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Berthold hastened from the room.
“Looks like rain,” smirked Lear. “You’ll be soaked.”
“But I’ll be there,” Nick said grimly. “I promised Alice I’d be there. Damn it, Lear. What’s wrong with me? I had one assignment, and I’m already mucking it up.”
Within minutes, he was swinging onto the broad back of his favorite black stallion.
Anvil pawed the gravel, eager to be given his lead.
He understood the need for urgency. He had a taste for fine oats and expensive fillies and wouldn’t take kindly to being thrown into inferior lodgings.
“Trample anyone who stands in our way,” Nick instructed. “There’s a young lady counting on us.”
Grumbling of thunder outside the church.
Sunlight darkening to gloom.
Wind keening to the coming rain.
Murmurs growing louder; a gathering summer storm of scandal.
Alice ripped off another pearl. She had quite a pile gathered in the folds of her gown. Before long her wedding gown would be entirely denuded of ornamentation.
This was growing ridiculous.
Heavy rain began pounding the roof and splattering against the windows.
“Mama, please. We mustn’t—”
“Wait.” Her mother twisted toward the entrance. “I heard a noise.” She clasped her hands. “It must be Lord Hatherly. It simply must.”
“It was only thunder, Mama.”
But as she opened her mouth to argue for their departure, the wooden doors of the church gusted open and Hatherly appeared, dark as a storm cloud against the gray stone backdrop.
“Oh! Thank the dear Lord. We are saved. He is here,” exclaimed Lady Tombs. She rose to her feet, pulling Alice along with her.
The pile of pearls she’d amassed in her skirts skittered across the marble floor, making their escape.
Alice nearly ran after them.
She wasn’t feeling at all thankful.
She’d already given up on him in her mind.
The entire church fell silent. Even the organist ceased playing.
His eyes met Alice’s, glinting like rain on wrought iron.
He handed his water-soaked beaver hat and black cloak to a footman and walked purposefully down the aisle, his shoes leaving wet footprints on the red carpet.
He shook his collar-length brown hair, shedding water in a wide arc, showering the gaping wedding guests.
She shivered as if the drops had hit her own skin.
As he strode toward her his gaze never wavered. In his eyes she read an apology.
And a promise of moonlit kisses... and long, sultry summer nights.
