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“Not one word.” He closed his eyes.
She made this huffy sound, but she didn’t say anything.
As soon as they were off the plane, he steered her past all the slot machines that were a staple at the Vegas airport and toward the Avis counter. It was nearly midnight, but it didn’t take long before he had a car and they were on their way into town.
That’s when she started talking again, and nothing he said would hold her off.
“. . . certain we can work this out. . . . And once Dallie learns the truth. . . . then I can catch a morning flight to London. . . no reason on earth for us to get . . .” On and on she went, and, as she spoke, gusts from the car’s air conditioner sent wisps of butterscotch curl flying around her head. A tendril came to rest on the tip of that small, sweet nose. She brushed it aside, her mouth still moving. “. . . the whole idea is absurd . . . difficult for me to understand . . . and the notion you have about rescuing me . . .”
He’d been heading for a hotel along the Strip, but, instead, he whipped into the driveway of a pink-and-white-stucco wedding chapel where a red neon bell flickered back and forth in the front window. He pulled into one of four parking places, then turned off the ignition. There was a small flower garden near the walk, guarded by a chipped plaster elf.
“Kenny!”
He couldn’t stand to listen to any more talking about things he had no answers for, so he dragged her into his arms and smothered her mouth with his own. As their kiss caught fire, it occurred to him that this whole situation might turn out all right if they spent most of their time like this, but, try as he might, he couldn’t convince himself it would be that easy.
A bony, middle-aged woman with spiked blond hair and red glasses met them at the door. Not long after, they were standing inside a white lattice arbor covered with dusty silk roses and getting ready to speak their vows. He hadn’t thought about Emma’s wedding ring, but it was a full-service chapel and, for an additional fee, he was provided with one.
Lady E looked like she was going to cry again. “Kenny, I really don’t think—”
He kissed the rest of what she wanted to say right out of her, and the ceremony began. As the woman in the red glasses started in on the Dearly Beloveds, he began to feel as if he were standing outside himself looking on—horrified at what he was doing, but helpless to stop it. And Emma’s small, uncertain responses didn’t sound anything like her normal storm-the-barricades speech. He squeezed her hand to give her confidence, or maybe to steal some for himself. What in the hell did he think he was doing?
By the time they got back in the car, they were both shaking. “That was awful.” Emma shuddered.
“It’s over. We don’t ever have to think about it again.”
“We can get a divorce. If it’s this easy to get married, it has to be just as easy to get a divorce.”
“We’d need to fly to Mexico, and I’m too tired.” He started the car.
“This can’t be a legal marriage. It was too tawdry.”
“The state of Nevada doesn’t care about good taste. Just out of curiosity—That thing Torie mentioned . . . do I get to be Lord Kenny now?”
“You do not! Of all the absurd notions—” She stopped as she realized he was teasing.
He went on because, if he didn’t, he knew she’d start in again. “The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can either keep your last name or you can use mine, but you’re damn well not going to string them all together. Nobody will ever take you seriously if you go around calling yourself Lady Emma Wells-Finch Traveler. At least not in Texas. Am I making myself clear about that?” He watched her glance down at her new gold wedding band.
“Perfectly.” As Emma twisted the ring, she wondered if her finger would turn green by tomorrow. She looked over at Kenny’s hand and wished she’d thought to buy him a ring, but it hadn’t occurred to her.
She’d spoken those vows of her own free will—he hadn’t forced them out of her—so why had she done it? Because she owed him, and restoring his reputation was the least she could do. But she couldn’t see how getting married was going to accomplish that. It would have been much more effective to simply have called Dallie and explained, except that every time she’d mentioned it, Kenny exploded.
She was lying to herself. The truth was, she hadn’t wanted to say no, even though she knew it was wrong. The garish lights of the Strip splashed over the car, and shame at her own weakness overwhelmed her. She tried to distract herself by thinking of other things—how a stranger would be going through her possessions in the cottage and packing them up, Penelope’s reaction when she learned she was St. Gert’s new headmistress, Hugh’s spitefulness.
As she thought about Hugh, she once again experienced the sense that she’d missed something in his hotel room this morning. What was it he’d said? It had slipped by her at the time, but . . .
She shrugged off her uneasiness. She had enough real problems to worry about without creating imaginary ones. For example, what were the odds of ever seeing her luggage again? “I don’t have any clothes.”
“That’s not exactly a disadvantage from my point of view.”
“You don’t have any either.”
“That’s why God invented credit cards.”
“I’m not taking your money.”
“Our money. It’s all going into one big pool now, so get ready to open up your bank accounts and turn over all those pounds you’ve got tucked away.”
“There aren’t that many,” she said glumly.
