Chapter 26

CHAPTER26

“Ihave never seen you more beautiful,” Lydia gushed, tears sparkling. “Oh, Emma, you look so… happy! There are roses in your cheeks, there is a light in your eyes, you are standing so very proudly, and you have not stopped smiling all morning!”

Emma glanced at herself in the looking glass, catching her sister’s eye through the reflection. Lydia’s giddiness brought on another grin that made Emma’s cheeks ache, her heart swelling with joy. “I have not felt the least bit nervous, Lydia. It is the strangest thing. I thought I would not sleep, but I slept like a queen. I thought I would be sweating and panicking, but I am… unnervingly calm.”

“Because it is love,” the girls’ mother, Olivia, interjected softly. “It is what was missing before… though do not let your father hear me say that. Goodness, he would scold me terribly!”

Love? Could it be…? She knew she felt…something towards Silas. But she had never allowed herself to name it. It wasn’t part of their agreement. No, she shouldn’t really let her mind wander there. It wasn’t safe. She should focus on the now.

Marina chuckled. “You are safe in here, Olivia. You may say whatever you please; we shall not tell a soul.”

Olivia smiled, hiding a laugh behind her hand. “Well then, I must say that, in truth, I am delighted that the wedding is not taking place at St. Paul’s. I always loathed that church. So cold and unwelcoming. And the reverend—my goodness, he has the sort of voice that could lull even the most devout into a stupor. It shall be… quite perfect, I think, to have a small wedding.”

“Did I not tell you that I sent a thousand invitations, and you are the only ones who replied to say you were attending?” Emma teased.

Lydia clapped her hands together, giggling. “Oh, you are too cruel to poor Mama, Emma! She does not always know when you are jesting!”

“I am not,” Emma replied, grinning.

Her mother cast her a mildly disapproving look. “I do know when you are teasing, and you should not. My nerves cannot take it, not today.” She picked up Snowy, who was waddling between the women, eager for someone to lavish affection on him. Olivia did just that, hugging the puppy as she whispered, “She is mean, is she not? You should nip her toes if she tries to tease you, sweet darling.”

Emma laughed. “You are turning my precious boy on me now, are you?”

“He is not a child, Emma,” her mother scolded lightly. “You should not treat him as such.” She covered his furry face in kisses, cooing nonsense at him, as if he were a baby.

As the other women settled into comfortable conversation, discussing what they might eat later, if there would be dancing, and what the handsome groom might be wearing, Lydia crept over to join Emma on the upholstered bench that sat before the vanity.

“You really do look beautiful,” Lydia said, weaving her arm through Emma’s. “And happy. So very happy.”

Emma leaned into her sister. “I feel happy. It is new to me, to feel this way on the morning of my wedding day.”

“What are we gossiping about?” Nora came to sit on the other side of Emma, the three women squashed together quite contentedly.

Lydia peered around her sister. “Emma was just saying that she is deliriously happy, and she does not have the faintest notion of what to do with that feeling.”

“And Lydia is taking my words and elaborating upon them,” Emma quipped, looping her other arm through Nora’s. “I just… feel like I am doing the right thing, for once. I am… looking forward to reaching the church and walking down the aisle to my husband. There is not even a shadow of doubt in my mind that he is who I have been waiting for.”

Nora made a stifled, squeaking sound that prompted Snowy to tilt his head. “I confess, when I first met His Grace, I thought he was a weasel. I still do not care for that valet of his.” She grinned, hugging Emma’s arm. “But then, close to the end of the one week you were supposed to spend with him, something changed. In both of you. I did not know it would end like this, at the time, but I… hoped.”

“I am sorry to have kept you here for so long,” Emma said, though she was not sorry at all.

Nora waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense. I have relished every moment.”

“Aside from Silas’s valet.” Emma winked.

“Yes, aside from that wretch,” Nora sighed. “But your betrothed’s brother improved matters immensely.”

Lydia groaned. “Is he not the most beautiful man you have ever seen?”

“The second most,” Emma corrected. “And you two are not to fight over Lord Luke. I could not bear it if you did. Indeed, I forbid it. You are not to look at Lord Luke again, either of you, to prevent future squabbles.”

