“To be married,” he said.
She cocked her head to one side while the smile was replaced by a look of puzzlement. “To be married,” she repeated. “In an insignificant church on an insignificant street. Grandmama and my aunts will not like it. They have their hearts set upon St. George’s or even St. Paul’s, which is very grand indeed. I have seen it from the outside.”
He drew a folded paper from an inside pocket of his coat, opened it, and handed it to her. She looked down at it, read it, and frowned.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A special license,” he told her. “It permits us to marry in a church of our own choosing by a clergyman of our choosing and on a day suited to us.”
She looked up at him, the frown still on her face, the license dangling from one hand. “We are going to be married now?” she asked him. “This morning?”
“The thing is, you see, Anna,” he said, “that when you said you wished to be wed, it was for the express purpose of making it possible to travel to the village of Wensbury without any lengthy delay and without having to take with you a whole arsenal of female companions to make my presence in the entourage respectable. A grand wedding would delay our departure by at least a month.”
“For the express purpose—?” Her frown had not gone away. “But marriage is forever.”
“Oh, not really,” he assured her. “Only until one of us dies.”
Her eyes widened. “I do not want you to die,” she said.
“Perhaps you will go first,” he said, “though I rather think I hope not. I would probably have grown accustomed to you by then and would miss you.”
For a moment she looked horrified, and then she laughed, a sound of genuine glee.
“Avery,” she said, “you are quite impossible and quite outrageous. We cannot marry today.”
“Why not?” he asked her.
She stared at him for a few moments. “I am not—dressed,” she said.
“I beg to inform you that you are,” he said. “I would be blushing horribly if you were not.”
“I—” She appeared to be tongue-tied before laughing again. “Avery!”
He took his snuffbox from his pocket, opened it with a flick of his thumb, examined the blend, closed the box, and put it away.
“A question,” he said. “Do you want the ton wedding, Anna? It will be very splendid indeed. Everyone will be there, perhaps even Prinny himself—the Prince of Wales, that is, the Regent. We are both very grand persons, and our wedding will be the Event of the Season—that is Event with a capital E, I would have you understand. It might be a bit overwhelming, though it would, I suppose, be the ultimate dream of girls growing up in an orphanage.”
“No,” she said. “You are not a prince. That would be the ultimate dream. And a glass coach.”
He regarded her with appreciation.
“Do you want the wedding, Anna?” he asked again. “The one your relatives are busy planning?”
She shook her head and closed her eyes briefly. “I grow sick at the very thought,” she said. “I have grown so weary of . . . grandness, yet it will only grow worse.”
“Another question.” He gazed into her eyes when she opened them. “Do you want to marry me?”
She gazed back for a moment, then shifted her gaze to the paper in her hand. She spread it carefully on her lap and looked down at it.
“Yes,” she said, returning her gaze to him at last. “But do you want to marry me?”
“Go and fetch your bonnet,” he told her, and he took the license from her lap, replaced it in his pocket, and reached out a hand to help her to her feet.
“Very well,” she said.
She paused to frown at him a few moments later when he held the drawing room door for her. She opened her mouth to speak, drew breath, and then left the room without saying anything.
It was his wedding day, he thought.
But marriage is forever.
Forever. A lifetime. A long time.
He waited for panic to assail him. But he waited in vain. After a few moments he wandered downstairs to await the ladies. Perhaps John would have some interesting conversation for him.
*
Anna sat beside Elizabeth in the barouche, facing the horses, while Avery sat with his back to them. It was a sunny day, and even when the carriage was moving it was warm. None of them was talking. Elizabeth had looked startled and quite incredulous when Anna had knocked on the door of her bedchamber and asked if she was free to accompany her to her wedding. But it had not taken her long to understand, and she had smiled and then laughed instead of swooning from shock and horror as Anna had half expected.
“But how very predictable of Avery,” she had said. “I do not know why we did not expect it, Anna.”
“He is mad,” Anna had said. “Judging just by the events of today so far, Lizzie, and it is only half past ten—he is utterly mad. I had better go and get my bonnet.”
He had handed them both into the barouche a few minutes later, Anna first. Elizabeth had paused when her hand was in his and her foot on the bottom step.