Roger, stretched out on the seat opposite, snuffled in his sleep as the carriage slowed, and then stirred and lifted his head.
Then the carriage drew up before the house, and Stephen helped her alight, and the carriages bringing Margaret and the Earl of Sheringford and their children and Katherine and Lord Montford with their son were coming along behind.
She was home, Cassandra thought. Soon to be surrounded by family.
And with Stephen at her side.
Her golden angel.
It all seemed too much to believe.
Except that she was learning to trust.
Roger padded down from the carriage and lifted his head to pant at her and invite a tickle beneath the chin.
The chapel in the park at Warren Hall was small. It was rarely used now as there was a sizable, comfortable, and picturesque church in the village, and it was only a little more than a mile away from the house.
But the chapel had been traditionally used for family christenings and weddings and funerals, and tradition was important to Stephen, who had come to it late in life. He had spent many hours over the last eight years wandering about the churchyard outside the chapel, reading the headstones of his ancestors buried there, feeling a family affinity with them. There was a time when he had not felt particularly kindly disposed to his great- grandfather, who had cast out his son, Stephen's grandfather, for marrying a woman who was his social inferior, Stephen's grandmother. The estrangement had lasted through two ensuing generations until the senior branch of the family came to an end with Jonathan's death and a search of the junior branch had had to be made to find Stephen.
But family quarrels were sad things. Why perpetuate this one, even with a dead man? The head gardener had been instructed to tend all the family graves regularly.
And Stephen had always dreamed that he would marry at the chapel when the time came, though he had always known that his bride, whoever she turned out to be, might well have other ideas.
Vanessa had married Elliott here.
And he would marry Cassandra here.
The chapel had been decked with purple and white flowers. Candles burned on the altar. All the pews were occupied. There were hushed whispers from the family and friends gathered there. Someone spoke aloud – Nessie and Elliott's Sam – and was shushed to silence. Someone giggled – Meg and Sherry's Sally – and got sharply whispered at for her pains.
Stephen, seated in the front pew, his eyes on the wavering flame of a candle, drew a few steadying breaths. He was nervous, a fact that had taken him completely by surprise this morning since the last two weeks had dragged by and he had thought today would never come. His nose was itching, but he resisted scratching it when he remembered that he had done so a minute or two ago, and perhaps a minute or two before /that/.
Someone was sure to have noticed – Sherry or Monty, most like – and would tease him about it afterward.
He cracked his knuckles instead and then winced when it seemed to him that the sound had filled the chapel. Elliott beside him gave him a sidelong look, in which Stephen read a certain amusement.
It was all very well for old married men to be amused.
And then there was the sound of a carriage approaching outside the chapel, and since all the guests were here, most of them having come on foot, it could only be Cassandra arriving from Finchley Park. Soon there were sounds from the churchyard path outside, someone telling someone else to hang on a minute while he straightened the train of her dress.
And then she was in the doorway and Stephen was on his feet without any memory of actually standing up. But everyone else was standing too, and he heard the echo of the vicar instructing them to do so.
She was wearing a high-waisted, short-sleeved dress of purple satin with an extravagantly flounced train. Daringly, she wore no hat but only purple flowers woven into her red curls.
Stephen's mind searched for a more effective word than /beautiful/ and failed utterly.
For a moment he forgot to breathe. And then it occurred to him to smile, but he discovered that he was already doing so.
Lord, why had no one warned him about wedding days?
Though, come to think of it, both Sherry and Monty had done nothing else all through a breakfast at which Stephen had not eaten a single mouthful. Meg had grown quite cross with Sherry, had she not? She had asked him if he could not see that poor Stephen was already slightly green and did Duncan actually want to make him /vomit/?
He could see Cassandra looking back at him as her brother stepped up beside her, presumably having finished adjusting her train. Her eyes, those enticingly slanted green eyes, looked larger than usual. Her teeth bit down on her lower lip, and Stephen knew she was as nervous as he.
And then she released her lip and smiled.
And he felt so happy that he stopped himself only just in time from laughing out loud.
How odd /that/ would have been.
He had flashing images of seeing her in Hyde Park, so heavily shrouded in black mourning clothes that it was impossible to see her face. And of seeing her at Meg's ball a day later, a vivid siren with her emerald green gown and startling red hair and mask of proud scorn.
And yet surely he had known even then. Surely he had.
He would /surely/ have recognized her anywhere in the whole universe in the whole of eternity.
His love.
Except that /love/ – that mysterious, vast, all-encompassing power – could not possibly be contained in a single word.
She was at his side and they were turning to face the vicar, and Young was giving her hand into the keeping of the man who would cherish it and her through a lifetime and beyond if it proved possible. And the vicar was addressing his dearly beloved in a voice that might have filled a cathedral, and Stephen was vowing to love, honor, and keep her, and she was vowing to love, honor, and obey him, and he was holding his breath as he took the ring from Elliott's damnably steady hand in the hope that he could put it on her finger without dropping it. And then he was smiling at her when he did /not/ drop it, and the vicar was pronouncing them man and wife.
And it occurred to him that he had missed his own wedding service, that it was over, and Cass was his wife, and if he did not lead her to the altar for communion without further delay he might well make an utter ass of himself and whoop for joy or something equally ghastly.
Cass was his /wife/.
He was /married/.
And then, before he knew it, the communion service was over, the register had been signed, they had left the church, smiling to left and right as they went, and everyone was out on the churchyard path, hugging and kissing both Stephen and Cass.
The blue sky was raining rose petals.
And at last Stephen laughed.
The world was a wonderful place, and if it was true that there was no such thing as happily ever after, then at least sometimes there was happiness pure and unalloyed, and one ought to grasp it with both hands and carry it forward to make the hard times more bearable.
Today he was happy, and from the look on her face, so was Cass.
The wedding breakfast, for which several neighbors had joined the wedding guests, had stretched well into the evening. But finally everyone had left Warren Hall. Even those people who had been staying here had now moved to Finchley Park so that the bride and groom might be left alone.
Her bedchamber was square and spacious, Cassandra had discovered. It had a large adjoining dressing room and a cozy sitting room beyond that. A door at the opposite side of the sitting room presumably led to Stephen's dressing room and bedchamber.
They shared a large suite of rooms overlooking the fountain and the flower gardens before the house.
