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Even if it took a bit of effort to cross the language barrier, Geraldine had been sure that she could brown-hen her way in.
But no brown-henning had been required. There had been only a few people milling about on the narrow road that was really more of a path outside the chapel, looking only vaguely security-like, and none of them had paid her any mind. Perhaps it was because she had a certain way of marching forth, head held high, that went a long way toward convincing anyone who might look that she belonged.
Or perhaps it’s actually because you look like someone’s maiden aunt, she told herself dryly.Emphasis on maiden and aunt.
Then again, she did that on purpose. What wasn’t on purpose was the fact that she’d made a bit of a racket coming inside the ancient building. Also, the Italian breeze had caught the door behind her, wrenched it from her grip, and slammed it shut.
Loudly.
But what Geraldine had noticed immediately wasn’t who was or was not glaring at her for causing a commotion. Instead, she was quite surprised to find that the bride was not only walking herself down the aisle, she was already about halfway done with the entire exercise.
And though the bride had stopped and looked back over her shoulder, all dressed in white and eyes solemn, Geraldine hadn’t seized the moment the way she should have.
The bride turned around again and had started for the altar once more.
Leaving Geraldine to slink into the last pew much more quietly than she’d entered, her mind racing.
She had shoved her glasses up her nose as she’d sat, a nervous habit she preferred to deny she possessed. Usually she wore her contacts, but she’d been sure they would dry out her eyes on that flight and she hadn’t had time to pop them back in while changing in that tiny hotel room, her mother mutteringI told you sobeneath her breath and little Jules in mid-tantrum.
And your contact lenses have nothing to do with anything, she had snapped at herself.
She’d reminded herself then, rather severely, that it wouldn’t do her any good to have come all this way if she wasn’t prepared to jump in as planned at any given opportunity.
Like the one she’d squandered just then.
And so she had been drumming up her courage to leap to her feet and stop the proceedings—and she’d required that courage not because she was in any doubt that her cause was just, and certainly not because she was any sort of shy or retiring mouse, but because she was Midwestern born and bred and, deep within her, had an inbred horror of causing a scene of any kind no matter the reason—when the door to the chapel had slammed wide open again.
Louder this time.
And as it did, a ferocious-looking man came striding in, dressed in black and seeming also toexudea matching black fury as he came.
He did not take the first available seat, as Geraldine had.
Instead, he’d helped himself to the bride.
He’d found her in the aisle, tossed her over his shoulder without a word, and then strode right on out again.
And Geraldine had always taken pride in her practical, rational nature—so much so that she even dressed so that said nature was what was noticed about her, first and foremost. She was a woman who had always enjoyed the company of facts and the books where those facts were so often housed. The cool, leather-bound intellect of a library was the happiest place she could imagine, and she would be back in hers right now if it weren’t for poor motherless baby Jules.
But she couldn’t claim that she was thinking about Jules after the door slammed shut behind the man and the kidnapped bride, leaving the few people left in this chapel to stare at each other blankly.
Maybe she wasn’t thinking at all.
Because she let out that cackle. And once she’d laughed, she hadn’t seen any particularly compelling reason tostoplaughing.
Geraldine was still laughing, in fact.
With a little more sleep, or reallyanysleep, she was certain she might have controlled herself—because didn’t she always control herself?—but then again, perhaps she wouldn’t have bothered.
Because it was a certain kind of funny, wasn’t it? She had pulled together a shocking amount of money to come all this way to stop a wedding that hadn’t needed stopping after all.
If only someone had thought to mention that the bride would be abducted before the vows were spoken, Geraldine thought, and set herself off again.
She was rummaging around in her bag for the tissues she always kept close to hand—because her eyes were watering the more she laughed, another likely consequence of that endless flight—and she was making that cackling sound again, which only made her laugh more. But eventually she found a tissue. She dabbed at her eyes, like the sort of lady who didn’t go around hooting and hollering at the abortive wedding ceremonies of total strangers.
Only after she’d calmed herself slightly did she become aware of a kind of shadow that fell over her. A strange sort of shadow that made every last cell in her entire body seem to tighten of its own accord.
Only then did she look up.
