She turned from the mirror. “Oh, Auntie—I actually think I might be pretty today. Do you think so?” she asked anxiously.
“Pretty?” her aunt said, pursing her lips. “No. I don’t think I’d call you that.”
“Oh.” Serafina
looked away, crushed. “I suppose it was too much to hope for.”
“Don’t be absurd. Today, dearie, you remind me of your mother on her wedding day. She looked as you do now, full of happy expectation.”
Serafina
considered. Well, looking full of happy expectation wasn’t so bad. At least she didn’t look thoroughly offensive.
“I was one of her bridesmaids, you know; this dress I am wearing now is the very same I wore then.”
“It’s lovely,”
Serafina
said, smiling. Elspeth’s white gown was better suited to a girl of eighteen than a scraggly old woman. But she wouldn’t hurt her aunt’s feeling for the world by telling her that. “Auntie … I’ve always wondered. Why did you never marry?”
Elspeth snorted. “Marry? Whatever for? I had everything I needed, including Clwydd from my mother, thanks to the inheritance laws in Wales. There was nothing a man could add to that as far as I was concerned.” Her face softened. “Marriage has never been my way, child. I’m better suited to other aspects of life.”
Serafina
bit her lip, wondering anew about the experience she’d just had. “Just now when I was in the bath, Auntie, I had the most extraordinary dream,” she said tentatively. “I saw something that seemed so real, so right—”
“Hot water has always addled your brains, my girl,” Elspeth said, interrupting her. “But never mind that. The hour grows late and we have a wedding to attend.” She placed Serafina’s posy of flowers in her hands. “You don’t want to keep Aubrey waiting, do you?”
And then she pressed a rare kiss on Serafina’s cheek. ‘You’ve made me very proud,” she said gently. “Come now. It’s time.”
Elspeth preceded
Serafina
down the stairs, her outdated dress flapping around her ankles as she went.
Serafina
paused on the middle landing of the massive central staircase to adjust her gloves and was surprised to hear her aunt’s voice float up to her from the great hall. She knew that tone of rebuke well, although she didn’t often hear it.
“So, Delaware. You finally decided to show your face. I assume your son has done the same?”
“Aubrey returned late last night,” Lord Delaware said, clearing his throat. “But that’s why I wanted to speak to you, Miss Beaton. I—er … I think I owe you a word of explanation as to what to expect.”
“Whatever you have to say can wait until after the ceremony,” Elspeth said testily.
“But this is important,” the marquess persisted. “Aubrey is perhaps not as—that is, he’s not exactly … Well.” He cleared his throat again.
“What do you mean, he’s not well?” Elspeth hissed. “Are you telling me he’s taken a chill?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Lord Delaware said in a tone of relief. “He’s taken a chill. A severe chill.”
Serafina’s heart nearly stopped at the thought that Aiden might have succumbed to the family tendency of poor health. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, running down the last few stairs. “Lord Delaware, is it serious? Have you sent for the doctor?”
He abruptly turned, and another shock wave ran through
Serafina
as she took in his appearance, nothing like the hearty man she remembered from long ago. His complexion was a chalky gray, with the exception of a very red nose, and
Serafina
thought that maybe he’d been weeping. She stifled her alarm, wondering if it wasn’t fear for his son’s life that gave him such distress.
“Good God,” he said, staring at her. “Good God. You are
Serafina?”
He slowly rubbed one hand over the back of his head as if he’d never seen her before.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, moving toward him, hoping she didn’t prove too much of a disappointment. “It is I,
Serafina.
But tell me, what of Aiden?”
“What of Aiden?” he asked, sounding bewildered. “Why, nothing at all.”
“But—but you said he was ill?” she stammered, now thoroughly confused, although relieved.
“Ill?
Aiden? Aiden has always enjoyed perfect health.” An unexpected smile broke out on his face. “My goodness. Won’t he be surprised to see you. Yes, indeed.”
“I don’t think he’ll be too surprised,” she said, entertaining the unfortunate possibility that it was not Lord Delaware’s body that was ill, but his mind. “I believe he’s expecting me,” she said. “In the chapel.”
“Yes, in the chapel,” he said, still looking dazed.
Serafina
nodded reassuringly. “That’s right. For the wedding,” she said, prompting him.
