Tangled (12 page)

David grinned. "I can subscribe to the theory that a wedding is a festive occasion," he said, "especially my own. I was rather ecstatic too, you know, Papa, until you started to talk gloom and doom to me. I will aid and abet Louisa in any way I can.''

"Oh, my son," his father said, looking suddenly and unaccustomedly wistful. "All I wish for you is that you may some day know the great happiness of married love."

They were words David would never have expected to hear from his father's lips. He felt a deep dread and a great stabbing of longing suddenly as he looked down to swirl the last drops of brandy in his glass. It was something he supposed he would never know.

Craybourne, August, 1856

The earl's prediction proved quite correct. His countess approached the coming nuptials with energy and delight. Her own wedding the year before had been a modest affair, the earl still having been in mourning for his godson at the time and his son having been still at war. But there were to be no restraints on David's wedding and on her dear Rebecca's.

Neighbors for miles around were invited to attend the morning service in the village church and the wedding breakfast at Craybourne afterward. Invitations were sent to Rebecca's mother and aunt in the North, to her brother and sister-in-law in London, to the earl's three sisters and their families, and to a few of David's friends, officers of the Guards.

Rebecca was to have a wedding dress and a trousseau. But the village seamstress would not do for such an important assignment.

Indeed she would not be able to handle such a large order in time.

Rebecca must be taken to London for a week or so.

Rebecca did not object but went along meekly, traveling up by train with Louisa, their maids, and a footman, putting up at a hotel since her brother was out of town. She did not object because she wanted the month prior to her wedding to be so filled with activity that she would have no time to think. She did not want to think.

There was terror hovering somewhere in the direction of thought.

And she made no objection because she realized the necessity of buying a trousseau. For almost two years she had worn nothing but black. She had had a few gray dresses made some months before, but even those would be inappropriate to her new life. She had meant it when

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she had told David that it would be a discourtesy to him to carry her mourning for her first husband into a marriage with him.

She could not marry as a half-measure. She could never, of course, offer David her love. There was none left to offer. But she would give him everything else. She could not in clear conscience marry him if anything was withheld. Hence the terror that constantly hovered at the edge of her consciousness. It had been easy to give everything to Julian. There had never been any thought to holding anything back—even that which she had never really enjoyed giving. It had been all rusher body and her whole self. It was not going to be easy with David.

Everything had to be new. The clothes Julian had bought for her, the ones she had worn before his death, had all been packed away into boxes and were in the attic at Craybourne. Most of them would have been out of fashion anyway, but even those that were not would stay in the boxes. Eventually she would ask Louisa to have them distributed among the servants and the poor. She would not take anything from her first marriage into her second.

She had given her wedding ring to the earl and asked him if he would keep it somewhere safe.

Thinking of Julian as dead and gone, putting him firmly into her past, living a present, and planning a future—it all brought a yawning emptiness with it that was in many ways worse than the grief had been. At least then there had been some emotion to sustain her. Now there was none. Hence again the terror that she pushed firmly away from the thoughts that occupied her day-to-day life.

She kept reminding herself that she had decided before agreeing to marry David that it was time to live again. And that was what she was going to do. Perhaps she had made a mistake in accepting him—she dared not dwell on that possibility—but there were positive things to look forward to. She would have her own home for the first time in her life and plenty of responsibilities there. It would be a new start.

She would be too busy to dwell on memories that could do nothing but sap the energy from her life. There was some excitement in being able to look

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ahead again. Louisa's exuberance was somewhat infectious. If she could just ignore the terror, Rebecca thought, there was much to be thankful for.

She attended church with David—and with the earl and countess—each Sunday except the one she spent in London, and heard the banns being read. She sat with him— and them—at meals and walked with him and rode with him and spent evenings in the drawing room with him. But they were almost never alone together.

They almost never spoke directly to each other. The only times she ever touched him happened when she took his arm to be escorted from place to place.

The festive mood that pervaded the house when the wedding drew close and the house guests began to arrive surprised her. Louisa's excitement she had grown accustomed to, but it seemed strange to see her mother and her aunt both smiling and crying as they hugged her on their arrival—and they had traveled such a long way just for her wedding. Her brother too hugged her and kissed her affectionately and told her how happy he was for her. Even her sister-in-law seemed pleased for her. David's relatives and friends filled the house with boisterous noise and laughter.

She had not expected her wedding to be such a festive occasion. It was all rather as if Julian had never been. Yet the very thought made her realize how foolish she was to have expected that they would all be sober-faced out of respect for his memory. Julian was no more than that—a memory. He was nothing to most of the guests gathered for her wedding and David's. Even to David and the earl he was nothing more than a memory.

Was he more to her? Was he still more than that? Her heart was buried with him, but surely the rest of her could go on without him.

Must go on. She was about to make a new marriage.

And so she awoke on the morning of her wedding, saw sunshine beyond the still-drawn curtains at her windows, and smiled determinedly. This was her wedding day and she was about to give herself to David for the rest of her life.

Soon she was forced to smile, whether she wanted to or not. It seemed that no sooner had she stepped out of

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an early and sweet-smelling bath than her dressing room was filled—with her maid, with her mother and her aunt, with Louisa.

And later with Denise, her sister-in-law, and inexplicably with Louisa's maid. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. There was a great deal of laughter.

Rebecca talked and laughed along with them.

She was not to wear white. She was no virgin bride, after all, but a widow. She wore a dress of royal blue. She had given in to fashion and had a hooped petticoat made in London. She agreed now that it was a far more comfortable garment than the several layers of petticoats she usually wore, and left the legs free to move. Her skirt looked fuller and swayed pleasingly when she moved. The neckline of her dress was lower than usual and trimmed with a collar of broderie anglaise. The sleeves were wide and open-mouthed, flaring at the wrists in a pagoda shape. Her white undersleeves matched the collar.

