A Wedding Story (29 page)

H
arrington had a chapel, built even before the current manor house, a small stone structure tucked beneath the boughs of an extraordinary chestnut tree at the far end of what had once been the gardens. It was in no better shape than the rest of the estate, the windows broken out, the pews and altar gone, half the roof slates missing. But there was an undeniable romance to the place, in its perfectly cut beige stones, the soaring roof, the vines that twined over the entrance.

Jim had suggested the village church. It was February, after all, and the chapel would likely be cold. But Kate insisted. If she were to be the new countess of Harrington—oh, how odd that sounded!—she would be married in Harrington’s chapel.

Though it certainly did not seem the wedding of a countess. Her first wedding had been quick and businesslike, in a judge’s chambers, though her dress had been lovely, her jewelry expensive. She’d always assumed if she married again, it would be a grand affair, months in the planning, yards of silk and bouquets that speared toward the roof of a cathedral.

Instead this wedding seemed like it might have belonged to one of the estate’s tenants rather than its lord.

Luckily the day was warm, soft for February, carrying hints of spring on a gentle breeze. So the guests—the tenants, dressed in their best, which no one but they would have known was so—made do with only light outergarments instead of the piles of blankets and coats that Jim had feared. They’d brought their own seats to the empty chapel, benches and chairs dragged from the nearest cottages, for the manor house itself was still barren of any furniture except the good bed its owner had insisted upon.

There were no flowers in the church. No frilly curls of ribbon, no trailing swags of silk, no glittering silver.

But there were candles, dozens of them, lumpy and homemade, some mere stubs, contributed by everyone. On every windowsill, flickering; lining the two stone steps that led up to the nave, a huge cluster of them glowing on the small wooden table that would serve as an altar. Their light filled the little church, a warm glow that turned the buff stone walls to gold.

All those candles gave the women no end of trouble as they tried to keep the children that squirmed and whispered and giggled and crawled all over the place out of the way of the flames, a happy chatter more festive than any organ chords.

There was no new gown for the bride. No jewels, no hair dressed in cascades of curls. Kate had spent nearly two weeks making over her dress—she’d had plenty of time, for Jim, true to his word, had been working so hard that she rarely saw him except late at night when he, bone tired, had tumbled into bed. That was fine with her; she understood the necessity of it, and besides, he always made it up to her when he did come home.

The orchid silk was stripped of lace, cut in perfectly severe, elegant lines. It barely clung to her shoulders, sweeping low over her bosom, adorned with nothing but glowing skin. Long sleeves, cut tight, ending in sharp points at the back of her hands; a bodice that hugged her curves; a luscious swoop of skirt that swept the ground in back. Her one indulgence had been a spool of silver thread and she’d put it to good use, embroidering sweeping swirls, great curving loops that glittered in the candlelight. She’d swept her hair straight back and pinned it in a simple twist that had taken all of three minutes to arrange.

Everyone said they’d never seen a more beautiful bride.

The groom would be wearing black and a sling, support for the shoulder injury he’d sustained two days before by sliding off the slick roof he’d been fixing on one of his tenant’s cottages.

He was also late.

Jane leaned over to Kate, who was standing at the front of the church. “Do you want me to send Will after him?”

“Oh, he’ll be here,” Kate said serenely. He’d be here, and soon, or he’d be dealing with the consequences, something which Kate was sure the man understood.

And then he was there, charging down the makeshift aisle at an indecorous pace, a giant fistful of roses clutched in his good hand.

“Here,” he said, panting, as he reached her, and thrust the bouquet at her. There were at least two dozen, wildly out of season, all colors—peach, pink, red, yellow—that should have clashed but instead looked utterly lovely together, their petals perfect, just opening, clouds of scent rising from them. The stems were uneven, stripped of their thorns, tied loosely—lopsided—together with a thin band of white ribbon.

“You shouldn’t have—” She stopped, buried her nose in them to take in the smell. “Where did you…I know, I know you have your ways.”

