Page 5 of Go, Rogue

But—

She blinks. The silhouette is so like him. The height, the curly hair, the span of shoulders and chest, and the bear-paw of a hand he raises in greeting.

She raises her own gloved fingers in return, and he gallops away.

It isn’t him.

She hasn’t seen Andrew McGann in six months. They haven’t spoken a word to each other since that last, horrible meeting.

That was just a stranger with a similar build greeting a bride on her wedding day.

She shakes her glittered head and watches the golden flakes float through the air. And then she smooths down her gown and goes back inside.

The door to the vestibule is open a hair’s breadth. They are in an old country church with an equally old door that has swelled in the morning rain.

Through it, she can see the back of her mother’s head and her aunt’s. And Violet, of course, with her husband, Lord Alistair Crawford, who is Andrew McGann’s business partner. And hers. Although no one, not even McGann or Crawford, knows it.

And there’s Pembrooke, up at the altar, ready and waiting for her entrance. She leans in, peering at her betrothed. He looks pained. Not even resigned, as she feels. The man looks like someone has wrenched the heart right out of his chest.

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

She thinks again of the figure on horseback. She knows it can’t have been McGann but wonders if it wasn’t some kind of omen nonetheless. For the split second when she thought she saw him, there was a surge of joy in her heart.

She definitely does not feel joy looking at Pembrooke.

Pembrooke seemingly does not feel joy waiting for her.

She ponders what might happen if she just… fled.

Now that’s a ridiculous notion.

Where would she go? McGann wants nothing to do with her. And she’s to be married. Today. Right now.

Except—

She didn’t expect to feel quite like the weight around Pembrooke’s neck that his face indicates she is. His heart is his own business, but there’s no reason to make her the sink-stone.

She edges backward, away from the vestibule. She just needs a moment to think. And to find where the noxious smell of cheroot smoke wafting inside is coming from.

Who is smoking at my wedding?

She follows the stench out the front door, only to find her cousin, Lord Sedgewick, the new Earl of Chester, leaning against the church with cheroot in hand.

“You’re in the wrong place,” he says, filling his lungs with smoke.

“So are you,” she replies, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

She hasn’t spoken more than a handful of sentences to the man since he inherited the earldom upon her father’s death and came back from the continent. This doesn’t seem like an auspicious beginning to their relationship. But if he doesn’t care, neither will she.

“I am aware,” he says and takes another drag. “Are you going to bolt?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

An honest statement, to which the dratted man only laughs.

“Look,” he replies slowly, as if explaining his reasoning to a child. “I couldn’t care less either way.” He raises the cheroot to his lips again. “I’m only here because you are. So, if you’re going to sneak out, I’d be glad for the advance notice. Believe it or not, there are other ways I would prefer to spend my day that do not involve the inside of a country church. Or my relatives.”

Catherine can only stare at him. Heaven knows what the man nicknamed the Local Adonis—with his blond curls and dimpled cheeks and general air of having just stepped out of a Renaissance-era painting—would rather be doing than be here with her and the rest of the family on the wedding day he’d demanded she have.

“I beg your pardon?” she says. “You’re only here because I am? I am only here because you decreed it.”

“Actually,” he exhales and blows out the smoke rather too close to her face, “your father decreed it. I couldn’t care less. So, I repeat, are you going to bolt?”

Catherine shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

Another honest statement to which he rolls his eyes. She’s fairly certain now that she hates him.

“Good heavens, woman. I dislike repeating myself, but one last time: Your father demanded you marry and then turned up his toes. I gave you a dowry to see it done and signed the marriage contracts as the inheritance of the earldom required of me. Duty dispatched.”

“Marriage does generally follow that sequence of events,” Catherine says.

She can’t help but glance behind her to the church, filled with her friends and family. All of them waiting on her.

Chester puts his cheroot out on the side of the wall. “What generally follows isn’t a concern of mine.” He pushes himself up from his slouch. “If it’s a concern of yours, by all means, go back inside. But if you are going to run, I’d do it before your mother comes out.” He nods his head toward the line of carriages and horses not far away. “Mine’s the last, if you want it.”

And then he shrugs and stalks back inside.