She was Imogen.
For a moment when she drew closer he thought she was the marble lady. Her face was pale and set, her eyes fixed upon him. And then—watch it, knees!—she smiled. And there was no need of candles or any other illumination in St. George’s. The church was flooded with light. Or perhaps it was only his heart. Or his soul.
He did a mental check of his facial muscles and discovered that he was smiling back at her.
It was really a dashed shame, he thought later, for a fellow to miss his own wedding. But he effectively did just that, so dazzled was he by the light she brought with her and the warmth that reached out from her to envelop him too. He thought he remembered someone saying Dearly beloved, in the tone only a clergyman ever used, and he did remember a moment’s anxiety as he saw Cyril’s hand shaking like a leaf in a strong breeze while it held a gold ring, and he certainly remembered hearing that he and Imogen were now man and wife together and no man should even dream of putting them asunder and those other things that all meant simply that one was married right and tight for all eternity.
But he missed everything else.
He came back to himself only when he and his bride were in the vestry signing the register and Imogen was signing her old name for the last time.
“Though it remains the same,” her brother remarked with a chuckle, “with the addition of Countess of Hardford.”
“No,” she said softly, “it changes. All of it. I am married to Percy now.”
Percy could have bawled, but—fortunately—did not.
And then they were walking back along the nave together—he remembered to imitate the speed of a turtle—while the organ played an anthem that seemed designed to lift the top right off one’s head so that one’s soul could soar straight to heaven, and Imogen’s mother and aunts and Mrs. Ferby and his own mother and assorted aunts wept shamelessly and everyone else smiled enough to cause wrinkles.
“For two pins,” he murmured to his bride, “I would start skipping like a boy.”
“For two pins,” she murmured back, smiling to both right and left, “I would join you.”
“But we are at a proper wedding,” he said.
“Alas.”
And then they were outside and the sun that had been at war with the clouds covering the sky earlier had won and a cheering multitude of gawkers and the merely curious greeted them as well as a small army of grinning Survivors and cousins and friends armed with the petals of a few thousand unfortunate flowers. The petals were soon raining down about them and quite ruining the lovely paleness of their wedding attire.
And Imogen was laughing.
He would never, ever grow tired of hearing—and seeing—her laugh. He was laughing too, of course, but that was less of a rarity. Indeed, perhaps she cherished the rare sight of him looking earnest.
“Oh, look,” she wailed, though it was a happy wail. “Look, Percy.”
He did not need to. He had fully expected it, having been involved in his fair share of weddings over the past ten years or so. Their open carriage, bedecked nicely with flowers, was also all set to drag what appeared to be half of London’s kitchen hardware behind it, and also an ancient boot or two, all the way to Stanbrook House, where the duke had insisted the wedding breakfast be held.
“After all,” Percy said as he handed her into the carriage and the congregation began to spill out of the church behind them, “there may be one or two people in town who have not heard that we are getting married today. They must be made to hear.”
“I think all the neighbors in Cornwall will hear too,” she said as she settled herself on the seat and he took his place beside her. “It would not surprise me if Annie Prewett at Stanbrook House could hear the din.”
Annie, the deaf-mute housemaid who had had the courage to pass on information about the whereabouts of Ratchett and Mawgan, had been promoted to the position of Imogen’s personal maid after she had demonstrated that she had some skill in the performance of the necessary duties. And in front of them now, up on the box of the wedding carriage, waiting for the signal to move off, sat Percy’s coachman and his new footman, Colin Bains, both of them resplendent in new livery.
“And since this is a proper wedding, Lady Hardford,” Percy said in the precious remaining moments before the carriage moved and the unholy din of moving, jostling metal drowned out the joyful pealing of the church bells, “we must do what is now proper.”
She turned a laughing face toward him as he set an arm about her shoulders and cupped her chin between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand.
“But of course we must,” she said. “My love.”
Cheers, laughter, the ringing bells, the snorting and stamping of the horses, the deafening din of hardware—none of it mattered as he kissed his bride and her hand came to his shoulder.
Percy was, at least for the moment, in another world. And Imogen was right there with him.