A Kiss to Remember (21 page)

“God in ’eaven,” he whispered, clinging to Diana’s hand as if it was his only hope. “You’ve got to ’elp me! We’ve got to stop ’er before she sells ’er soul to the divil ’isself!”

Nicholas awoke to
the music of birdsong and bells. He sprang out of bed and threw the window open wide. A patchwork quilt of rolling green meadows dotted with fat, woolly sheep shimmered beneath a dazzling vault of blue. The joyful pealing of the church bells seemed to be calling his name, inviting him to partake in some wondrous celebration. Bracing his hands on the windowsill, he leaned into the sun-warmed breeze, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving.

It was the perfect summer day.

It was his wedding day.

He grinned and stretched, flexing his stiff muscles. Although it had been near dawn when he and Laura had slipped into the house, struggling to muffle both their footsteps and their laughter, he didn’t feel the least bit weary. She had finally confessed why she’d been wandering around the wood at that unholy hour. She’d been searching for wild rose petals to top the syllabub.

Cookie was planning to surprise him with at their wedding breakfast. He shook his head, marveling at the intricate and frequently baffling workings of the female mind.

Leaving the window ajar, he padded to the chair and slipped into his trousers, not giving the dressing table mirror a single glance. He’d been a fool to think he could find himself in its cold, polished surface. If he could be even half the man he saw reflected in Laura’s loving eyes, he would be content. It no longer mattered who he had been before losing his memory. All that mattered was who he would be after today—a husband to Laura and a father to her children.

He was reaching for his shirt when a small furry head butted him in the ankle. The yellow kitten twined herself around his leg, her raucous purr making her sound more like a miniature tiger.

Nicholas scooped her up, cradling her plush warmth against his naked chest. “You know I can’t resist you, you insatiable little vixen, but I must warn you that this is your last morning to have me all to yourself.”

A heavy knock sounded on the door.

“You may come in, Cookie,” he called out. “I’m not dressed.”

Cookie poked her head in the door, blushing beneath her mobcap. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Nick, teasin’ an old woman that way. If I was to barge in here with you wearin’ nothin’ but that naughty grin of yours, I doubt my poor old heart could stand the shock.”

“I’d wager that poor old heart of yours is stronger than you let on. And what’s this?” he asked, surveying
the neatly folded pile of garments in her arms. “I was expecting a tray of crumpets.”

“I haven’t spent
all
my time on Miss Laura’s gown, you know.” She held out her offering to him, ducking her head shyly.

He accepted it, discovering a stylish tailcoat cut from deep Spanish blue broadcloth and a pair of buff-colored trousers.

“Why, Cookie, what have you done?” he murmured, running a hand over her painstaking stitches. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a more handsome suit of wedding clothes.”

She waved away his praise. “It was just some old fabric I found in the attic. I wanted you to do my girl proud today when you stood up with her in front of all them nosy villagers.” She gave his hips a worried glance. “I do hope the trousers’ll fit. I had to guess at your size.”

Nicholas slowly lifted his head to meet her gaze, blinking innocently.

Blushing anew, she backed toward the door, shaking a finger at him. “Go on with you, you shameless flirt! If you don’t mind them wicked thoughts of yours, I’m goin’ to run straight to Miss Laura and tell her you can’t marry her ’cause you’re so besotted with me.”

Nicholas threw back his head, laughing aloud. “Then Laura would be wrestling Dower for his pitchfork and I’d be right back where I started.” As a shadow passed over Cookie’s face, he sobered. “Tell me, has there been any word from him?”

She mustered a brave smile. “Don’t you fret about that old heathen of mine. He’ll do anythin’ to keep from settin’ foot in a church. Just you wait and see—
he’ll come trottin’ over that hill out there as soon as he smells the ham at the weddin’ breakfast.”

Laura inclined her head, holding her breath as Lottie crowned her with a circlet of woven rosebuds. She straightened, catching her reflection in the standing mirror George had dragged down from the attic. Although the rest of her hair had been gathered in a loose topknot, shimmering ringlets framed her face, coaxed into place with a pair of blistering hot curling tongs and a few impatient tears.

All the pin jabbings she’d endured in the past two weeks had been well worth it. The high-waisted gown fit her to perfection, its puffed cap sleeves trimmed in Brussels lace baring her slender arms. On her feet she wore a pair of delicate kid slippers fastened with ribbons of cream satin.

Laura didn’t feel like a bride. She felt like a princess.

“Do pinch some color into my cheeks, won’t you, Lottie? And make sure and have some hartshorn at the ready in case I should swoon during the ceremony.” Laura hugged herself, trying to still the churning of her stomach. “I never knew it was possible to be so happy and so terrified all at the same time.”

“You have every right to be happy,” Lottie said firmly, giving Laura’s right cheek a stern twist. “In just two days you’ll be twenty-one and Arden Manor will be yours forever.”

Laura stared down at her little sister as if she’d just sprouted an extra head. Not only had she forgotten about her birthday, she’d nearly forgotten why she had dragged Nicholas back to the manor in the first place.

Since that day, the stakes had climbed much higher. Now she knew that no crumbling pile of bricks, no matter how dear, would be a home without him in it.

She was searching for the words to explain that to Lottie when George appeared in the doorway, his face scarlet with distress. “Laura! Cookie put too much starch in my collar and it’s poking me in the ears!”

“Don’t turn your head, George,” Laura warned. “You’ll put your eye out.” She turned back to her sister, giving Lottie a brief, but fierce, hug. “I suppose there’s no need to explain my happiness to you. Someday you’ll understand for yourself.”

“And someday
you
will,” Lottie whispered, her eyes bleak as she watched a laughing Laura guide George from the room.