There was to be no bridal veil. She had bought a bonnet to match the dress. But Louisa had other ideas.

"I have had a bouquet made for you," she said. "It should be here at any moment. It is mostly of pink roses—your favorites, Rebecca."

"But I am not ..." Rebecca began to protest.

"Oh, yes, you are," Louisa said briskly. "You most certainly are a bride."

"And you must carry flowers, Rebecca," Denise agreed.

"Oh, yes, dearest," Rebecca's mother said.

So she would look like a bride after all. She still could not quite believe that she was one. It all seemed so very different from the last time. But she resolutely closed her mind to those particular memories.

"And I have had a matching garland made for your hair," Louisa said, clasping her hands to her bosom and gazing admiringly at her friend. "Oh, you do look lovely, Rebecca."

"A garland?" Rebecca looked at her in some distrust. "I am no girl, Louisa. I shall wear a bonnet."

"Oh, not all about your head," Louisa said. She laughed gaily.

"Were you picturing something like Ophelia? Just a small one to twine about your braids. It will be very becoming. And it will show your glorious

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hair to advantage. I would cheerfully kill for your golden hair." She laughed again.

"It would look very pretty, dearest," her mother said.

"Let's try it, mum," her maid suggested as a knock on the door heralded the arrival of the flowers.

Rebecca sat meekly on the stool before the mirror. There was color in her cheeks, she noticed. She was used to seeing herself looking pale. But the room was hot with so many people in it. And now it was filling with the smell of roses.

Her hair, dressed à l'Impératrice, folding back over softly rounded pads from a center part to reveal her temples and ears, did not look greatly different after her maid had finished her task. Mere wisps of leaves and petals showed in the mirror like a delicate, colored halo.

She had to turn her head from side to side to catch glimpses of the garland.

"Oh, dearest, you look beautiful," her mother said, leaning over her from behind and hugging her, careful not to touch her head. "And you have a gloriously sunny, warm day for your wedding. You are going to be happy. I know it. I have always had a soft spot for David." There were tears in her eyes.

There was a time when both her mother and her father had told her that it was David she should encourage, not Julian. There had been an understanding between them and the earl for years to encourage such a match, they had said. She had been surprised that they would even consider David for her, given his wild reputation, though he had seemed to mature and get into less trouble as he grew to manhood. It had been before the time of Flora's disgrace. But of course, in her parents' eyes he had been—and still was—a viscount and heir to an earldom, whereas Julian had been a mere baronet.

Well, her mother was to have her wish at last. Rebecca turned on the stool, smiling, and got to her feet. And found herself being hugged and kissed by all the ladies present, while the two maids smiled their approval.

Rebecca held on to her smile. Everything was beginning.

Everything—a whole new life. The ladies were all leaving, summoned away to the carriages that were waiting to take them to church. And Horace, her brother,

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was standing in the suddenly empty doorway of her dressing room, smiling at her, holding out his hands to her, kissing her on both cheeks, and telling her how lovely she looked.

"With hands like ice," he added.

"Being a bride is nervous business," she said. "I look all right, Horace? The flowers do not make me look ridiculously girlish?''

"You look good enough to eat to me," he said. "Besides, Rebecca, if that roomful of women approved of your appearance, then who am I to contradict them? Mama always has an eye to what is right and proper. So does Denise. Are you ready?"

She nodded and reached for the small bouquet of roses.

"We'll be on our way, then," he said. "We don't want to keep a churchful of people waiting, do we?"

No, they certainly did not want to do that. What might be excusable in a blushing young bride would seem in poor taste for a mature widow. Besides, there was no point in delay. There was a new life to be begun and one part of her was eager to begin it. Eager to outdistance her doubts and that niggling feeling that she was betray-ing a man who was long dead.

In some ways, she thought after she had been handed down from the carriage outside the church and entered its cool porch on her brother's arm, it must be easier to be a bride than a groom.

Everything began as soon as the bride arrived. There was no time for last-minute doubts and jitters. And the bride entered the church from behind everyone, though it was true that everyone turned a head to see her come. It must be hard to be the groom, standing at the front of the church for an uncertain number of minutes before his bride's arrival, the eyes of everyone focused on him.

She wondered how long David had been waiting.

He looked wondrously handsome in formal morning dress, with gray trousers, silver embroidered waistcoat, white linen, and dark blue frock coat. He was not at all outshone by the Guards' officer at his side, resplendent in scarlet-coated dress uniform. She noticed for the first time that David did not follow the current fashion for

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heavy mustaches. He was clean-shaven. She was glad of it.

He stood still and tall, his feet slightly apart, his hands at his back, watching her approach. Her bridegroom. At her last wedding he had been standing where the officer was standing now. He had been Julian's best man. Rebecca felt her smile slip and did not readjust it though she pushed the memory firmly from her mind. At least-thank God—it had been in a different church, the church at her father's home.

She did not smile again. Could not smile. It was all so real. Dear God, it was so very real. The organ music was coming to an end, the hushed murmur of voices was reverting to expectant silence, and she was turning with her groom to face the vicar.

She heard the words of the service no more than she had the first time. But for different reasons. Then she had been borne along on the euphoria of the occasion. Julian had been at her side. Her love for him had glowed through her and her longing to be walking away from the altar with him. His wife. Walking into the happily ever after. Now she felt paralyzed by the responsibility she had taken on, by the necessity of giving what she had not even been conscious of giving the first time. By the necessity to forget.