Epilogue
Lord Christopher Cavanaugh reached the church just in time.
On the southern edge of the village of Hampstead Norreys, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, with its proud Norman tower, had—thank God—been easy to locate.
After leaving his groom, Smiggs, to deal with the curricle, Kit found the reverend standing by the door; after shaking Kit’s hand with some relief, the reverend directed him around the outside of the church toward the vestry, where, apparently, his brothers were waiting.
Striding down the side of the church, Kit felt something of the good reverend’s relief.
He’d overslept; if it hadn’t been for Smiggs, Kit would still be snoring in his room at the inn in Newbury.
While such a lapse might be excusable, given he’d landed in Bristol yesterday afternoon and had had to make a mad dash across the country, driving for as long as he’d been able to make out the road, if he hadn’t made it in time, his brothers would never have let him hear the end of it.
He’d reached Newbury too late to forge on, so had made a halt there, leaving covering the last ten or so miles to the village for this morning.
He’d driven those last ten miles like a madman, but he’d reached the church before the bride, and with time to join his brothers for Rand’s last minutes of freedom.
Lips quirking, Kit reached for the latch of the door to the small room built off the north transept. Before he could grasp the iron ring, the door was hauled open, and his younger brother, Godfrey, looked out at him.
“It is you—I thought I recognized your footsteps. About time.” Godfrey—who appeared to have grown another lanky half foot since Kit had last seen him, which had been only a few months before—impatiently waved Kit inside. “You’re just in time.”
“But I am in time,” Kit stated, stepping into the small room and letting Godfrey—at twenty-five years old, four years Kit’s junior—close the door behind him.
“And that’s what counts.” Finding his two older brothers standing before him, Kit beamed.
He nodded to Ryder, who, lazily amused, nodded back, then Kit turned to Rand, reached for his brother’s hand, and, simultaneously, clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, old man, so the time has come.”
As Rand shook Kit’s hand, Rand’s answering smile held a happiness—a contentment—Kit hadn’t expected to see.
He felt a jab somewhere in the region of his solar plexus; unbelievable though it seemed, apparently, Rand truly had found what Kit had long thought none of them—Rand, Kit, their sister, Eustacia, and Godfrey—would ever claim.
The sort of love Ryder, their half brother, had found with his Mary.
After what their mother, Lavinia—Ryder’s stepmother—had put her own children, Rand especially, through, Kit had assumed none of them would ever be tempted by marriage.
Although Lavinia had died nearly six years ago in a self-inflicted accident, her malignant influence lived on—or so Kit had thought.
When he’d received the letter informing him of Rand’s impending nuptials, he’d assumed either Rand had fallen victim to the matchmakers—a possibility Kit had found difficult to believe—or, more likely, Rand had decided to contract some sort of comfortable marriage in order to put an end to the unrelenting onslaught of the aforementioned matchmakers.
Looking at Rand, at the shining expectation in his eyes, Kit realized his assumptions had been incorrect. With his Miss Throgmorton, Rand had found love.
“We’d thought you would meet us at the Abbey,” Ryder drawled.
Raventhorne Abbey, the principal seat of the Marquess of Raventhorne, was their ancestral home and, presently, Ryder and Mary’s principal residence, shared with their growing family.
As the Abbey was only about three hours away, Rand’s family had elected to gather there before traveling to Hampstead Norreys for the service.
“I’d hoped to,” Kit replied, then transferred his gaze to Rand.
“But I was in Bermuda when your letter reached me—I had to race to get back in time. And then, of course, we ran into storms off the Bay of Biscay. Truth to tell, I’m just glad I got here at all. ”
Rand grinned. “So am I—if you hadn’t arrived, the wedding party would have been unbalanced, and Mary and Stacie would have been exceedingly peeved.”
“The pair of them have done most of the organizing,” Ryder explained, somewhat unnecessarily as Kit was well acquainted with his sister-in-law’s and his sister’s proclivities.
Rand’s face softened. “Arranging social events is not Felicia’s forte.”
“Indeed?” Kit leveled a mock-challenging look at Rand. “It sounds as if I should be doubly sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet Miss Throgmorton before she agreed to let you put your ring on her finger.”
Rand’s eyes lit, and he laughed and shook his head. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance—you know nothing about inventions.”
