Chapter 35
“Wherein forgiveness is withheld, but a joyous day begins.”
With all the attendant scandal of their pasts, Sebastian rejected the idea of a special licence.
Georgiana had pouted and wheedled, but to no avail.
“Well, if you don’t want to marry me,” she said with a huff, and not for the first time, as they strolled a little behind Céleste and Alex through Hyde Park.
It was a glorious day. The spring flowers were out in profusion and everything looked green and fresh in the sunshine.
Sebastian chuckled and covered her hand with his own.
“Only another five days, love,” he murmured, looking down at her with warmth in his dark eyes.
“Oh!” Georgiana said wrathfully, as she put up her chin and gave a sniff of disgust. “I don’t believe you love me at all, you wretch! How can you sound so nonchalant? Five whole days!” she wailed. “It’s an eternity.”
He paused then and drew her as close as was possible considering the very public setting, but the need in his eyes was raw enough and only too visible.
“If you think this is easy for me, then you are very, very wrong,” he said, his voice low.
“I’m going slowly out of my damned mind.
But after the scandals we’ve had to grow up with, we’re doing this properly.
So that no one can ever point the finger and say there was anything the least bit shady about it. ”
He swallowed and raised her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers with a soft brush of his lips. “But I admit, it’s killing me too, love. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but you.”
Georgiana gave a contented little sigh and leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked on. “Well, that’s alright then. Just as long as you’re suffering as much as I am.”
He gave a little bark of laughter. “More, you heartless hussy!”
She chuckled, stopping for a moment to remonstrate with Conrad, who was looking at the ducks on the Serpentine with a considering expression.
Chastised, her adventurous hound loped off after Bandit, and Georgiana decided not to wonder about what chaos the two idiotic dogs would bring down on them next.
“Well I think it’s too bad that the Duke of Sindalton can’t get an earlier date for the wedding,” she said, deciding she hadn’t teased him quite enough yet, after all. “I mean, what’s the good in being a duchess if I can’t always have my own way?”
“Oh, it’s like that is it?” Sebastian looked down at her, one eyebrow raised and his haughtiest ducal expression in place. “I’ll have you know that if I wasn’t a duke, you’d have to wait another two months before there was an available space at St George’s! I had no idea the place was so overrun.”
“No, really? I thought you must always get your own way in everything ... I mean, I thought that would explain it at least.” She had the utmost difficulty in looking at his outraged expression and not allowing her lips to twitch.
“Explain what?” he demanded.
“Oh, you know,” she said, waving her hand in an airy fashion and holding back her amusement with difficulty.
“Your high-handed manner.” She was unable to tease him further as mirth got the better of her.
“Your face,” she exclaimed laughing as he huffed at her.
“Oh, dear, you did look affronted.” Leaning into him, she looked up and batted her eyelashes.
“I’m sorry, Sebastian, but you are so deliciously easy to tease. ”
He narrowed his eyes at her, an expression in them that made her shiver with anticipation. “Indeed, madam? Well just you remember those words on our wedding night.”
She felt the flush rise over her neck and suffuse her cheeks as her fiancé gave a satisfied chuckle, content that his remark had hit home.
They walked a little farther in companionable silence until Georgiana was brave enough to ask for the information, she’d been hoping he’d volunteer.
“Have you had news about Beau?” she asked, knowing it was a sore subject but not wanting it to be something they couldn’t discuss.
She saw his face darken. “I had a letter from Alperton, this morning,” he admitted. “The fever’s broken. He’ll be weak for a while but ... he’s going to recover.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, closing her eyes as the relief hit her.
Sebastian looked down at her, his eyes troubled. “You care about him.” It wasn’t a question and Georgiana rolled her eyes at him.
“Of course I do, as do you!” She squeezed his arm and sighed. “He’s my friend and I know what he did was despicable and I’m still furious with him for it but ... Oh, Sebastian, he’s so very alone and in a deal of trouble.”
She could feel the tension singing through his body, the arm she held taut beneath her fingers.
“I tried to help him, but he was too damn proud to take it. No, he must go and steal the woman I love instead!”
Georgiana sighed, knowing it was useless. “I know,” she said. “But I can’t help but feel sorry for him, and for you. You’ll miss him.”
Sebastian made no reply, and they continued their walk in silence.
