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Seraphina took the pins from her mouth. “William tells me they have taken him to Bedlam. Lord Brighton, I mean. The magistrate heard the surgeon’s report and the testimony of those hired men, and he was declared unfit to stand trial. He will not be let out. Not ever.”

The vestry went quiet.

“Matthew…” Leonora said. “…George. “He will not trouble us again. Anthony assures me.”

“No,” Euphemia said firmly. “He will not.” She stood and kissed her sister’s cheek. “Now let us stop thinking about that monster. Today is yours.”

The door opened, and Rose slipped in. She was in dove gray silk with a spray of white at her shoulder, and she looked ten years younger than she had a month ago. Lady Byron followed her, in a gown of mustard yellow. She took one look at Leonora in the glass and turned her face away sharply.

“Well,” she said to the wall. “That will do.”

“Lady Byron.”

“I said it will do.” She dabbed at her eye with a knuckle and turned back with her chin high. “You look like your mother. Do not tell her I said so.”

“I heard,” said Rose. The two of them laughed, and held hands for an instant.

They walked her down the aisle together, one on either arm, her mother on the right and the woman who had raised her on the left. Cordelia and Georgianna went ahead, strewing rose petals with such enthusiasm that most of them landed on the vicar.

Alice marched behind them clutching a basket in both hands, solemn as a bishop, and in the front pew Marian sat with a hat the size of a cartwheel, openly sobbing into Fortune’s fur.

Anthony turned when she came through the door.

His blue eyes found hers across the length of the church and stayed there. He seemed to be holding his breath, and it was the first time Leonora reckoned she’d ever seen him nervous.

She did not remember much of the ceremony after that. She remembered his hand around hers, and how his voice shook on the last of his vows.

She remembered saying “I will” so clearly that it rang off the stone, and the roar of laughter and applause that followed.

The wedding breakfast after the ceremony spilled over the lawn in the afternoon sun.

There were long tables and a good deal of champagne. William was telling the story of a boxing match to anyone who would listen. Leonora, who had been passed from embrace to embrace until her feet ached, found her husband’s hand closing around her wrist and drawing her gently behind a hedge.

“I have not seen you for a full minute,” Anthony said. “Are you all right?”

“You have been looking at me across the lawn all afternoon, Your Grace.”

“It is not the same.” He shook his head.

She laughed and let him pull her against him, careful of the shoulder. Beyond the hedge she could see the children racing across the grass, Cordelia and Georgianna and Alice in a screaming knot.

“They are very loud,” Anthony observed.

“They are.”

“I never was.” He said it lightly, watching them. “My parents were so loud with each other that there was no room in the house for anyone else.” His arm tightened around her waist. “I should like a noisy house, my darling. With children in it who are listened to. I should like to be a father who looks up.” He glanced down at her, and the lightness left his face. “If you would want that, of course. I know we have not spoken of it. I would not ask if...”

“I would love that,” she said, staring at his lips.

His breath stopped.

“I would,” she said, and her eyes had gone bright. “I did not think I would ever say so. I used to tell everyone I would not marry, that I had no time. But the sound of that makes me happy. I only never thought I deserved one.” She put her palm flat against his chest. “I should like it very much. Boys who climb oak trees and girls who lead them there. Dozens of them, if you can manage.”

“Dozens?” he said unsteadily.

“All right, maybe just a few. We shall see.”

He kissed her forehead and then the corner of her mouth, slowly, taking his time with it.