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Dorcas sighed, and Kitty clasped her hands and whispered, “I’m going to be married today, Dorcas. Can you believe it? Today, I shall become the wife of a future viscount.”
Dorcas tweaked the folds of her gown, then adjusted one of the curls which clustered from Kitty’s high crown. “Yer mama should be ’ere. Why do yer ‘ave no family when Lord Nash ‘as brought ‘is sister an’ ‘is cousin?” She shook her head. “If I were getting’ married I’d want all me loved ones ter see me joy.” Immediately her expression clouded. “That ain’t neva goin’ ter ’appen, though.”
“It will!” Kitty gripped her friend’s shoulders and looked into her face. “You will find some lovely man who truly appreciates your goodness and kind spirit. Have faith and it will happen.” She dropped her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I had faith, even when in my heart I was deeply unsure about Nash, but see how it’s all turned out?”
Dorcas fixed Kitty with a troubled look. “What do yer mean, miss?”
Kitty, now pulling on her gloves in preparation, as Minnie had just put her head around the door to say that carriage was ready to take them to the church, looked up with a smile. “What did you ask me, Dorcas?”
“What do yer mean yer still ‘ad faith when yer ‘eart weren’t engaged wiv Lord Nash? Were it more important ter be married, or more important that it were ter Lord Nash?”
“Why, of course I had to love Lord Nash to want to consider marrying him.” Kitty paused as she fiddled with the tiny buttons of her left glove, her words halting. She didn’t like the line Dorcas had taken. “Come now, Dorcas, you look lovely too. What a pity Lissa won’t be there to do a lightning sketch for posterity. Of anyone in my family, I wish I could have invited her.”
“’Cept Lord Nash said yer wasn’t ter invite any of ‘em, didn’t ’e?”
“No need to say it in such an accusing way, Dorcas. I’m not cross that he’s invited his sister and cousin, while I couldn’t do the same. I understand the reasons. He can’t afford to anger his grandfather when the old man is so ill, even if Nash is quite within his rights to wed. Remember, he’s twenty-four. He attained his majority three years ago, and in fact, was nearly married when he was twenty-one except that he had what he now calls a lucky escape, which made him realize how important it was to choose a bride compatible and pleasing in every way.” She smiled. “Like me.”
She had to keep reminding herself just how lucky she was, for her heart beat nervously, and her hands felt clammy and shaking. She hadn’t spent the night with Nash and had tossed and turned, slipping into a short and feverish sleep at dawn.
“Lord Nash is a very lucky man,” Dorcas said softly as they sat together in the carriage, rocking gently over the cobblestones. “I ‘ope ‘e realizes that.”
“I’m the lucky one,” Kitty objected. “How many men of his station marry so low if they choose to marry for love?”
She didn’t like the woebegone looks Dorcas kept sending her as they progressed in a deepening silence. It was hard not to snap at her, but Kitty wasn’t going to sour the mood any further.
Organ music struck up on cue as she and Dorcas arrived at the doorway of St Margaret’s, and at last Kitty felt as if this was not just a pipedream, but rather her dream come true. This was the sound her own mother had heard, perhaps, more than twenty years ago when she progressed down the aisle on her father’s arm, to marry her father, Lord Partington. But there had been no bridegroom waiting for her.
Anxiously, Kitty peered into the dim recesses of the church, and her heart lurched to see Nash, in company with another gentleman, staring at the priest. So it was true. She would be married. Legally. Finally, a Miss Hazlett was going to get a ring on her finger, and not onl
y enjoy the love of a good man, but respectability for herself and her children.
Nash turned when she was a few yards away, his expression full of love. He looked so handsome, his fine-featured face with its small scar below the eye relaxing into a smile of hope and adoration that made Kitty’s belly cleave. She smiled back at him warmly, as she made her approach, turning slightly when she heard footsteps behind her. Another guest.
She swallowed, and her heart hitched a little. Silverton had come to honor their union. But she was able to put aside anything she might have felt for him as she concentrated on the fact that Nash loved her. And he loved her enough to marry her.
Silverton slipped into a pew on the right-hand side while Kitty continued her progress down the aisle.
Nash gripped the tips of her fingers in a light reassurance as she joined his side.
“You look beautiful,” he whispered as the vicar began to intone the service, his strong voice filling the holy space with his solemn words.
And then Nash was saying his vows, Kitty glancing over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps, which muffled the words.
Shocked, she saw her father advancing, and looked nervously at Nash, still murmuring “...take thee, Catherine Jane Hazlett, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer...”
So her father had come to see her in her finest hour. He should be pleased that she was marrying as her mother ought to have married him, though what he had heard about the celebrated actress, Kitty La Bijou, she feared to know.
Nash was still speaking, binding himself to her for eternity“...in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”
She realized her father hadn’t slipped into a pew, and now his footsteps were joined by another pair. Not her mother’s for these, too, belonged to a male the way they clattered with loud purpose into the church, interrupting proceedings, and a voice rose above the vicar’s, “That boy has no authority to wed before he’s twenty-five, and is no gentleman if he’s told the lady otherwise!”
The vicar stopped speaking; Nash swung his head around, crying out, “Father! How dare you?” and Kitty stared with horror at the young man next to her who now defended himself.
“Not true, Father!” Angrily, he faced his father while Kitty’s own barked, “I will not see my daughter tricked into a farce of a marriage, but nor would I see her marry above her station.”
“Father!” Kitty cried as devastation threatened to undo her a second time.
Lord Partington had risen, and now he clapped his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t take it amiss, my girl. It ain’t that I don’t love you any less than the others, and I’m aware that the wrong I did your mother has blighted your prospects.”
