Epilogue
Alistair was looking forward to marrying in haste and repenting in leisure.
Even four days seemed to be too long, although the time had been very necessary.
While Ismay and her mother put together wedding decorations and hurried invitations, Alistair sought help from Lord Danton and Clifford Eddington in obtaining a certificate of nulla osta showing no impediment to their marriage from the British officials in Naples and then in arranging for the civil service.
The speed of that arrangement required the exchange of gold ducats to accomplish, and Alistair felt it money well-spent.
He recalled it had taken weeks for Hayes and Evelisse to navigate the marital requirements in Florence.
They’d had time, but he didn’t. Fatherhood was in his future. Marriage was just moments away.
‘Are you ready?’ Sir Thomas entered the small room off the chapel where they would wed.
This had been another piece to arrange as Naples’s churches were Roman Catholic.
But Lord Danton had a friend who had a Church of England clergyman relative visiting for the holidays, and Clifford Eddington had known of a church willing to let them use a small chapel for the Anglican service.
One did not need to be Neapolitan to appreciate the arte di arrangiarsi.
Sir Thomas straightened Alistair’s cravat. ‘Today, I gain a son. I could not be prouder or happier. You’ve made an old man’s wishes come true. I hope you don’t feel that you’re marrying without family present. We are your family, too.’
Alistair nodded. Hayes’s presence would have been comforting, as would his parents’, but it was not necessary.
They were with him in spirit, and there’d been a letter from his father at last. The presence that mattered most would shortly be coming down the aisle towards him.
Sir Thomas clapped him on the shoulder and smiled.
‘Well, I’m off. I’ve got to be ready to walk Ismay down the aisle. ’
It was still early days since news of the ruse had come out, and there was much to repair—Alistair’s reputation with Ismay’s parents, and their relationship with Ismay, which needed to be strengthened.
Alistair had made it clear to Sir Thomas the day he’d gone up the mountain that he intended to support Ismay’s pursuit of science, and he’d implied he expected that same from her parents.
There would be no more discouraging Ismay’s talents.
There was work to do there to repair the damage done by Edward Ashford, but they loved their daughter, and Alistair was confident that in time the relationship could be restored.
Alistair tugged his lapels one last time and stepped into the small chapel, taking in the decorations of white wax candles and bunches of red flowers, stelle di Natale—Christmas stars.
He was about to be a husband. It was an overwhelming thought as he looked out over the small crowd.
Attendance was exclusive and intimate as befitted the space.
There would be a larger Christmas ball tonight to celebrate at Vista Sulla Baia.
They would spend the holidays—and his thirty-third birthday on the twenty-seventh—at her parents’ home before taking up residence in the house off Piazza Vittoria.
He smiled to himself. His father would be pleased at that.
There was a rustle, and Alistair’s eyes found Ismay as she approached on her father’s arm, dressed in a gown of cream velvet, with a fuller skirt that swayed when she walked—her mother’s wedding gown from an earlier time.
Her hair hung in loose waves down her back, and she carried a bouquet of the stelle di Natale, the red a perfect punctuation to the cream velvet.
‘You look beautiful,’ Alistair whispered as he took her hand from her father.
‘You look like a man in love.’ She laughed, but he saw that the compliment pleased her.
‘I am indeed, and not looking to fall out of it any time soon.’ He smiled.
Who would have guessed he’d feel this content standing before an altar, pledging himself in perpetuity to this woman?
This was what he’d come to Naples to find: a sense of himself through the expression of deep abiding love for another.
This journey had started from a place he’d not wanted to be, in his father’s study at the end of a long Devon winter, but it had ended right where he wanted to be—in the arms of the woman he would love forever and who would love him in return.