“That I do.” And then he bent and kissed her, slow and sweet, as if they were the only two people in the room.

The vicar harrumphed and tapped Jim on the shoulder. “We haven’t reached that part yet.”

They broke apart, but only a bit, smiling into each other’s eyes, the bouquet between them.

“We object!”

An instant later Kate shoved the flowers back at Jim and sprinted down the aisle, the pale purple silk floating behind her.

“We’re not to that part yet, either,” the clergyman said.

Kate hurled herself at the two women who’d just entered, squeezing one in each arm, hanging on for dear life. Jim bounded after her.

He would have pegged them as her sisters immediately, Jim decided, even if her reaction hadn’t given it away. The brown-haired one had to be Anthea, a plain slip of a woman frowning at him over Kate’s shoulder.

The other one was taller, slighter, the color of her hair somewhere between the others’, younger and more conventionally pretty, though certainly no competition for Kate. Emily. Still, there was something in the set of their eyes, the curve of their mouths, that marked them as sisters.

The three finally disentangled themselves and faced him, clasping hands. Emily beamed at him, heart as open as her expression, while Anthea, free hand on her hip, regarded him like a schoolteacher might a rambunctious student.

“We object,” she said, “because we refuse to have another Bright wedding without the rest of us there.”

“That’s right,” Emily said. “Couldn’t you have waited until we got here?”

“Ah, well…” Kate grinned at Jim, because she still couldn’t believe it, though she’d been losing her breakfast for three weeks. “No, we really couldn’t wait.”

“Oh!” Emily squealed and launched herself at Jim, so hard he took a step back. He wrapped his arm around her automatically, the flowers drooping at her back, his shoulder pulling painfully. Over the top of her head he caught sight of Anthea, who he fully expected to be scowling at him with sisterly disapproval but who was smiling at him instead, a smile that transformed her face, her slight resemblance to Kate suddenly pronounced.

“We’d best get you married, then, musn’t we?” she said, and herded them all back to the front. And so Kate said her vows with her sisters by her side. Emily sniffled. Anthea deftly rescued the roses when Kate’s hands shook so hard that Jim had to take them in his to still them.

Halfway through the vows, Will and Jane’s middle daughter, three-year-old Gwen, who’d taken a liking to Jim, decided to attach herself to his leg and remained there for the rest of the ceremony. And then the groom, who’d been so steady the entire time, stumbled over the last lines of the vows and had to ask the reverend to repeat them three times before he finally got them out. And if both the bride and groom cried a little—maybe more than a little—the guests all decided it would be better not to mention that small point. Especially since more than one of them were a bit misty themselves.

Everyone, including the new Earl and Countess of Harrington, agreed.

The wedding—and the marriage—was perfect.

I
n October, 1900, Wilcox & Sons, Publishers, New York City, printed the first edition of
The Jewel of Balthelay: Inside the Mysterious, Rich, and Unknown World of the Prince of Balthelay,
by Mahsi and Jonathan Duffy. It sold out in three weeks and went on to seven more printings.

E
dward Whymper was the first man to scale the slopes of Mount Chimborazo in 1879, a feat the author borrowed to attribute to Baron von Hussman.

The island nation of Balthelay and the towns of Shorehampton and Hollingport are fictional.

A former science geek, SUSAN KAY LAW turned to romance writing as a career because it was the perfect excuse to avoid housework and continue spending all her time doing what she really loved: reading and daydreaming. Also because she was really bad at sitting in a swamp at 5
A.M.
in forty-degree weather and tracking bird behavior.

Winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award and a Waldenbooks Bestseller Award, twice nominated for a Rita Award, she confesses that the biggest surprise of her career was when this smalltown Midwestern preacher’s kid was named to
New Woman
magazine’s list of “the steamiest writers of women’s fiction.” Her greatest joy, however, is spending her days thoroughly outnumbered by four of the best males on the planet—her husband and three sons. She currently lives in Minnesota, and plans to be a ski bum in her next life. You can visit her website at www.susankaylaw.com

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