“Yes, for the wedding,” he answered, clapping his hands together. “Isn’t it marvelous?” And then his smile suddenly faded, replaced by a worried frown. “But we had better hurry, my dear. For all I know Aiden’s vanished into thin air. He looked as if he might disappear at any moment.”
“I’m sure.” Serafina’s heart broke for the poor man. She couldn’t imagine how awful it would be not to be able to hold one’s thoughts together from one minute to the next. “Do let’s hurry,” she said, taking his arm before he could forget where he was going. “It’s only a short walk, isn’t it?”
“Only a short walk,” he agreed, nodding fervently. “Thank God for that, eh? Oh, and speaking of walking, perhaps you’ll allow me to walk you down the aisle? Aiden might look on me more kindly when he sees what I’ve brought him.”
“Out of the question,” Elspeth snapped, before
Serafina
had a chance to answer this last muddled comment. “You can’t give the bride away to your own son; that would smack of greed. Oh, dear, I hadn’t thought of this aspect. We can’t have
Serafina
give herself away, can we?”
“Why can’t Tinkerby give me away?”
Serafina
supplied helpfully, not wanting to confuse Lord Delaware any further. He was already confused enough that he was bringing his son a bride. “I know he’ll be there. He said he wouldn’t miss the ceremony for anything.”
“Tinkerby?” Elspeth said thoughtfully. “Well and why not? It’s not as if he hasn’t acted as a father to you for all these years. Not like some,” she added, scowling darkly at Lord Delaware.
“Er, who is this Mr. Tinkerby?” Lord Delaware asked. “Have I met him? I can’t seem to recall…”
“I don’t see how you could have when you were in bed when we arrived,” Elspeth said, a wicked gleam in her eye. “Yes, I think Tinkerby will do beautifully. I’d do the job myself, but I had my heart set on being a bridesmaid.”
“Oh …”
Serafina
said, trying not to think of what Aiden was going to make of a seventy-three-year-old bridesmaid traipsing up the aisle. “Well, as you wish, Auntie,” she said valiantly.
“And it’s not as if your father didn’t give you away years ago,” Elspeth said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind Tinkerby standing in for him.”
“Quite right, quite right,” Lord Delaware agreed. “Well, as Aesop said, ‘the gods help them that help themselves.’ I’ll see you in the chapel.” He tore across the hall, the door slamming after him.
“No one could possibly accuse you of not helping yourself,” Elspeth remarked caustically.
And on that last pronouncement, which left
Serafina
feeling as if she’d either lost her mind or had walked into someone else’s madhouse, her aunt took her by the elbow and shepherded her out of the house and toward the chapel.
Aiden paced the chapel’s side room, seriously entertaining the notion of taking the next packet to China. But duty kept his feet glued to the floor—duty and Raphael’s firm hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry, Cousin, but I indulged you last night while you cried into your ale. Today it is my gloomy responsibility to see you married. No bolting, no last minute reprieves.”
Aiden stared down at the cold stone floor, his hands shoved low on his hips. “If you love me, shoot me now,” he muttered. “Better yet, if you really love me,
you
marry the cow.”
“Thanks for offering, but I think I’ll decline. In any case, I’m not the one who needs her money.”
Aiden glanced up at him. “No, you have more than enough of your own and no father to go throwing it away for you. It’s a hard, cruel fate,
Rafe,
to be brought to this. Have you considered the horrors of the act I’ll be forced to perform tonight?”
“You were more than eloquent on the subject last night. I believe I have a clear picture. My advice to you is to drink a decanter of brandy, do what you have to, and pass out.” Raphael poked his head out the door. “Your father’s finally arrived, but still no sign of the bride.”
Aiden groaned. “Soon enough. Just shove me out there when the time comes, will you? I don’t think I have the courage to go of my own accord.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a blindfold?” Raphael asked with a chuckle. “It might help to get you through the ceremony.”
“The only thing that’s going to get me through this ceremony is if the bride drops dead at the door. Which will also help me get through the rest of my ill-begotten life.”
“Come along, Aiden, buck up, there’s a good lad. It will all be over before you know it, just like getting a tooth pulled.”
“What would you know about it? You’ve never had a tooth pulled from your head in your life,” Aiden retorted.
