Chapter Eleven #2
The Reverend Andrewes bestowed another hard stare on him and turned to Jonathan. He bowed. “My lord. If you will step this way we will approach the altar. If we linger here the bridal group will be arriving, and you should not see them yet or it will bring bad luck.”
Hadn’t he had enough of that already?
And did rectors even believe in bad luck? Wasn’t that a little un-Christian? Having endured what he considered some very bad luck recently, Jonathan decided adding to it might not be a good idea. He followed the rector into the church, Walter on his heels.
The interior was gloomy after being outside, but he paid scant attention as he and Walter followed the rector up the wide aisle.
At the top, just before the altar, they halted and the rector turned to face them.
“If you would take your position here, my lord, to my left, so you will be on the right hand of your bride when she approaches.”
Feeling oddly detached from the proceedings, as though this was all happening to someone else, which he rather wished it was, Jonathan did as he was told.
Straightening his back, he kept it turned away from the doorway.
For a man usually brimming with self-confidence, especially where women were concerned, nerves seemed to be getting the better of him. Supposing she didn’t come?
Time ticked on.
With difficulty, he resisted the temptation to take out his fob watch and check how long they’d been waiting. Beside him, Walter, who had possession of the ring, fidgeted and kept glancing back towards the door, but Jonathan refused to do so.
The rector, who’d taken up a position in front of the altar, like a sentinel, was looking down the aisle towards the open doors at the bottom, a resigned expression on his face.
Perhaps he frequently presided over weddings where one or the other of the bride or groom didn’t turn up.
Jonathan was just beginning to think he’d had a lucky escape, when the rector’s coming to attention alerted him to the arrival of his bride.
This time he couldn’t resist temptation.
He turned his head to look down the aisle.
Verity stood outlined in the open doorway, her image shimmering in the light as though illuminated from behind by a thousand candles.
How was the gray and dismal daylight doing that?
Or had the sun come out in order to bless her?
In a gown of pale cream, the bodice thick with embroidery, and a headdress of matching flowers set in her rich auburn hair, she looked like nothing less than a princess.
He couldn’t help the comparison and the inescapable response of his body.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
In fact, it could be quite good fun. He’d never been married before, so who was he to turn his nose up at the institution?
Behind her, figures he couldn’t make out were bending to arrange her gown for her, smoothing down the skirts and twittering like so many broody hens in a farmyard.
On her right-hand side a thin and bent elderly gentleman he recognized from the night of that fateful card game stood a little to one side, his expression bemused, as though he wasn’t quite sure what they were all here for.
No doubt not accustomed to having a daughter who was about to become a countess, all because he’d accrued for himself a debt he couldn’t pay.
They had themselves organized at last, and Verity slipped her hand into the crook of her father’s elbow.
They began to walk up the aisle, followed by Walter’s oldest niece, Eleanor, a pretty schoolgirl Jonathan recalled meeting some time ago when she could only have been eleven or twelve.
She must be the bridesmaid. Behind her came her grandparents, Lord and Lady Somerton.
So, Walter’s father, who was renowned for his dislike of London and all the season entailed, had bestirred himself to come up here for the marriage of his black sheep of a brother’s daughter. Interesting.
Jonathan dragged his gaze away from the vision approaching him up the aisle and turned back to look at the rector, standing up straighter and squaring his shoulders. Yes, he could do this.
For Verity, the wedding ceremony passed in a blur of words that seemed at the same time to tumble over themselves at a gallop and also to take an interminable length of time to be said.
Words that seemed to mean nothing emerged from the rector, and repeated vows from Jonathan and herself, hers formed automatically as though some strange outer power had taken control of her voice.
However, what kept churning through her mind throughout the whole ceremony was that she didn’t want to be here.
For her father she was marrying a man who thought she was little better than a common…
no, she could not repeat the words even inside her head.
Because that was indeed what he thought she was, she was certain.
His apology had meant nothing and had been inspired only because he didn’t want the problem of leaving her to walk eight miles home on her own.
This was no basis for a marriage. A husband who thought her worthless.
She didn’t look at him once, but she could feel his immense, masculine presence brooding by her side.
Only strong words of intervention from not just Aunt Josephine but also Papa and Uncle Adolphus, who for once seemed in accord, had persuaded her to come to the church.
Strong words had also flowed between Papa, who of course had already fortified himself with a copious liquid breakfast, and her uncle, who’d not seen each other in over thirteen years and didn’t seem pleased by their reunion.
These strong and loud words had been mainly in Uncle Adolphus’s study, but everyone in the house had been able to hear.
Only Aunt Josephine’s intervention in this altercation had prevented these two from coming to blows, even at their advanced age. Two angry old men.
Not an auspicious start for a marriage.
So it was a very much discontented wedding party that had arrived in two carriages at St James’s church some twenty-five minutes late.
Luckily, Uncle Adolphus had traveled in a different one to Papa or they might never have got there.
This lateness had been due to Verity having yet another bout of not so much nerves, but more open rebellion as they left the house.
It had taken Papa’s putting down of his foot and ordering her to get into the carriage with him to bring her to what Aunt Josephine, who couldn’t understand why a girl might not wish to become a countess, called her senses.
Although Verity wasn’t at all sure right senses came into this.
Even at the door to the church, she would have turned tail and run had she not been so hemmed in by her determined family. And now she was stuck. The only thing that had kept her going was her vow to teach the insufferable Lord Dunster a lesson.
At last the ceremony ground to an end and the old rector declared them man and wife with an air of distinct relief.
Had he perhaps picked up on the atmosphere of disunity amongst his small congregation?
Whatever his opinion, it was now much too late for changing her mind, or at least that was what Aunt Josephine would have said.
She slipped her hand into the crook of Jonathan’s arm, feeling his impressive muscles tense beneath her touch, and they proceeded down the aisle again, as a couple this time, her triumphant family behind them.
And it was only then that Verity realized Jonathan’s family had been conspicuous by their absence.
Did he not have a family any longer? Or, what was worse, had he not told them because he was ashamed to be marrying a nobody whose father had forfeited her in payment for a gambling debt?
Heat rose up Verity’s cheeks at the thought, only serving to bolster her conviction that he should indeed be taught a lesson he would not forget.
She set her jaw in determination and glanced up at him, but his handsome face was expressionless.
Well, not quite expressionless. More stern.
Possibly not the moment to enquire where his family had got to at such an important moment as a marriage.
What a bad-tempered old grump he seemed to have turned into, as well as someone who thought so much of himself and so badly of her, as though she were the one in the wrong for objecting to his insulting behavior.
Yes, she would take great pleasure in teaching him this lesson. Handsome he might be. Rich he might be. An earl he might be. And spoiled and indulged he certainly was. But he was not going to get his way with her. No. She would make sure of that.
That’d show him.