Epilogue #2
Kit drew in a breath and shifted his gaze and his attention to the determined lines of the lady’s nicely rounded chin. As she walked, she looked ahead, but, apparently, without focus, yet as she neared the steps, she smiled sweetly at Rand.
Kit waited, but she—whoever she was—didn’t glance his way.
He felt vaguely cheated; she had to know that he would be her partner for the rest of the ceremony and the associated events.
Surreptitiously, he nudged Ryder. When Ryder cast him a sidelong glance, Kit murmured, “Who is she—the other bridesmaid?”
As Mary, a delighted smile on her face, was presently walking down the aisle, “the other bridesmaid” could mean only one person.
“A Miss Sylvia Buckleberry—a distant cousin and childhood friend of Felicia’s,” Ryder murmured back.
Mary reached her place, then the music swelled, and the bride—an utterly radiant golden-haired young lady gowned in ivory silk—walked down the aisle on the arm of a gentleman Kit realized must be her brother, William John Throgmorton.
The brother halted before the altar and, with an insouciant grin, placed his sister’s hand in Rand’s.
Even though Ryder’s bulk was between them, Kit would have sworn he literally felt Rand’s and Miss Throgmorton’s—Felicia’s—joint happiness, an incandescent joy like a small sun casting its rays over everyone near.
As one, the bridal party faced the altar and, with the congregation, gave their attention to the reverend as he commenced the service.
Kit had stood beside Rand at Ryder’s wedding; he knew the ropes. Having sensed the nature of the connection Rand and Felicia shared, Kit wasn’t surprised by the clarity and sincerity that rang in their voices as they made their vows.
This, Kit inwardly acknowledged, was how marriage ought to be. He felt both glad and humbled that Rand had found his way to Felicia and had had the courage to embrace love and thus secure all it would bring them.
Kit knew himself well enough to admit that he also felt just a tad jealous. Not over Felicia herself, but over the future Rand now had a chance at creating with her.
On the one hand, he would dearly like such a chance himself, but, on the other hand, after all he’d learned of his mother and her doings—in actuality, far more than Rand, Stacie, or Godfrey had ever known, and a great deal more than Ryder had ever guessed—marriage was an entanglement he couldn’t see himself ever risking.
Then the reverend pronounced Rand and Felicia man and wife, and they shared a kiss before God and the congregation. Kit found himself grinning, infected with the newly-weds’ happiness as the pair drew apart, then, arm in arm, their faces glowing, led the bridal party up the aisle.
With a proud smile, Ryder offered his arm to his marchioness. Mary took it, and they fell into step behind Rand and Felicia—slowed by the well-wishers on either side, all wanting to press their congratulations.
Kit duly paced to the center of the step and offered his arm to his enigmatic partner. “Miss Buckleberry.” He watched, waiting to catch her eyes if, finally, she glanced at him.
She did, and he discovered her eyes were a soft violet blue—periwinkle blue.
Somewhat to his surprise, she met his gaze with a very direct, level look.
Before he could say anything more, she dipped her head crisply. “Lord Cavanaugh.”
Then she placed her fingertips on his sleeve and stepped down—perforce, Kit moved with her.
As they took their place behind Ryder and Mary, Kit glanced sidelong at the confounding Miss Buckleberry, but even though he waited—and he was fairly certain she could feel his gaze—she didn’t look his way again.
Instead, she kept her gaze fixed forward, her chin high…
almost as if her nose was, at least figuratively, in the air.
What?
Puzzled by the muted but distinct frostiness emanating from the lady by his side, Kit wracked his brain. Had he met her before? Was she miffed because he hadn’t recognized her?
But no. He had an excellent memory for faces, and he’d take an oath he’d never seen hers before.
Buckleberry. The name rang not a single bell; he hadn’t met her father or any brother, either.
They reached the front of the church, and, after Rand and Felicia had braved a storm of rice, everyone gathered in groups on the sloping lawns to chat while the carriages were brought around.
Miss Buckleberry drew her hand from Kit’s sleeve the instant they stepped out of the church, but of necessity, she remained in the same group, more or less by Kit’s side, although she largely ignored him in a perfectly polite way.
Rand and Felicia departed first in Rand’s curricle, which had been bedecked with ribbons and rosettes. The crowd waved them off, then Ryder and Mary followed in Ryder’s curricle. The Throgmorton brougham drew up next, with Kit’s curricle following behind.
Kit studied Miss Buckleberry, then touched her arm. When she looked inquiringly at him, he waved toward his curricle.
