Chapter 18
“You didn’t tell her?” Fernsby hissed. He spoke in the frustrated whisper of someone losing his composure in public. They
weren’t in public, not yet, but soon. Five more minutes, ten at the most. He and Luke stood in the corridor beside the nave,
waiting for guests to enter the church. Around the corner, Vicar Broom instructed the pianist on a selection of hymns.
“How was I to tell her,” Luke whispered back, “when an infantry of long-lost relatives descended on the churchyard? The timing
was impossible.”
“That man,” Fernsby said, pointing outside, “Mr. Killian Crewes? He worked inside St. James’s Palace for years. As hired muscle.
For the king. He’s shrewdly proficient in subterfuge, in court intrigue. He knows where all the bodies are buried, Bannock. I’ve no doubt
he buried many himself. You’re in over your head, and I’m not sure I can save you.”
“Funny, I had the same thought when you’d been pitched, unconscious, into the Atlantic.” He exhaled. “Look, I’m going to walk
away, James. But I can’t leave her at the altar like a dishonorable blaggard. I’ve got no choice but to marry her now and
offer an annulment tomorrow.”
“Here’s an idea,” hissed Fernsby, “why not marry her and remain? She’s fond of you. She loves the estate. You can become her husband, remain her husband, and recover Welty some other way. I will help you.”
“If I thought there was an effective way to recover Linus without using her, James, I would have tried it—I did try it, remember?
I spent months trying to breach Surcouf’s castle. I’ve researched every alternative but Princess Danielle and her dowry were
the only leverage irresistible enough for Surcouf to cooperate. There is no better way. If she’s no longer an option—and she
is not, I see that now—I’ll simply try again with the insufficient options left to me.”
“You saved Linus Welty when you forced him to surrender to Surcouf instead of fighting that night. He’s alive, Luke. You can—”
“Who’s ready for a wedding?” They were interrupted by Vicar Broom, calling down the corridor. The first strains of pianoforte
music could be heard from inside the church.
Luke turned back to Fernsby. “I forced Linus to surrender but I ordered the remaining crew to fight, didn’t I?” he whispered.
“My deadly mistake. We all should have surrendered. My vanity killed the crew and it saw Linus captured alone, and now I will
die trying to recover him, and he’ll die in a dungeon. But first, I’ll break the princess’s heart. After I bloody marry her. The whole wretched thing has been mishandled from the start. I take full responsibility.”
“You’re too hopeless, Bannock,” Fernsby accused, shaking his head. “Your problem is not vanity, or bad orders, or failed rescue
attempts, it’s that you rely on information and not hope.”
“My hope is at the bottom of the Atlantic with my ship and my crew,” Luke said. Turning to Vicar Broom, he put on a sad smile.
“A wedding—yes. Lead the way, Vicar.”
From that moment, there was no going back.
Luke took his place in the unlikely quartet of Vicar Broom, Amelia Broom, and Fernsby.
The altar lacked only a bride. While they waited, Luke looked out on the rows of packed pews.
Well-meaning strangers grinned back, their expressions warm and admiring.
They regarded Luke as if they’d known him all of their lives.
Except for Killian Crewes. His smile was cautious and reserved; Killian Crewes’s smile said, I don’t know you, but I know your kind.
The scene was as surreal as anything Luke had ever experienced, including the two nights he’d spent bobbing in the Atlantic
Ocean, warding off sharks with Fernsby’s boot. The little church looked like the top of one of Amelia Broom’s hats, stuffed
with flowers and streaming with ribbons and bunting. Candles blazed despite the sunny day. The pianoforte kept things lively,
the music festive and familiar. Everything about the wedding felt like another man’s life; Luke had been mistaken for a war
hero, and the masquerade went on and on.
Go along, he told himself, bracing when the music swelled.
Vicar Broom asked the congregation to stand and two curates pulled open the doors at the rear of the church.
See it through for her own good.
And then explain.
And then g—
Luke stopped justifying; he stopped thinking. Princess Danielle stepped into the rectangle of sunlight at the entrance to
the church, Silas Dinwiddie at her side. They began as the outline of old man and young woman, blotting out the brightness.
Then her silhouette sharpened into a fully formed woman, bursting with life and hope.
Oh my God, look at her. Luke’s first thought. Here, there was no masquerade. Seeing her was like being in another country, surrounded by a foreign tongue, and then hearing someone speak English. The sight of her was allied, and known, and home.