All of Arden turned out for Laura’s nuptials.

While Betsy and Alice Bogworth dabbed delicately at their eyes, several of Laura’s rejected suitors honked loudly into their handkerchiefs. Rumor had it that Tom Dillmore had even bathed for the occasion, although the elderly widow sitting next to him kept her handkerchief pressed firmly over her nose. A gasp went up from the parishioners when Wesley Trumble came marching in, clean-shaven except for the tufts of hair springing from his ears. Even though it was only half past nine in the morning, a drunken Abel Grantham was telling everyone who would listen about the time he had to jump off his donkey and rescue little Laura after she fell into the manger during one of their Christmas theatricals. His son, Tooley, was asleep and snoring with his hands folded over his massive belly before the wedding even started, no doubt conserving his energy for the
breakfast to be served at the manor following the nuptials.

Cookie sat all alone in the family pew. Her handsome bonnet was trimmed with feathers plucked from one of the chickens she had slaughtered only that morning. George stood straight and tall at Nicholas’s side, looking at least fourteen in his bow-tied cravat and starched collar. Lottie stood beside Laura, gripping her posy of larkspur and lilies so tightly that her knuckles were white.

But Laura only had eyes for Nicholas. Although they were both facing the altar, she kept stealing glances at him from beneath her downcast lashes, noticing things she’d never noticed before—the shallow brackets that lined his mouth even when he wasn’t smiling; the way the hair at his neck sought to curl of its own accord; the tiny nick on his throat where he’d cut himself shaving. Last night she had buried her mouth against that throat, tasting his supple skin while his beautiful, deft fingers touched her in places she’d never even dared to touch herself. Yet today he seemed more of a stranger to her than ever before.

Reverend Tilsbury droned on and on from the Book of Common Prayer, his voice barely audible over the humming in her ears.

Until it suddenly deepened, bringing each word into vivid focus. “I require and charge you both, as you will answer at the dreadful Day of Judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, you do now confess it.”

Lottie drew in an audible breath. George tugged at his collar with two fingers.

A bubble of silence seemed to swell around Laura, sucking all the air from her lungs. She stole a panicked glance at Nicholas. He winked at her, his lips curving into a heartening smile. Suddenly, Laura could breathe again.

He was no stranger. He was the man she loved. And if she had to stand before God someday after their life together was done and confess the secret of her heart, she would. Because he was the only secret she’d ever had worth keeping.

Laura held her tongue until it came time to take him for her wedded husband. She did so without faltering, her voice ringing crystal clear through the sunlit nave as she pledged to love, cherish, and obey him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death did them part.

The reverend held out his prayer book, clearing his throat expectantly. With a start of dismay, Laura realized that Nicholas had no ring to give her. Or so she thought until he drew a narrow circlet of gold from the pocket of his waistcoat and laid it gently on the book.

The priest handed the ring back and Nicholas slid it onto Laura’s finger. “I found it in Lady Eleanor’s jewel box,” he whispered. “If she was as generous as you say she was, I didn’t think she’d mind.”

Laura gazed down at the lustrous garnet that had once belonged to Lady Eleanor’s grandmother, then smiled up at him through a veil of tears. “I think she’d be very pleased indeed.”

A beaming Reverend Tilsbury joined their right hands. Holding them aloft, he said in a voice that carried to the far corners of the church, “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

“And a hearty amen to that!” Cookie shouted as the rest of the parishioners broke into thunderous applause.

George emerged from the church with Lottie trailing behind him. While Laura and Nicholas received their first Holy Communion as man and wife, he and his sister joined the others who were waiting in the churchyard to congratulate them.

Drifting toward the shade of an oak tree, George gave his frilled cuffs a practiced flick, just as he’d seen his new brother-in-law do a dozen times. “You know, Lottie, I’ve been thinking that maybe we were wrong about Nicholas all along. He might not be such a bad fellow after all.”

Sullen silence greeted his words.

George sighed. “I know the two of you got off on the wrong foot, but if you could just stop sulking for five minutes, you might be able to see …” He turned to find himself addressing thin air. His sister had disappeared.

“Lottie?” He scanned the crowd milling about the churchyard, but her bouncing golden curls were nowhere to be found.

Nicholas and Laura appeared in the doorway of the church, their smiles as dazzling as the morning sunshine. They only made it as far as the first step before they were besieged by a chattering mob of well-wishers. George fought his way through them, finally emerging at Laura’s side with his hair mussed and his cravat crooked.

He tugged sharply at her sleeve. “Laura! Have you seen Lottie?”

Still clutching Nicholas’s arm, Laura beamed down at him, looking positively dazed with happiness. “Hmmm? Lottie? Yes, of course I saw her. Didn’t she look lovely in her new pink frock?”

Before he could explain, she had turned away to greet someone else. Recognizing that he wasn’t going to receive any help from that quarter, George dashed back down the steps. Cookie was climbing into the manor’s donkey cart, accompanied by several of the village women she’d recruited to help with the breakfast.

As she clucked the horses into motion, George trotted alongside the cart. “Lottie’s gone missing, Cookie. Have you seen her?”

Cookie laughed heartily. “Do you really think you’ll find your little sister where there’s work to be done? If I know my Lottie, she won’t pop up till the table’s laid with all her favorite sweets.”

As she gave the reins a brisk snap, George swung around, his frantic gaze searching the churchyard. Although Lottie was nowhere in sight, he could hear her voice as clearly as if she was whispering in his ear.

In Miss Radcliffe’s novels, the villain who seeks to compromise the heroine’s virtue always meets with an untimely demise before he can succeed.