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“Now, take a deep breath. That’s right. And one more.”
With Charity’s steady, soothing influence, Violet managed to ward off her last-minute reluctance. She didn’t want to be part of what now seemed a hoax more cruel to herself than anything else.
Yet, even as she took two more steps towards the Greystone church, something didn’t feel right. Why was everything in such darkness? Where was Max? There was no carriage; no welcoming light from within.
The clopping hooves and creaking harness of another equipage sounded unnaturally loud in the eerie silence as a hansom cab rounded the corner, coming to a halt beside them.
Max?
Violet ran the tip of her tongue over dry lips and prayed that he would step outside. Just to see his dear face would be a comfort, even with the knowledge their contact tonight would be fleeting.
And final.
“Miss Lilywhite.”
Charity gripped Violet’s hand, the two girls drawing back against the hackney as the unfamiliar voice issued from the lowered window. It was a woman’s voice but its owner, heavily veiled, remained shadowed in the interior. “I came to warn you.”
There was a definite waver towards the end of her words. Without waiting for Violet to reply, the woman went on breathlessly, “Max isn’t coming. He can’t. I’m so sorry, but his grandfather learnt of his plans.”
Now her head emerged from the half-open window and she raised her veil. “Do you recognise me now? We met at Max’s. Miss Dulwich.” Her green eyes looked luminous in the damp light and her demeanour more agitated as she fingered her gloves.
Violet waited for her to go on.
So Max wasn’t going to make it to his wedding after all. She looked down at her white silk slippers peeking from her froth of skirts and felt sad that he’d not see her looking like this after all.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “You see, it was my fault. Lord Granville tricked me into telling him about your secret wedding, but now I’m here to atone. I had to take a detour on my way home after dinner so I have but seconds; only, you must know how much Max must love you if he’s prepared to risk his grandfather’s ire to marry you.”
Violet blinked. What was the girl about? She surely couldn’t believe the elopement was real?
“You must hurry, Miss Lilywhite, so Lord G
ranville doesn’t discover you when he gets here. I sent him to St Patrick’s, but the diversion won’t keep him from discovering the truth before long.” She leaned further out of the window and her large green eyes flashed with excitement in the carriage lamps. “Max is waiting for you at St Mary’s.” She pointed while her other hand clasped her breast. “Oh, but it is just too thrilling that Max is finally doing something so worthwhile and to please himself, for once. He’s been so dutiful his whole life—right up to the point of marrying me. I knew I’d be the ruin of him, even though I would have been content enough—and, indeed, the envy of so many. But, at last, he’s following his heart.” She brushed aside a feather from her headdress that was stirred by the breeze and added as she began to withdraw her head, “I wish you great happiness, Miss Lilywhite, and I’m confident you will find it with Max. He’s loyal to a fault and he adores you. I was quite satisfied on that score when I quizzed him.” Hesitating, she smiled and put out her hand, grasping Violet’s quickly when, bemused, Violet held hers out. “Hurry now…and I look forward to meeting you under less fraught conditions when you return from your wedding tour. You are very blessed to have found a man like Max. Good night.”
Miss Dulwich tucked her head back into her carriage which gave a lurch before setting off down the road.
Charity had already given the jarvey directions, so Violet simply lay back against the squabs and awaited her fate while she tried not to cry.
For Miss Dulwich’s words of hope and happiness were like cruel barbs.
By the time Violet entered St Mary’s with Charity in her wake, Miss Dulwich’s hopeful sentiments were screaming at her. Falling in love with Max was the most ill-advised thing she’d ever done, now that she had so much to lose. When she’d agreed to his well-intentioned plan to please his aunt, Violet had had nothing to lose.
Now her heart beat painfully as she raised her head at an emotional gasp from Miss Thistlethwaite, seated in a front pew, and glimpsed Max over her shoulder, waiting for her at the end of the aisle, the priest behind him.
“My dear girl, you are a vision,” the old lady whispered as Violet made her way down the worn runner, and the dewy look in Miss Thistlethwaite’s pale-blue eyes made it clear that she was seeing in Violet the symbol of her own thwarted hopes and dreams. She put out her hand to grip Violet’s wrist tightly, whispering, “You will make each other so happy. I feel it in my very soul.”
Violet’s throat swelled and her heart grew even heavier, for in deceiving Miss Thistlethwaite, she feared she was losing her last shreds of integrity. She was being paid for this, and wasn’t it true that Violet only ever got paid when she lied?
“You look beautiful.” Max looked as starstruck as his aunt as he gazed down at Violet when she arrived at his side, Charity just behind her. “A vision, like my aunt says.” He stroked her cheek, and the genuine fondness in his gaze meant Violet had to blink away the tears.
“Thank you.” What else was there to say? Perhaps Max was doing his best, and for his aunt’s benefit, to appear every bit as smitten as Miss Thistlethwaite would have wanted him to look but Violet fancied his words came from the heart.
And for a few moments, she fancied that the actor before them really was a priest as he performed the ceremony that would have bound Violet and Max together, forever, under the law and in the eyes of the church.
“I do,” she vowed, echoing Max’s own promise when prompted, her hand clasped in his large, safe, warm hand.
She gazed up at him, recognised the genuine regret in his eyes and turned her head away to smile at Miss Thistlethwaite, who was sobbing happily in the front pew.
“My dearest Max, you could not have made me happier,” the old lady declared between hiccupping intakes of breath. “Why, never have I seen two young people more in love and suited to one another than you.”
