They were waiting outside the church, along with a sizable crowd of curious onlookers, who set up a cheer when the bride and groom emerged. The four men, as George had fully expected, had armed themselves with great handfuls of flower petals, which were soon being flung into the air to rain down upon George’s head and his bride’s. He took her by the hand, and they both laughed and made a dash for the open carriage that awaited them. It had been decked with flowers before George left home. Without looking, though, he knew that by now it would have acquired a less pretty cargo of noisy, metallic things tied to the back, ready to set up a deafening rumpus as soon as the vehicle was in motion.
George handed his bride into the carriage and followed her in. Another shower of multicolored petals rained about their heads. The church bells were ringing out the joyful tidings of a new marriage. The members of the congregation were beginning to spill out through the doors.
The sun was shining.
A hand touched George on the shoulder and squeezed.
“Don’t worry,” Percy said for his ears only. “He is gone and will not be reappearing for a while.”
And then the coachman gave the signal for the horses to start, and every other sound was drowned out by the unholy din of the unofficial carriage decorations.
George settled his shoulders across one corner of the seat and took one of his bride’s hands in both his own.
“Well, my dear duchess,” he said while she was forced to read his lips in order to hear.
She smiled and then grimaced and laughed at the noise.
He raised her hand to his lips and held it there while the carriage moved out of Hanover Square on its way to Portman Square, Chloe and Ralph having insisted upon hosting the wedding breakfast at Stockwood House.
George had intended to set his arm about her shoulders and kiss her on the lips for everyone outside the church to see. It was what his friends would expect. It would have been the perfect conclusion to a perfect wedding, the perfect start to a happy marriage.
He ought to have done it anyway. But it was too late now.
The day had been irrevocably spoiled.
* * *
The day had not been spoiled, Dora assured herself throughout the rest of it. What had happened in the church had been unfortunate—oh, what a massive understatement!—but it had been dealt with swiftly and firmly, the man had been removed, and the nuptial service had resumed just as if the unpleasant interruption had not happened at all.
Apart from those brief moments, the wedding service had been perfect. So had the weather. Sunshine and warmth had greeted them when they stepped outside the church, and there had been the delightful surprise of a cheering crowd and the merry, laughing faces of their friends as they showered them with rose petals, just as she remembered their doing at Agnes’s wedding last year. Even the deafening noise of the pots and pans they dragged behind the carriage all the way to Stockwood House had been amusing. Her husband had held her hand in both of his all the way there and sat half sideways on the seat, gazing at her with smiling eyes.
Chloe and Ralph’s house had been festively decorated for the occasion with ribbons and bows and urns of flowers. The ballroom had looked more like a lavish garden than an indoor room and had quite taken Dora’s breath away when she stepped into it on the arm of the duke. It had soon been packed with guests, all of whom had bowed or curtsied and smiled and offered congratulations and best wishes as they passed along the receiving line. The food had been sumptuous, the speeches heartfelt and often laughter-provoking, and the wedding cake such a beautiful work of art that it had seemed a pity to cut it. And after the breakfast the guests had been in no hurry to leave but had moved into other rooms and out onto the terrace to linger and continue their conversations. But gradually the guests did begin to take their leave and finally only family and close friends remained.
Everything had been perfect.
No one had made any reference at all to what had happened during those five minutes in the church. It was almost as if Dora had imagined it.
At the end of the day what she remembered most were the smiles and laughter and unrelenting cheerfulness of so many people, all celebrating her nuptials. Why had it left her wanting to weep?
There had been those three or four minutes—definitely no longer than four—out of a long and eventful day that had been otherwise joyful and perfect. Like a worm at the heart of a perfect rose.
I can show just cause.
It was surely every bride’s nightmare that someone would break that short silence in the nuptial service with just those words.
That man, 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.
He should hang by the neck until he is dead. . . .The Duke of Stanbrook must not be allowed to take a second wife when he murdered the first.
It was almost incredible that the wedding and the breakfast had proceeded so normally, so merrily, so perfectly after those words had been spoken. How could they all have smiled the rest of the day away? How could he have smiled? How could she? Why had nothing been said?
It was unfair. It was so very unfair.
He was calling her “my dear,” she noticed. She was calling him nothing. How could she continue to call him “Your Grace” when she was married to him? But how could she call him “George,” when he had not invited her to do so? Did she need an invitation, though? He was her husband. And they were friends, were they not? A friendship had surely grown between them during the past month. But . . . did she know him? He had done forty-seven years of living before she even met him last year, more than half a lifetime. She really did not know him at all.