“Yes I have, when I was six. My governess tied my remaining front tooth up with a string, tied the string to the doorknob, then slammed the door hard. I howled my head off, more from shock than pain.” He grinned. “It wasn’t even loose, but she wanted me to have a matching smile.”
Aiden stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Well, maybe it was just a touch loose. The problem was that the first tooth came in right away and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about the other one.”
“And you are a filthy liar,” Aiden said. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Maybe not. But the story took your mind off your troubles for a moment, didn’t it?”
Aiden slugged Rafe’s shoulders. “You are truly a sorry excuse for a friend.”
“And you are a sorry excuse for a bridegroom,”
Rafe
retorted. “But listen—I think the bride has arrived. The music has started.”
Aiden leaned his head against the wall and covered it with his arms, wishing he were ten thousand miles away.
Rafe
took him by the shoulder and forcibly pushed him through the door, Aiden feeling as if every step brought him closer to his doom.
He took his place at the altar and steeled himself to glance down the length of the nave, attempting to meet disaster in the face and wondering just how awful it was going to look.
He nearly fell over. A little woman well into her seventies pranced toward him in a white gown, a big toothy smile on her wrinkled face. Aiden blinked in disbelief. Even his father wouldn’t be so cruel as to send him an ancient bride. Would he?
And then he realized his mistake as he caught a movement behind her. Another woman, a young woman this time, thank God, walked up the aisle, an elderly man at her side. She was dressed in a cloud of white and silver, a wreath of roses and lily of the valley on her head, but her face was cast in shadow and he could make out nothing of her features. And then she stepped forward into a shaft of sunlight that streamed through one of the windows, illuminating her face.
“Oh, dear God,” he whispered, his hand slowly lifting to his chest in shock. “Oh, dear God.”
For what he was looking on was not a gorgon, but the mysterious fairy queen he’d never thought to see again.
S
erafina’s heart beat so fast in her throat that she thought it might choke her as she walked through the heavy wood door of the little stone chapel. Here she was finally, about to meet Aiden, to become his wife, fulfilling the sacred vow they’d made to each other in that time long ago.
It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior light, and she strained to see. There were not many people in the chapel, but she passed over their vague forms, looking toward the altar alight with candles.
She could barely make out a thing other than a man who appeared to be a bishop, judging by the mitre on his head and the long, white, gold-encrusted robes that he wore. For a brief moment the sight transported her back into that other place. But the bishop had no beard, she realized with a surge of disappointment as her eyes slowly adjusted. And he stood alone. Aiden was nowhere in sight.
Tinkerby, who despite his fervent protestations had been summarily summoned from his back pew by Elspeth to do his duty, nervously touched her shoulder. “Are you ready, miss?” he asked gently, and
Serafina
managed to nod, thinking her legs might collapse at any moment.
“Good,” Elspeth said, nodding. “I’ll go first.” She set off down the nave and
Serafina
followed on Tinkerby’s shaking arm, concentrating on putting her own shaky feet one after
another.
And then, just as she’d managed to regain her poise and look up, two men stepped out of the shadows to the right of the altar, the first moving into the groom’s position.
Serafina
held her breath in anticipation as he slowly turned to look at her.
The expression on his face was anything but loving; it wasn’t even warm or welcoming. It could best be described as stone cold. But that was the least of her worries. Serafina’s step halted, then came to a complete stop, dragging Tinkerby to a stop next to her. She stared in disbelief, her body going numb with shock.
He couldn’t possibly be Aiden.
His hair was so dark as to be nearly black, his cheeks were chiseled, his eyebrows slanting over a pair of startled blue eyes that widened in incredulity as he stared back at her. She knew those eyes, that look of astonishment, but they were the last eyes in the world she expected to see.
Her aunt had mistaken the direction and brought her to the wrong chapel, she thought wildly. It was the only explanation. She’d stumbled into the rogue’s wedding entirely by mistake. It was no wonder that he looked so surprised. He was expecting his wicked harridan of a bride and she’d popped in completely by accident.
Tinkerby looked down at her in alarm. “Miss
Serafina?”
She was about to explain the mistake when an even more terrible realization came to her. Lord Delaware sat at the front of the chapel, his daughter beside him, both looking at her as if they fully expected to see her there, Lord Delaware positively beaming. And Aunt Elspeth continued to march up the nave as if everything was exactly as it ought to be.