Ryder was chuckling, too.
Kit looked from one to the other and noticed Godfrey was doing the same. “You’ll have to fill us in on what inventions have to do with anything later.”
Rand grinned. Then the door leading into the church opened, and the reverend looked in. He beamed at them all, his gaze coming to rest on Rand. “Lord Cavanaugh—it’s time.”
Although the words should have sounded like the knell of doom, Kit noted that Rand’s expectation—his joy—only mounted. As the brothers filed into the church, Kit pondered that; he was increasingly curious to meet Rand’s soon-to-be wife.
On the steps before the altar, they lined up beside Rand, with Ryder to Rand’s right, Kit next to him, and Godfrey the last in the line.
As they took their places, a wave of hushed feminine whispers rippled through the crowd.
Kit straightened and, clasping his hands before him, exchanged a cynical look with Godfrey.
It wasn’t often society saw the four brothers all together, displayed in such a way.
Although Kit stood just over six feet tall in his stockinged feet, Ryder and Rand both had several inches on him, and over the last months, Godfrey had nearly caught up, although he was still an inch or so the shortest. While Godfrey had inherited the lean, lanky build of their maternal grandfather, Ryder, Rand, and Kit had been blessed with the broad shoulders and powerful, athletic physique of their father; having all four brothers in their perfectly tailored morning coats and dark-gray trousers lined up with their backs to the congregation was setting quite a few of the females—and not just the young ones—tittering.
In his mind’s eye, Kit envisioned what the congregation saw.
Viewed from the back, Rand, Ryder, and he were, in body, very similar, but the color of their hair instantly distinguished them one from the other.
Although the way their hair grew and the styles they favored for their faintly wavy locks were similar, Rand had dark-brown hair, Ryder’s mane was a tawny mixture of golds and brown, while Kit’s hair was a rich mid brown.
Godfrey had inherited their mother’s shade—a dark brown with russet tints, a true auburn—a feature he shared with their sister, Stacie.
As if Kit thinking of Stacie had called her into being, the organist changed his tune to a processional wedding anthem, and together with his brothers, Kit turned and watched the bride’s attendants walk up the aisle.
Stacie led the way, a relaxed smile on her face suggesting she was glad to be there, although Kit had his doubts.
Possibly even more than Rand, Stacie had had her mind and certainly her view of marriage manipulated and impacted on by their mother and her doings.
Stacie was already twenty-six years old and, to date, had shown no interest in marriage—and that wasn’t an issue her brothers, or even Mary, bossy as she was, sought to push.
Kit thought it very likely Stacie would never marry.
That conclusion stemmed not so much from a judgment on any likely suitors as a suspicion that Stacie would never trust herself in such a union; she’d seen all too clearly what their mother had become.
He might be her brother, but Kit was also a man; as his gaze took in Stacie’s artfully arranged dark-auburn hair and her figure stylishly gowned in pale-violet silk, he couldn’t help but admit that his sister bade fair to being as voluptuously attractive as their mother had been.
As Lady Eustacia Cavanaugh, Stacie hailed from an ancient noble lineage and was well-dowered and well-connected. Kit cynically mused that the grandes dames had to be severely exercised over the prospect of such an eligible bride insisting on placing herself beyond their reach.
As Stacie neared the end of the nave, she met Rand’s eyes, and her smile brightened with patent sincerity—then her gaze skated along the line of her brothers, fleetingly meeting each of their gazes.
Kit allowed his lips to curve as his eyes met Stacie’s, then as she turned to take her place along the bride’s side of the steps, he looked up the aisle at the second bridesmaid.
The young lady who would, he realized, be his partner in much of what followed.
Gowned in the same pale-violet silk as Stacie, the unknown lady was tallish, slender—distinctly willowy—with golden-blond hair piled in a neat knot on the top of her head.
Her face was heart-shaped, her complexion pale with just a hint of color in her cheeks.
Her forehead was wide above finely arched brown brows; her eyes were large and well-set beneath those brows, but Kit couldn’t guess their color, and somewhat to his surprise, he discovered he wanted to know.
His gaze lowered to her lips…and, for several heartbeats, lingered there.
Perfectly sculpted in pale rose, the curves drew his gaze even when he tried to look away.
Following in Stacie’s wake, the young lady’s figure was nothing in comparison, yet…