayed on for a visit.

She smiled briefly at the news Ben had shared with her upon his arrival. He was glad it would be happy news instead of upsetting to her, as he had first thought it might be. Mr. Courtney had recently married a widowed lady who had long been a friend of his and had sold the cottage by the sea.

“He had the decency, at least, to write to me, Steph,” Ben had said.

“I am glad he did,” she had told him. “I have been feeling a bit guilty.”

Stephanie’s maid let herself quietly into the room lest Stephanie was still asleep but showed she was not really expecting it when she set down a tray bearing two rounds of buttered toast and one soft-boiled egg in an egg cup, with a small pot of tea. She bade Stephanie a good morning.

“I really do not think I can eat or drink any of it, Hetty,” Stephanie said apologetically. Her stomach was feeling decidedly unsteady.

But her mother had come in right behind Hetty, dressed and up from the cottage, early though it still was.

“I knew you would not wish to eat,” she said. “I came to make sure you do. If there are butterflies fluttering around in your stomach, Stephanie, leaving it empty only gives them more room in which to frolic. Thank you, Hetty. You may return for the empty tray in half an hour.”

Stephanie eyed the food with some misgiving as she seated herself in front of it. Her mother had apparently already had breakfast at home.

“Kitty joined me,” she said. “She came up to the house with me too in order to check upon Mama and Papa and make sure they had, or are having, a decent night’s sleep after their heroic journey.”

Stephanie’s grandparents, who were very elderly and rarely left home these days except for the occasional visit to near neighbors, had insisted upon coming to Stephanie’s wedding with Uncle George and Aunt Kitty.

“Matthew, Lucas, and George took the children fishing in the river yesterday,” her mother said. “So Kitty, Pippa, and I were able to have a good natter. It is a new experience for us to have children staying at the cottage. A great delight too—in small doses. When one gets to my age, Stephanie, one understands why it is young people who have children and older people who are grandparents. We can enjoy them and spoil them to our heart’s content and then send them home with their parents.”

Stephanie understood why her mother was talking so much about nothing in particular. It was to distract her daughter and ensure that she both ate and drank while listening. Stephanie discovered that she was a bit hungry after all.

“Your wedding day,” her mother said, her eyes on the empty tray. “I feared it might never happen for you, Stephanie. I feared you might never trust love enough to allow yourself to fall into it. You were terribly hurt as a child, and I was very much to blame. But not for a single moment have you been unloved—by any of us. I am so proud of you for having worked it out for yourself. You are marrying a very good man.”

“I know, Mama,” Stephanie said. When he had arrived yesterday, she had wanted to dash into his arms and never let go of him. But there had been other people present—lots of other people—and it could not be done. She had had to content herself instead with setting her hand in his and watching him raise it to his lips and then smile at her with eyes that told her he felt as she did.

And perhaps it had been better that way.

Her body and her whole being hummed with eager anticipation of the day and night ahead.

Her wedding day had come at last. Hetty whisked the breakfast tray away, and it was time to wash and have her hair done before donning her wedding clothes and giving herself up to all the excitement of the day ahead.

Having waited so impatiently for what had seemed like an eternity, she decided at last to relax and savor every moment.