Serafina
swallowed hard against a knot of disbelief. Her entire world spun in front of her eyes—not as it had done in the bath when she’d been transported into a state of bliss, but in sheer horror.
This
was Aiden, for whom she’d waited more than half a lifetime? The rogue, who had blithely kissed her even though he was to be married to another woman in the morning—a woman he professed to hate?
Serafina’s heart froze like a lump of ice in her chest and she swallowed again, this time against a wave of nausea. She tried to tell herself that perhaps the rogue had his position reversed and was standing up for the man hidden more deeply in the shadows. Or he was an accidental guest who had come in late through the wrong door. But when would he have had time to see to his own marriage?
I have an appointment with the hangman in the morning,
he’d said bitterly.
And if you bring the notion of love into it, I think I might well strangle you.
All
the rest of his vitriolic words against his forced marriage came pouring unbidden into Serafina’s head. And yet they made no sense. She was no rich schemer. She hadn’t a penny to her name. And she’d done nothing, nothing at all, to cause him to despise her. Nothing except wait for him for eleven long years. No. It couldn’t possibly be Aiden, she decided.
“Miss
Serafina?”
Tinkerby asked again, pulling out his handkerchief and mopping his damp brow. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh yes, a terrible problem,”
Serafina
started to say, but just then Elspeth’s hand fastened around her upper arm, shaking her hard. “Child—what’s come over you? Aubrey’s waiting—look, there he is at the altar.”
Serafina
shook her head, dazed. “That’s the wrong man,” she whispered. “We’ve made a mistake, Auntie.”
“No mistake,” her aunt said firmly. “That’s Aubrey sure enough. And he’s going to think you’re the biggest cork-brain that ever came along if you don’t hop to and join him up there.”
“But—but how do you know it’s Aiden? You’ve never met him before!”
Serafina
said desperately.
“Never mind that,” Elspeth said, peering into Serafina’s face. “Is it nerves, dear? Brides experience these sensibilities, you know—it’s really most correct. Even your dear mother had her moment of doubt in the face of her wedding, but she never regretted her marriage, not for an instant.”
Doubt?
Serafina
had never doubted anything so strongly in her life. “Auntie, I’m telling you, that’s
not
Aiden,” she hissed adamantly.
“And I’m telling you it is,” her aunt hissed just as adamantly. “And furthermore, whatever foolishness has entered your head, you might as well chase it right out again, because you’re going to marry him
right
now! I don’t want to hear another word about it. Tinkerby, step lively!”
Elspeth propelled both
Serafina
and a shaken Tinkerby toward the altar, one bony hand digging hard into Serafina’s tender spine, and she had no choice but to go and drag Tinkerby with her. But she felt as if she was being forced to a fate worse than death, her entire world crumbling about her with each step that she took.
She managed to negotiate the three steps up to the altar, Tinkerby struggling at her side, and Elspeth practically dragged her posy out of her hands.
Serafina
turned to face the rogue, who was now regarding her with a broad smile, as if they both shared a private joke.
“What’s your name?” she demanded in a whisper, leaning close to his ear, still refusing to believe she was at the right altar with the right man.
“Aiden Delaware,” he whispered back, confirming her worst fears. “What’s yours? I’m beginning to think it might not be
Titania
after all.”
His brilliant blue eyes held a hint of laughter, and
Serafina
wanted to plant her fist on his nose every bit as much as she wanted to burst into tears.
“Serafina
Segrave,” she said. “And there’s been a terrible mistake.”
“No mistake,” he replied in the same low undertone. “Except for mine, which I’m about to rectify.”
“There’s nothing to rectify, really there isn’t,” she said in a panic, knowing he referred to the stolen kiss. “You don’t have to worry—I’m not going to marry you.”
“Oh, yes you are,” he said, taking her hand and ignoring the bishop’s hemming and hawing. “You have no choice.”
She snatched her hand away. “I’m not,” she insisted. ‘You don’t even want me to!”
“But I do. And you, Miss Segrave, have absolutely nothing to say in the matter except ‘I will.’”
