A tap on the door at that moment heralded the arrival of a maid with a breakfast tray for Dora, and Agnes took her leave, promising to be back within the hour to help her dress for the wedding. Dora looked at the buttered toast and the cup of chocolate without appetite, but it would be very embarrassing if her empty stomach began to protest during the nuptial service. She set about clearing the plate.
Yes, it was her wedding day. But Mama would not be there to witness it, though apparently she lived not far from here. Did she know? Was she aware that Dora was to marry the Duke of Stanbrook today? And would she care if she did? He had been willing to invite her, and for a moment Dora was quite illogically sorry she had said no.
“Mama.” She murmured the name aloud and then shook her head to clear it. What an idiot she was being.
Soon Dora’s wedding day began in earnest. Agnes returned as promised and was followed soon after by their sister-in-law, Louisa, and their father’s wife—Dora never had been able to bring herself to call the former Mrs. Brough her stepmother—and by Aunt Millicent. Agnes’s own maid, with much advice and assistance from the ladies, arrayed Dora in her wedding outfit. She had chosen a midblue dress some people might judge to be too plain for the occasion, though Agnes and all the friends who were with her at the time had assured her that the expert cut and style made it not only smart but perfectly suited to her. She wore with it a small-brimmed, high-crowned straw bonnet trimmed with cornflowers, and straw-colored shoes and gloves. Agnes’s maid styled her hair low at the neck to accommodate the bonnet, but prettily coiled and curled so that it did not look as prim as it usually did.
Everyone—except the maid—proceeded to hug her tightly when it was time for them to leave for the church, and all spoke at once, it seemed. There was a flurry of laughter.
And then, just when everything was quieting down with only Agnes left and Dora was composing herself for what lay ahead, there was a brisk knock on the door and Flavian poked his head about it, pronounced her decent—whatever would he have done if she had not been?—and opened the door wider to admit himself and Oliver and Uncle Harold. Flavian looked her over with lazy eyes and told her she looked as fine as fivepence—whatever that meant—and Oliver told her she looked as pretty as a picture and he was as proud as a peacock of her. Her brother had never been known for his originality with words. He then proceeded to fold her in his arms and attempt to crush every rib in her body while he assured her that if anyone deserved happiness at last, it was she. Uncle Harold merely looked sheepish and pecked her cheek after telling her she was looking fine.
Their father, Oliver informed her, was waiting downstairs to escort her to church.
Papa was neither an emotional man nor a demonstrative one—and that was a giant understatement—but he looked steadily up at Dora a few minutes later as she descended the stairs to the hallway.
“You look very pretty, Dora,” he said. He hesitated before continuing. “I thank you for inviting Helen and me to your wedding and for asking me, moreover, to give you away. It was never our intention, you know, to make you feel obliged to leave home after our marriage.”
Dora was not at all sure it had not been Mrs. Brough’s intention. She had had what she had called a frank talk with her stepdaughter not long after Agnes’s marriage to William Keeping and a year after her own marriage to Papa. She had explained that though Dora had had the running of the house since she was little more than a girl, she must not feel obliged to continue doing so now that it had a real mistress. Perhaps, she had suggested, Dora would care to visit her aunt in Harrogate for an indefinite period of time. Or perhaps she would like to make her home with Agnes and Mr. Keeping and allow her sister to look after her for a change. Dora had been hurt, since she had been trying very hard not to involve herself in the running of the home. At the same time, there had been a certain sense of relief in being set free to pursue her own future.
“I am very glad you both came, Papa,” she assured him quite truthfully. Her father had never gone out of his way to earn her affection, but he had never been unkind either, and Dora loved him.
He offered her his arm and led her out to the waiting carriage. The sun was still shining from a clear sky. The air was warm and welcoming. Numerous birds, hidden among the branches of the trees in the park, were singing their hearts out.
Oh, let it all be a good omen, Dora thought.
8
At five minutes to eleven it was unlikely there was an empty space in any of the pews at St. George’s Church on Hanover Square. Indeed, a few of the male guests were standing at the back and were even beginning to encroach upon the side aisles. Society weddings during the Season invariably drew a crowd of invited guests, but when the groom was a duke and the bride a virtual unknown, then the crowd was sure to be larger than usual. Even King George IV had explained that he would have been delighted to attend if a long-standing obligation did not oblige him to be out of town on the day in question.
The organist was playing quietly, muting the low hum of conversation.
George, seated at the front with his nephew, ought to have been feeling nervous. It was almost obligatory, was it not, for grooms to feel their neckcloths tighten about their throats and their palms grow clammy at this stage of the proceedings? But it was Julian who was showing signs of nerves as he patted one of his pockets to make sure the ring had not escaped its confines during the past five minutes.
George himself was feeling perfectly composed. No, actually he was feeling something more positive than that. He was aware of a boyish sort of eagerness as he awaited his bride. He was going to savor every word and every moment of the nuptial service with her at his side. The ceremony would usher them into the future they had chosen for themselves. It would be a perfect beginning to a marriage of perfect contentment—or so he firmly believed. He had hoped for it when he went into Gloucestershire to offer her marriage, but he had become convinced of it during the past month. She was the wife for whom he had unconsciously longed perhaps all his life, and he dared believe he was the husband she had dreamed of and been denied as a very young lady. Fate was a strange thing, though. He would not have been free for her at that time even if they had met.