One Night for Love

'Yes, I know her,' he said, his voice quiet, though he was fully aware now that every single wedding guest hung upon his words and heard him clearly. 'She is my wife.'

***

The silence, though total, lasted only a very few seconds.

'My lord?' The vicar was the first to break it.

There was a swell of sound as half the people present, it seemed, tried to talk at once while the other half tried just as loudly to shush them so that they would not miss anything of significance. The Countess of Kilbourne was on her feet in the front pew. Her brother, the Duke of Anburey, rose too and set a hand on her arm.

'Neville?' the countess said in a shaking voice, which nevertheless was distinctly audible above the general buzz of sound. 'What is this? Who is this woman?'

'I should have had her taken up for vagrancy last night,' the duke said in his usual authoritative voice, trying to take charge of the situation. 'Calm yourself, Clara. Gentlemen, remove the woman, if you please. Neville, return to your place so that this wedding may proceed.'

But no one paid his grace any heed, except the vicar. Everyone had heard what Neville had said. There had been no ambiguity in his words.

'With all due respect, your grace,' the Reverend Beckford said, 'this wedding may not proceed when his lordship has just acknowledged this woman as his wife.'

'I married Lily Doyle in Portugal,' Neville said, never taking his eyes from the beggar woman. The shushing voices became more insistent and a hush so total that it was almost loud fell again on the congregation. 'I watched her die less than twenty-four hours later. I reached her side no more than a few minutes after that. I stood over her dead body—you were dead, Lily. And then I was shot in the head.'

Everyone knew that for over a month before his return to England Neville had lain in a hospital in Lisbon, suffering from a head wound sustained during an ambush among the hills of central Portugal when he had been leading a winter scouting party. Amnesia and persistent dizziness and headaches had prevented his return to his regiment even after the wound itself had healed. And then news of his father's death had reached him and brought him home.

But no one had heard of any marriage.

Until now.

And clearly the woman he had married was not dead.

Someone in the church had already realized the full implications of the fact. There was a strangled cry from the back of the church, and those who looked back saw Lauren standing there, her face as pale now as the veil that covered it, her hands clawing at the sides of her gown and sweeping up the train behind it before she turned and fled, followed closely by Gwendoline. The church doors opened and then closed again rather noisily.

'I am sorry,' Lily said. 'I am so very sorry. I was not dead.'

'Neville!' Lady Kilbourne was clinging with both gloved hands to the back of the pew.

Sound swelled again.

But Neville held up both hands, palm out.

'I beg your pardon, all of you,' he said, 'but clearly this is not a matter for public airing. Not yet at least. I hope to offer a full explanation before the day is out. In the meantime, it is obvious that there is to be no wedding here this morning. I invite you all to return to the abbey for breakfast.'

He lowered his arms and strode down the aisle, his right hand reaching out toward Lily. His eyes were on hers.

'Lily?' he said. 'Come.'

His hand closed on hers and clamped hard about it. He scarcely broke stride, but continued on his way toward the outer door, Lily at his side.

***

Neville threw the doors wide, and they stepped out into blinding sunshine and were met by a sea of faces and a chorus of excited, curious voices.

He ignored them. Indeed, he did not even see or hear them. He strode down the churchyard path, through the gateway, between crowds of people who opened a way for him by hastily stepping back upon one another, and around to the gates into the park of Newbury Abbey.

He said nothing to the woman at his side. He could not yet trust the reality of what had happened, of what was happening, even though he held tightly to the apparition and could feel her small hand in his own.

He was remembering…

 

PART II

Memory: One Night for Love

 

Chapter 3

Lily Doyle is sitting alone on a small rocky promontory jutting out over a deep valley high in the barren hills of central Portugal. It is December and chilly.

She is wrapped in a shabby old army cloak that she has cut down to size. But it cannot hide the fact that she has been transformed over the past year or so from a lithe, coltish girl into a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. Her dark-blond hair waves loose down her back to below her waist. The wind is blowing it out behind her and hopelessly tangling it. Her slender arms, covered by the sleeves of her faded blue cotton dress, clasp her updrawn knees. Her feet, despite the cold, are bare. How can she feel the earth, how can she feel life, she once explained, if she is always shod?

Neville Wyatt, Major Lord Newbury, is reclining at his ease on the ground some distance behind her, a tin mug of hot tea cupped in both hands. He is watching her. He cannot see her face, but he can imagine its expression as she gazes down over the valley below, up at the cloud-dotted sky and the lone bird wheeling there. It will be dreamy, serene. No, those descriptions are too passive. There will be a glow in her face, a light in her eyes.