Mrs. Lambert’s voice rose in frenzy: “Go find the duke! Bring him back! He’s out searching for her! Find him, someone,quickly!”
“She has her bouquet at least,” Nigel murmured.
“That she does, Mr. Grimm,” Luna replied. “Mission accomplished.” But she didn’t sound too happy about it.
As Eugenia was dragged into the narthex and swiftly swallowed up in a bustle of bridesmaids, Luna sighed heavily. Nigel wished he could erase that little line of tension between her brows. Wished he dared reach out and smooth it with the pad of his thumb. Then, perhaps, to trail his thumb down the soft curve of her cheek, tracing across the plumpness of her lip, and—
Luna’s dark eyes flicked to meet his. Nigel looked away quickly, heat flooding his cheeks. In doing so, however, he spied a certain door across the way, standing slightly ajar.
In the crowded narthex, militant Mrs. Lambert barked orders, getting everyone in line for the processional. Someone signaled from the nave doorway, and a sudden blast of organ music sounded from within, belching out the traditional wedding march with such enthusiasm, the foundations of the cathedral shook.
“Would you like to attend this wedding, Miss Talbot?” Nigel asked, leaning in to speak into Luna’s ear in an effort to be heard over the din.
Her eyes brightened. “We’re not invited.”
“No,” he acknowledged, but indicated the little door across the way with a tilt of his head. “If I’m not much mistaken, that stairway over there leads to the choir boys’ loft. It should afford an excellent view.”
Luna’s brows rose. “Won’t it be full of choir boys?”
“No, they’re part of the processional. See?” Nigel pointed out a cluster of grumpy-looking lads, all dressed up like cherubs,their voices raised in resentful chorus. They shuffled from the narthex into the nave, followed by the absolutely enormous wedding party. Someone seemed to have located the Duke of Woolfwood. Flanked by two groomsmen, who hurried him along, he kept craning his head, trying to catch his bride’s eye. Miss Eugenia stood beneath her veils, however, her gaze firmly fixed on her bouquet, and would not look at him or anyone.
Luna pursed her lips, considering. “All right,” she said at last. “Let’s do it.”
Nigel led the way in a quick dart across the open floor and up the spiral stairs. It was a bit narrow and pokey, but old slit windows let in some daylight, so it wasn’t dark, at least. At the top of the stairs, they were met by a locked door. Nigel turned a bit awkwardly to look back at Luna. “Have you a hairpin, Miss Talbot?”
Luna slipped a pin from her curls and handed it to him. “Don’t tell me you’re a cat burglar as well, Mr. Grimm.”
He snorted softly and slipped the pin into the lock. “I like to consider myself a man of dimensions,” he said. “Also, Great Aunt Galatea always kept her raspberry preserves under lock and key in her pantry. Have I mentioned that, as a boy, I was immensely fond of raspberry preserves?”
“You may have, Mr. Grimm. You may have, indeed.”
A bit of jangling, and the lock shifted. Nigel tried the handle, and the door swung open. Stepping aside, he swept a hand politely. “After you.”
Luna moved past him, taking back her hairpin as she went. Nigel took care to shut the door behind them, and they stepped out into the loft, suspended above the nave. The organ’s voice resounded with such holy noise up here, one could hardly string two thoughts together. But Nigel followed Luna down to a wooden bench closest to the balcony rail and sat beside her. They leaned forward, elbows on the rail, and watched thegoings-on below. Luna inclined her head toward Nigel, and he shivered with secret pleasure when she put her lips close to his ear in an attempt to be heard over the organ’s bellowing. “That one’s Miss Tuttlemouse,” she said, pointing.
Nigel peered below at a particular bridesmaid in purple, walking the aisle on the arm of a spotty-faced groomsman. He had absolutely no idea the significance of Miss Tuttlemouse. She appeared to be a handsome specimen of womanhood, but she didn’t boast frizzy brown curls, a mole at the corner of her mouth, or dark, expressive eyes which sparkled with a mingling of mischief and nonsense. So he didn’t find her all that interesting.
The organ droned on as bridesmaids and groomsmen lined up on either side of the altar. “They’ve got a veritable battalion down there, haven’t they?” Nigel observed.
Luna snickered and leaned to speak into his ear once more. “Do you think the ladies and gents are about to come to blows? Or are they preparing to join forces against some other invading wedding party?”
“Either outcome would make for a much more interesting wedding than any I’ve ever sat through.”
A little smirk on her lips, she jostled his elbow with hers. Nigel felt a stupid grin of his own pulling at his mouth but hastily pushed it away. He couldn’t let himself startgrinninglike a fool around her. It was too much. Too vulnerable. So he cleared his throat and concentrated once more on the doings below.
In a particularly clamorous swell of organ music, Miss Eugenia appeared at last at the head of the aisle on the arm of her stout little father. He kept mopping his brow with his handkerchief, obviously uncomfortable with the scrutiny of Society. Miss Eugenia, by contrast, looked oddly grim. The guests rose in respect for the bride as Mr. Lambert led her decorously down the aisle. Nigel glanced at the Duke ofWoolfwood, who stood at the altar, smiling so hugely it was beginning to look more like a grimace. Was the man actively in pain?
Miss Eugenia made it to the altar at last. The duke offered his hand, but she ignored it. She merely allowed her father a brief kiss on her cheek through her veils, then took her place solemnly, gripping her bouquet with both hands like a broadsword.
The organ swelled to a dramatic crescendo that nearly popped Nigel’s eardrums. Luna actually covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. Then suddenly, it was all over. A dreadful silence settled over the enormous chamber. The bishop stepped forward, resplendent in gold-threaded robes. She raised her arms, long sleeves sweeping to the floor, and declared in appropriately hallowed tones, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of the Green Mother and all the brother and sister gods to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate wherein—”
“I object!”
Nigel’s gaze shot to the far end of the aisle where the figure of Tom Doorhandler appeared suddenly in all his ragged handsomeness. To an explosion of murmurs and gasps, which echoed up to the domed ceiling, he strode partway down the aisle and struck a pose worthy of cinema. A bridesmaid swooned. Mrs. Lambert leapt to her feet and shrieked, “No! Don’t stop now! There is no objection!”
But Tom Doorhandler was not about to be thwarted in his purpose. “There ruddy wellisan objection!” he cried. “See here, you can’t go interrupting a chap in the middle of his objecting. Can she?” he appealed to the bishop.
The bishop blinked, looking rather out of her element. “Well, I don’t know—”
