Or would she?

Even if she did, would her new family ever fill the empty space where her own family—the bride’s family—ought to be?

Fourteen

Alexander waited outside St. George’s Church on Hanover Square, his hands opening and closing at his sides. His was not to be the typical society wedding held here during the months of the Season. There were very few guests and no frills—no organ or choir, no incense or floral arrangements, no flower-bedecked carriage. No groom waiting at the front of the church for his bride to walk toward him along the nave on the arm of her father.

But it felt no less a momentous occasion to him. He had purchased the special license and made the arrangements, and now here he was, as nervous as if there were three hundred guests and three bishops gathered inside.

Instead there were the members of his family on both his mother’s and his father’s sides, with the exception of Cousin Mildred’s three boys and Camille and Joel Cunningham and their adopted children. Harry was here, looking thin and smart, if slightly shabby, in his military uniform, which had been ruthlessly brushed and cleaned.

The situation was very lopsided, of course, for there was no family on the bride’s side. Perhaps after all they should have stuck with the original plan of marrying even more quietly than this. He knew she was feeling the absence of her aunt and uncle quite acutely, but that was not to be helped. What about the rest of her family, though? Was there any? He strongly suspected there was. Surely, she would have told him, no matter how painful the telling, if they had all perished in some disaster when she was a child.

One of these days they were going to have a long talk about her past. And one of these days they must talk about a number of other things too. The week had sped by in such a whirl of activity that they had not even discussed a marriage contract. She had revealed no details of her fortune to him and had extracted no promise from him about how it would be managed and spent. She had once sworn she would not marry before she had protected her interests.

He was just beginning to wonder if she would be late when his carriage turned into the square. He had come earlier with Sidney, from Sid’s rooms, where he had spent the night again. He flexed his fingers once more and stepped forward as the carriage drew to a halt at the foot of the steps.

He helped his mother descend first. She took both his hands in hers and squeezed them tightly. “My dearest boy,” she said. “What a lovely day. Promise me you will be happy.”

“I promise, Mama.” He kissed her forehead and turned to help Elizabeth alight. They shared a wordless hug, and she went up the steps with their mother and disappeared inside the church while he was handing down his bride.

She was wearing an elegant, perfectly tailored, high-waisted dress in a vivid shade of pink that looked unexpectedly stunning with her dark hair, some of which was visible beneath a cream-colored bonnet with pink satin lining ruched on the underside of the brim and pink rosebuds and greenery in a cluster on one side of the crown. Wide pink satin ribbons held the confection in place and were tied with a large bow beneath her left ear. There was not a veil in sight. She set a hand in his and stepped down carefully.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

“And so do you,” she said, smiling.

He bowed over her hand, raised it to his lips, and drew it through his arm. They climbed the steps together and stepped inside the church. The few guests gathered at the front were swallowed up by the cold grandeur of their surroundings. The church smelled of candles and old incense and prayer books. In the absence of organ music, his bootheels rang on the stone floor as they made their way forward. He looked at his bride, whose hand rested in the crook of his arm, and felt all the momentous significance of the occasion.

This was his wedding day.

He was about to join himself to this woman for the rest of their lives. And it felt right. There had been no lengthy courtship, no grand romance, no declaration of love. But there was liking and respect on both sides. He was quite sure of that. There was admiration too on his side.

He looked ahead again to the clergyman, properly vested despite the quiet nature of the wedding. Sid, his best man, bearer of the ring, was facing them, a look of anxiety on his face. The others turned their heads, smiling, as they passed. And they came to a stop before the clergyman.

“Dearly beloved,” he said after a moment of silence, and this was it, Alexander thought. The most solemn, most momentous hour of his life.

And time swept on. Within moments, it seemed, the world as he knew it changed irrevocably with the exchange of vows and the placement of a ring and they were man and wife and moving off to the vestry to sign the register and then returning to greet their guests with handshakes and hugs and kisses. And then they were leading the way back along the nave and out onto the church steps, where Sid and Jessica and Abigail and Harry were awaiting them with handfuls of rose petals and a few curious onlookers, drawn no doubt by the fashionable carriages drawn up before the church.

The sun was shining.

There were more hugs and backslapping and congratulations somewhat louder and more hearty than those offered inside before Alexander handed his bride into his carriage for the drive back to South Audley Street. They were to ride alone. There were no old boots or pots and pans to clatter along behind them as they moved away from the church—at his insistence. And it was a closed carriage, when the weather was fine enough for an open barouche.

The trappings, the absence of those festive touches that usually drew attention to a bridal conveyance, did not matter. They were married.

He reached for her hand as the carriage rocked into motion. “Well, my lady,” he said.

“Do you regret not having a grander wedding?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Did you regret not having a quieter wedding?”

“No.”

He raised her hand to his lips. “I believe,” he said, “I will remember our wedding all my life as something perfect—just as it was.”

“So will I,” she said softly.

But there were times during the day when Wren wished they had kept to the original plan for a private wedding. She almost did not step into the carriage to go to church. It seemed like a physical impossibility. But of course she did. Going inside the church, which she was quite convinced during the journey she would not be able to do, was made easier by the fact that he was outside waiting for her and suddenly it was her wedding day and nothing else mattered. From the moment she set her hand in his to alight from the carriage, she saw only him and then the church and the clergyman awaiting them, and she felt only the solemn joy of the occasion. She was getting married. More than that, she was marrying the man with whom she had fallen deeply and unexpectedly—and secretly—in love. Oh, he was more right than he knew when he said in the carriage afterward that their wedding had been perfect. Even the ordeal after they came out of the vestry of facing the Westcott and Radley families en masse, some of whom she had not met before, could not quite mar the perfection. They had all been so very kind.

Joy remained with her during the carriage ride home. And her first sight of the dining room fairly took her breath away and really did bring tears to her eyes. The finest china, crystal, and silverware had been formally set out on a crisp white cloth. An elaborate epergne of summer flowers adorned the center of the table, and a pink rosebud stood in individual crystal vases at each place beside an intricately folded linen napkin. Wall sconces were filled with flowers, leaves and ferns spilling over the sides. Candles in silver holders burned everywhere despite the sunlight beyond the windows. A two-tiered cake iced in white and decorated with pink rosebuds stood alone on a small side table, a silver knife with pink ribbon adorning its handle beside it.