Serafina
threw Tinkerby a desperate look, but saw nothing but confused panic in his face. She looked frantically over her shoulder at her aunt, only to be met by two little eyes boring fiercely into hers and promising swift retribution if
Serafina
misbehaved. No help there. She glanced beyond Elspeth to the first pew. Lord Delaware still beamed happily. Lady Charlotte merely looked furious.
She turned back to Aiden, who simply shrugged his broad shoulders. “As you can see, short of breaking a very complicated legal contract and some firm promises, there’s nothing to be done except marry me.”
Serafina
looked as a last resort to the man standing behind Aiden. He was tall and broad, of a height with Aiden and nearly as fair as Aiden was dark, his hair the color of spun gold. His gray eyes looked into hers with a gleam of cynical amusement. He nodded toward the bishop with one eyebrow raised expectantly.
She bit her lip and looked down, knowing she had no alternatives left to her. With an excruciatingly sharp pain in her chest born of hurt and disillusionment and anger at her own
naïveté,
she slowly raised her gaze to the bishop’s and nodded her faltering assent.
He instantly leapt into action, speaking as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony…”
With the grim fall of those condemning words
Serafina
knew that the dream she’d held on to for so long had been exactly that—a dream.
As soon as the ceremony was finished and Aiden had planted the obligatory ring and revolting self-congratulatory kiss on her, he took her arm and led her out into the sunshine.
“Well,
Titania,”
he said, turning to her, “it’s a fine pickle we’ve found ourselves in, isn’t it, although I can’t say I’m feeling any regret.” He grinned down at her. “And who in God’s name was that man you traipsed down the aisle with? He reminds me of our last under-butler.”
She wrenched her arm out of the crook of his elbow. “You may find this amusing, but I assure you, I do not.”
“That much I can see,” he said lightly. “I’m sorry. I’m a little confused myself at how all this came to pass, but I assure you—”
“You can assure me of nothing,” she spat. “However, I can assure you that I dislike you acutely. You are nothing but a miserable lying cad, who would take advantage of anyone to achieve your own ends.”
“I’m wounded,” he said, pressing a hand over his heart. “No, really I am. I came into this marriage as innocently as you did.”
“Innocently?” she said furiously. “You’re anything but innocent in this—this travesty!”
“But how was I to know when I met you yesterday that you were who you are?” he replied reasonably. “It was a case of mistaken identities, no more.”
“Do you always kiss women whose identities you’ve mistaken?” she said, her eyes flashing fire.
“No … at least not often,” he said, appearing highly entertained by her anger. “I generally formally introduce myself first. It didn’t seem necessary at the time. As I recall, you didn’t introduce yourself either.”
“Oh!” she cried. “I won’t be bullied by a man I married under false pretenses.”
“I don’t see why you feel misled any more than I’ve been.” He straightened as the first of the wedding party trooped out of the church. “We’ll have to take this up later,” he said in a low voice, lightly resting a hand on her shoulder.
She violently shrugged it off, taking three steps away from him. “I loathe you,” she snarled.
“Well try to keep it to yourself for the next few hours,” he said, his eyes alight with laughter. “Hardly anyone here believes for an instant that this is a love match, but we might as well not add fuel to the fire. We have a wedding breakfast to attend and there’s no point in creating more gossip—tongues will be wagging fast enough as it is after your performance at the altar.”
Serafina
glared at him. “My performance was nothing compared to yours. But I agree, there’s no point in making a bad situation worse. Your father doesn’t deserve to be upset when he’s addled enough, poor man.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Aiden said, “although I don’t know why you’re championing him when he’s the one who put both of us in this situation.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, strongly tempted to slap his arrogant, smiling face.
“Serafina,
my sweet, I think you know exactly what I mean, so it’s no use pretending. You have some explaining of your own to do, but this is neither the time nor the place.” He ran a finger under her chin. “Suffice it to say that when we met yesterday I thought you were a girl from the local village, and you said nothing to change that assumption. How was I to know you were on your way to marry me?”
“Oh, and that made what you did acceptable? You only go about kissing girls of low birth?” she said, stung to the quick.
“No,” he said considering. “I wouldn’t say that’s true. But it
was
only a kiss, and I did apologize.”
“I should wrap that noose you talked about right around your neck.”
Serafina
glowered at him.
“Please don’t. I haven’t even had my wedding night yet.”