From the moment he’d clapped eyes on her, he’d identified her as his princess. In the days that followed, he’d learned the
feel of her hand on his arm, the smell of her hair, the way her brain confronted challenge and where her hopes lay. He knew
how to haul her out of a pond. He knew how she tasted.
Princess Danielle had somehow become this fixed point in his life—suddenly, expectedly, undeniably. Linus Welty had been another
fixed point—was a fixed point. His dead crew had been a fixed point. The three points formed a triangle and Luke found himself sprinting
from one to the other.
Luke closed his eyes against the sight of her, hoping he appeared overwhelmed with her beauty and not wrung out by his own
inner conflict. The truth was, her beauty did overwhelm him. Her dress was very fine, the perfect combination of elaborate
and elegant. Miriam Dinwiddie was bossy, and managing, and she’d concealed important secrets for years, but she had impeccable
taste. The skirts fell from dense gathers beneath her breasts. The fabric was a gray-purple silk with crystal detailing that
sparkled when she moved through the church. She wore a veil of sheer organza that streamed down her back, beyond the hem of
her gown, and down the aisle.
And then there was the crown. It secured the veil, the myriad of stones twinkling and winking. The headpiece of a goddess.
The beauty of her face was perfectly framed. She was perfect. And she was coming for him. It made no sense.
Luke watched her—everyone in the church was transfixed by her—and his heart thudded like he’d swum the English Channel.
A feeling of profoundness, of permanence, descended over him.
He was a man drowning in . . . in feelings he could not name.
Why name things that could not become real?
He would leave her. Before he left, he would say things that
would cause her to hate him. The only feeling he should experience now was dread. Even so, he was imbued with warmth, with affection, with desire, with a sort of luminosity. He could feel himself . . .
in a way . . . shining back at her. Him—Luke Bannock, reflecting her glow. It made no sense.
Immediately, his brain went to research, and knowing, and preparedness. His refuge for as long as he could remember. How could
he have better understood this? Weddings, and brides, and this? What book could he have read? What expert could he have asked? He’d always beaten back uncomfortable feelings by knowing things, researching and understanding. But how could he research something he never expected?
With no warning, scenes from his life flashed through his mind. He was the bastard boy, running feral on the docks; he was
an apprentice marine carpenter, learning boatbuilding from Linus; he was a self-taught smuggler, researching what and where
to buy, and how and when to sell. He was the undeserving captain who survived while his crew drowned; he was a new landlord,
while his oldest friend rotted in a cell.
He was a manipulator and a liar.
Luke had never wallowed—what was the point? But the contrast between Luke’s life and the life of the beautiful woman walking
rapidly to him was so very stark. Even without the attack, and the tragedy, and trying to rescue Linus, he shouldn’t be anywhere
near this woman. He was a streak of black tar and she was neatly folded white linen. They were opposites—yes; but one would irrevocably
damage the other.
If this had been an actual wedding and not a ruse, he might rally—he might revel in his good fortune and devote his life to being worthy of her. But this was not an actual wedding; and he must tell her things she would hate and then walk away.
In the end, the ceremony had one mercy: brevity. The vicar was anxious to pack the newly restored parish hall with revelers.
Luke repeated vows, and stared into eyes, and slipped the sapphire ring, now paired with a gold band, on her finger. When
it came time for a kiss, he leaned in and paused for one . . . two . . . three heartbeats—just to savor. To bask in her warmth.
To revel in the closeness. Then he gave himself over to the charade and kissed her like he wanted to kiss her. Full on the
mouth, with an intensity that elicited a cough from Vicar Broom and giggles from Amelia. She went a little slack in his arms,
eyes closed, hands gripping, and Luke consumed her youth, and beauty, and what felt something like her love. He devoured it
like a man taking his last meal.
And then it was over. The ceremony was passed in detached observation. In guilty wonder, he watched himself marry a princess.
At the breakfast feast, he was the imposter who spoke, and embraced, and laughed with his new wife on his arm. He went through
the motions, pretending to learn the names of neighbors and praying her new family would not see him as a fraud. All the while,
what he’d really wanted to do was tell her. Everything.
Also he wanted—and this was new, but too urgent to deny—for her not to despise him. In the end. After it was all said and
done. If he returned.
But first things first.