“Is she late?” he murmured when it seemed to him that it must be at least eleven o’ clock.
Julian pounced upon this small sign of weakness. “Aha!” he said, turning his head and grinning. “You are feeling it. But I very much doubt she is. Miss Debbins does not seem the sort who would ever keep someone waiting. But if she is late, she is certainly not going to be any later. I believe she has arrived.”
Even as he spoke the bishop appeared at the front of the church, formally and gorgeously vested and flanked by two lesser mortals, mere clergymen. He signaled George to rise. The organ fell silent for a moment—and so did the congregation—and then began to play a solemn anthem. There was a rustling of heads turning to look back and a murmur of voices as the bride came into view and began to make her way along the nave on the arm of her father.
George’s first strange thought as he turned and saw her was that she looked exactly like herself. Her blue dress, long-sleeved and round necked, simply designed and unadorned, suited her to perfection. Her straw bonnet was neat and small brimmed, and her hair beneath it was smoothly styled. She was wide-eyed and glanced neither to left nor to right as she approached, but she looked composed, even serene. Her eyes found him almost immediately and remained fixed upon him.
He felt a wave of warm affection for her and an utter certainty that everything was as it ought to be. He was going to be happy at last. So was she—he would see to that. He smiled, and she smiled back at him with a look of unguarded pleasure.
Then she was at his side, her father bowed and moved away to sit beside Lady Debbins in the front pew, and they turned together to be married. The congregation was forgotten, and George felt a sense of peace, of rightness. It was his wedding day, and within the next few minutes this woman beside him would be his wife. His own.
“Dearly beloved,” the bishop said, and George gave his attention to the service. He wanted to remember every precious moment of it for the rest of his life.
“. . . now come to be joined,” the bishop was saying a few moments later in that distinctive voice of clergymen everywhere that carried to the farthest corner of the loftiest church. “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else for ever hold your peace.”
He was addressing the congregation. Next he would ask the same question of the two of them, and then they would speak the vows that would bind them together for the rest of their lives. Despite himself, though, George felt the twinge of anxiety that all brides and grooms must experience during the beat of silence that followed the admonition. Someone coughed. The bishop drew breath to continue.
And the unthinkable happened.
A voice broke the silence from far back in the church before the bishop could resume—a male voice, distinct and loud and slightly trembling with emotion. It was a familiar voice, though George had not heard it for a number of years.
“I can show just cause.”
And somehow it seemed to George that he had been expecting this, that it was inevitable.
There was a collective gasp of shock from the pews and a renewed rustle of silks and satins as the members of congregation, almost as one body, swung about in their seats to see who had spoken. George turned too, his eyes briefly meeting those of his bride as he did so. Even in that momentary glance he could see that she had turned suddenly pale. His blood felt as though it had turned to ice in his veins.
Anthony Meikle, Earl of Eastham, had made it easy for everyone to see him. He had stood and stepped out into the center of the nave. Or perhaps he had not been sitting down at all. Perhaps he had just arrived.
The bishop and the clergymen with him remained calm. The bishop held up a hand for silence and got it almost immediately.
“You will identify yourself, sir, and state the nature of the impediment,” he said, still using his formal ecclesiastical voice.
Hugo, looking thunderous and menacing, was on his feet, George noticed almost dispassionately. So was Ralph a couple of places farther along the same pew, the slash of his facial scar making him look more fiercely piratical than usual.
In a dramatic gesture that looked too theatrical for any reputable stage, Eastham raised his right arm and pointed a slightly shaking finger at George.
“That man,” he said, “the Duke of Stanbrook, is a murderer and a villain. He killed his first wife by pushing her off a high cliff on his estate in Cornwall to her death on the jagged rocks below. The Duchess of Stanbrook was my sister and would never under any circumstances have taken her own life. Stanbrook hated her, and he murdered her.”
“Half sister,” George heard someone murmur and realized it was himself.
There was a swell of sound from half the congregation, shushing sounds from the other half, and finally an expectant hush.
Anthony Meikle, now the Earl of Eastham, had made the same accusation immediately after Miriam’s death twelve years ago to anyone who would listen—and a number of people did. He had made it despite the fact that he had been unable to offer anything by way of proof or even credible evidence. After the funeral he had vowed revenge. This, presumably, was it.
His rare appearance in London was explained. It struck George that he might have guessed that this or something like it would happen.
“You have evidence, sir, to prove this most serious of charges?” the bishop asked. “If you do, your proper course of action would be to take it to a magistrate or other law enforcement officer.”
“Law enforcement!” Eastham exclaimed, his voice throbbing with contempt. “When he is a duke? He should hang by the neck until he is dead, and even that end would be too good for him. But of course it will not happen because he has the protection of his rank. I charge him with the truth nonetheless, and I charge you, my lord bishop, to do your duty and put an end to this farce of a marriage service. The Duke of Stanbrook must not be allowed to take a second wife when he murdered the first.”