***
Despite Georgiana’s protestations the five days did pass, though slowly. The morning of the wedding was bright and sunny, a perfect early summer’s day.
Céleste, looking quite stunning in a peach blossom, satin dress with cypress gauze, wiped at her eyes and waved her lace handkerchief in agitation.
“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Oh, you look so very beautiful, Georgiana, but I wish you did not, for now I’m going to cry, and I shall look perfectly dreadful for the wedding.”
Georgiana laughed and held out her hands to Céleste who ran up to claim them, lovely blue eyes sparkling with tears.
“Oh, dearest, Georgie,” she said, holding one hand to her cheek. “I am so very ‘appy for you.”
Georgiana beamed, but the lump in her throat seemed too heavy to speak around, so she just nodded and laughed and prayed she wouldn’t cry herself.
Madam Lisabeth’s design was, in its creator's own words, a masterpiece.
The body of the gown was a white satin slip, ornamented at the hem with a flounce of broad lace and surmounted by satin lilies. The stalks of the lilies were contrived in silk cord and disposed in waves around the border.
Georgiana smiled as she took in the intricate details and smoothed down the gown of spotted British net that overlaid the satin in an open train that met just below her bust and fell in a gentle curve to the ground.
A delicate wreath of roses and lilies trimmed the slip and one perfect white lily was pinned in her hair against an elegant background of fern leaves.
It looked pristine and delightful against her shining red hair. As ever, she had left one long ringlet to trail over her shoulder and if she was well pleased with the effect, she was only echoing the thoughts of her abigail and her dearest friend.
A slightly harassed demand, as it was by far from the first time of asking, came from the landing as Lord Falmouth enquired, “Are you ready now?”
“Oui!” Céleste called, and ran to the door, hurrying through it to her husband. “Oh, Alex! Just wait until you see ‘er, I fear you shan’t look at me again all day.”
“Never, mignonne,” his lordship replied with more obvious honesty than gallantry.
Feeling suddenly a little shy and overwhelmed, Georgiana left the room and was gratified by the look of appreciation in Lord Falmouth’s usually cool grey eyes.
“Well indeed,” he said, smiling at her. “Céleste has the right of it as ever. Georgiana, you do look a picture.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said, grinning at him.
“Oh, and just think, in such a short while, she’ll be a duchess!”
“Not at this rate she won’t!” Falmouth exclaimed with a snort. “Now will you hurry, or Sindalton will think he’s been jilted, and much as that might amuse me, it won’t him.”
“Oh, do stop fretting, Alex,” Céleste said, taking her husband’s arm and allowing him to escort her down the sweeping staircase of his home. “And you know you said you’d quite forgiven ‘im and that ‘e was really a decent fellow.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t have said any such thing,” Falmouth said, winking at Georgiana over Céleste’s head.
“You did and you know it,” Céleste insisted, tapping his arm with her fan in a scolding manner.
“I must have been foxed,” the earl said mildly, and escorted the ladies to his carriage.
***
Sindalton frowned as Lord Nibley enquired if he had remembered everything necessary for the smooth running of the wedding.
“Well, I’m here,” he replied with a grin, believing everything was well in hand for the wedding breakfast, which Lord Falmouth had graciously undertaken to give at his home. Sebastian’s mother was still not in her right mind and confined to her own wing of the house.
The idea of holding the wedding breakfast under her nose, even if she was unaware of it, had made both him and Georgiana acutely uncomfortable and put them in a quandary.
Alex had settled the matter, however, in his usual high-handed way. The wedding breakfast would be held by Lord and Lady Falmouth and no argument would be heard.
“What about the ring?” Percy asked.
His friend’s eyes rolled as Sebastian felt a jolt of panic and banged on the carriage roof.
“Halt!” he yelled. “Dammit, Percy, you couldn’t have remembered that before we left the house?”
Leaping down from the carriage, he sprinted back the short distance to his home on Grosvenor Square, earning himself the disapprobation of some stern looking dowagers in passing.
He took the stairs to his front door two at a time and hurtled through, grinding to a halt as he found a white-faced Beau standing in the entrance hall speaking with his butler.
Biddle, aware that his services were suddenly not required, made a tactical withdrawal.
The two men stared at each other in mute shock and Sebastian had to bite back an exclamation of surprise at the sight of his former friend.