The Scoundrel’s Daughter by Anne Gracie
Chapter Eighteen
Alice and James decided to marry at Towers, James’s house in Warwickshire. They traveled down in a cavalcade of carriages. The three little girls—and cat—theoretically traveled with Nanny McCubbin, but hopped from one carriage to another every time they stopped to change horses. Gerald and Lucy followed in a separate carriage—without a chaperone—and Mary and James’s valet and a pile of luggage traveled last.
Towers was delightful. Nestled in a green wooded valley, it was a sprawling, asymmetrical pile, begun in the fifteenth century and added to by various ancestors every few centuries.
“It’s a bit of a monstrosity,” James said diffidently when the carriage turned a corner and the house first came into sight. But he clearly loved it.
“It’s wonderful,” Alice said, and she meant it. The oldest part of the building was in the half-timbered black-and-white Tudor style, other parts were stone, and one wing was brick. And there were battlements and several towers, including one round brick turret with a pointy roof.
The girls, too, were enchanted. “It’s a fairy place,” Judy exclaimed. “Can we sleep in the turret, Papa, can we?”
The church on the estate was small and beautiful, built of bluestone with a steep slate roof and a slightly crooked spire. Arched stained glass windows glinted in the late afternoon sun. The moment Alice saw the little church, she knew that this was where she wanted to be married, rather than the impressive, much larger church in Kenilworth that they’d seen earlier.
* * *
James paced back and forth at the front of the altar. It was ridiculous to be so nervous, he knew. But waiting for his bride in a church was almost as nerve-racking as waiting to go into battle. He just wanted it over and done with, and to be left alone with his family.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be here,” Gerald said heartily.
James gave him a baleful look. “Wait ’til it’s your turn.” He knew she’d be here. He didn’t know why he was nervous; he just was.
The church smelled of beeswax and flowers—the village ladies had descended and given it a good scrub and polish. Guests had been arriving over the last few days. The pews were filling up, county gentlefolk and villagers. He’d been stunned by the welcome he’d received from the local people. Apparently they remembered him with fondness, and had warmly welcomed Alice and the three little girls.
There was no organ, but the vicar had brought in a small choir to sing the bride down the aisle. They started to hum, then broke into a soft hymn. James turned and a small figure dressed in blue began marching importantly down the aisle, a small figure wearing a very strange black-and-white fur collar.
The collar yowled, stretched and leapt to the floor. Luckily it wore a smart blue velvet harness, which restrained it. The congregation chuckled, and some of James’s tension dissolved.
Next came Lina, elfin and dainty, looking more like her mother every day. Then Judy, serious and responsible, his firstborn. After that came Lucy, part of his family now, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. And finally there she was, the love of his life, serene and lovely in shades of sea green and blue to match her glorious eyes, shining now as they met his. She was radiant, smiling; he had the biggest lump in his throat.
He held out his hand to her and she took it.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today . . .”