She glanced at it, then, again, met his eyes with a direct—and faintly challenging—look.
“Thank you, my lord, but it’s more appropriate that I travel with your sister in the brougham.
” She turned her perfectly polite and faintly smiling gaze on Godfrey.
“I’m sure you and your brother have stories to share. ”
Kit stared at the confounding creature.
More appropriate?
What the devil did she mean by that?
After Felicia’s cousin Flora had taken her seat, Kit, clinging to what was—where Miss Buckleberry was concerned—fast becoming a mask of civility, handed her into the brougham, then stood aside as Godfrey helped Stacie in and Felicia’s brother followed.
Kit shut the brougham’s door, then stalked to his curricle.
Godfrey followed and climbed up to the seat beside Kit.
After Smiggs swung up behind them, Kit shook the reins, and the pair of bays obediently stepped out in the brougham’s wake.
As the curricle rolled behind the carriage, Kit rested his gaze moodily on the back of Miss Buckleberry’s fair head. She had settled beside Flora on the forward-facing seat, which left him free to glare at her as much as he wished.
Godfrey leaned back in the curricle’s seat. “We—Ryder, Mary, Stacie, and I—are leaving for the Abbey after the breakfast. Are you planning on joining us?”
“That was my intention.” Without shifting his gaze from its obsession, Kit added, “I could do with a few days of—” He broke off, then his lips twitched. “I was going to say peace and quiet, but with our nephews and niece racing about, I suspect there’ll be precious little of that. Still…”
Godfrey nodded. “I know what you mean. A stay at the Abbey might not be restful, but it is comforting.”
Struck by the fact that was true, Kit made no reply.
After several more seconds of staring, he gave up all thought of understanding Miss Buckleberry’s incomprehensible attitude and glanced at Godfrey. “So what have you been up to?”
Godfrey shrugged. “This and that.”
Recognizing the response as an invitation to pry, Kit obliged and learned that his little brother, courtesy of several friends, was spending a significant amount of time with a more arty circle.
“They’re not Bohemian—I could introduce them to Mary without a qualm—but they do see things rather differently.” Godfrey tilted his head consideringly. “I wouldn’t say they’re practically minded. Often, hauling them back to earth falls to me.”
That was said with a self-deprecatory smile.
On glimpsing it, Kit smiled himself and drove on.
“That’s the drive.” Godfrey pointed to where the brougham was turning in between two gateposts. “It’s rather a nice place—close to the village but quite private, what with these woods all around.”
It transpired that they were to make use of that privacy—tables had been set up on a long, sloping lawn. After leaving the curricle with the various grooms in the forecourt, Kit and Godfrey were shown to their places as more of the guests from the church arrived.
Rand and Felicia had wanted a small wedding, but given their family, “small” still numbered more than fifty guests. Of course, judged against the last family wedding—Ryder and Mary’s—fifty qualified as tiny.
A long table had been set up for the bridal party, just below the raised terrace and facing down the lawn toward the other tables.
Accustomed to the way such things were done, Kit wasn’t surprised to find himself seated between Mary and Miss Buckleberry.
As he claimed his seat, Miss Buckleberry was already deep in conversation with Miss Throgmorton’s brother, who was seated on her other side, and Mary was chatting avidly to Rand, on her right.
Kit settled—and Mary turned to him and immediately quizzed him on his intentions after the breakfast. After assuring her that he would, indeed, be joining the family at the Abbey—which was definitely what she’d wanted to hear—he deftly turned the tables and asked her about her offspring.
From experience, he knew that recounting their latest exploits would occupy Mary for quite some time, and so it proved.
The first toasts were made, the meal was served, and the event rolled on in customary fashion—and, finally, over a particularly good syllabub, Kit managed to seize a moment of Miss Buckleberry’s time.
He absolved Felicia’s brother of monopolizing her attention; if anything, the shoe had been on the other foot.
As the laughter occasioned by the final toast—proposed by Ryder—faded, he fleetingly caught the lady’s elusive eye. “I understand, Miss Buckleberry, that you’ve known my new sister-in-law for some time.”
Rather than look at him, she poked at the syllabub, but consented to nod. “Indeed. We met as infants and have been close friends ever since.”
Kit waited, but she said nothing more. “So you often visited each other’s homes?”
“When we were young children, yes. But after her mother’s death, Felicia was more or less stuck here, managing the household, so I was the one who visited.”
“Do you live far afield?”
“My father has a living not far from Bath.”