The two women laughed, hugging Emma closer until she could not breathe. And as Emma looked toward the mirror, seeing their smiling faces gazing back, she knew for certain that this was the last and only wedding she would ever have. Her sister and her best friend had given their blessing, and while that did not count for much in society’s eyes, it meant everything to her.

“Do not repeat this, or Mama might faint, and Father will turn puce with fury,” Emma whispered, “but I am eternally grateful that I ran. I am grateful that you helped me to flee, dear Nora. And I am grateful that you encouraged me to keep running, sweet Lydia.”

Lydia feigned ignorance. “I do not remember encouraging such a thing at all.”

“Oh, then I must have been mistaken.” Emma planted a kiss on Lydia’s head.

Lydia grinned. “Very well, I did want you to run, but you must not tell Mama or Papa. For a while after that last wedding, I had to pretend to be disapproving, and it was the most arduous performance of my life. I am glad I do not have to pretend to be sad anymore.”

“And my carriage will always be at your disposal,” Nora said, resting her head on Emma’s shoulder, “but I pray you never have to use it again.”

At that moment, a great bellow boomed down the hallway beyond the bedchamber. “Is everyone ready? Is everyone still in the house? Is everyone where they should be? The carriages are here, and if I must delay them, I shall not be happy!”

Emma rolled her eyes at her father’s barely veiled concerns. “I am here, if that is what you are really saying, and I am dressed and eager to meet my husband at the altar! There is no need for any delay. Indeed, if you could hasten the carriages, I would be glad of it!”

“Is everyone attired?” her father’s voice asked, from just outside the door this time.

“Come in, darling,” Olivia replied.

Emma’s father eased the door open, poking his head around. “Why is everyone smiling?”

“Are we not supposed to be?” Emma replied, absently touching the necklace at her throat. For comfort.

He looked astonished. “What? No, of course you can all be smiling. I did not expect it, that is all.” A relieved smile graced his own lips, as he glanced over at his wife. “I thought that you could travel in one carriage with Lydia and Eliza, my dear, while I take Emma to the church myself.”

“In shackles?” Emma teased, feeling bold.

He scowled at her fleetingly. “Let us hope your husband finds you as amusing as you find yourself.”

“What are you crowing about?” Eliza appeared behind him, pushing the door wide so she could squeeze past him to get into the bedchamber. “I do hope you are not scolding my goddaughter already when she has done nothing wrong.”

Emma’s father sniffed. “I was about to say, before I was so rudely interrupted, that she looks… very beautiful.” He paused, as Emma’s heart leaped. “And that I do hope she does not attempt anything foolish today, or else I will be disowning her, and she will have to spend the rest of her life knowing that she ruined her family.”

Emma’s heart sank again.

“Oh, there is no need for that!” Eliza barked, turning on Emma’s father. “What did you have to say that for? You are supposed to offer encouragement and fatherly words of comfort, not ultimatums. My goodness, is it any wonder she has fled twice before, if these are the things you said to her beforehand? You ought to be ashamed of your⁠—”

“Thank you, Eliza,” Emma jumped in, “but you do not need to defend me. I know that I hurt you and embarrassed you, Father, but I want you to know that my heart broke every time I caused you that pain. It was never my intention. I was too afraid of losing who I am to a marriage; of marrying someone that would be a tyrant to me—of marrying… someone like you.”

Her father’s mouth dropped open, eyes blinking rapidly.

“I know you love me in your own way,” she hastened to add, before he could start yelling. “I know that I have not been the easiest daughter to raise, and you have often acted out of protectiveness, but you have no reason to worry or to chide me today. I want to marry this one. With my whole heart, I do.”

Eliza smiled, her hand flying to her chest. “My dear, you are not supposed to say that until you recite your vows.”

“Call it a rehearsal,” Emma replied with a thankful wink at her godmother, whose scatterbrained neglect and casual approach to chaperoning were one of the main reasons that Emma and Silas were marrying that day.

“Now, you are all making me nervous,” she said with a chuckle. “Let us away to the church before I begin having second thoughts.”

As if such a thing would ever be possible…

For Silas was waiting, and she could not wait to walk down the aisle toward him, to see him smile, and perhaps to hear what sweet, sultry nothings he might have to whisper in her ear.

Whispers of the wedding night that was yet to come, and all he had held back until then.