Guilty Pleasures (46 page)

Most of the other guests had already arrived. George stood nervously, twisting his silvery top hat, looking incredibly dashing in his dove-grey frock coat. Lance sauntered up to him and smiled. “Hey, bud, ready to get hog-tied?”

George gaped. “My God, Lance! Is that you? You really got into the spirit of things, I must say!”

“George, you look great!”

George nodded and fiddled with his gloves, dropped his hat and swore under his breath. His hands shook.

“For God’s sake man, what’s the matter? You’re married already. This is just a formality.”

“One day, when it happens to you, you’ll know, Lance. This woman . . . I tell you, she gives me hope, Lance. Hope that maybe there really
is
a God, and we’re not just worms crawling around in the darkness, blindly searching for a light that doesn’t exist.”

“Shit, George! I never thought I’d see the day I’d hear you wax lyrical, although you always were a romantic fool.”

“That was what kept us together through thick and thin, despite our differences. We are
both
romantic fools.” George hugged him fiercely. “I wish for you what I’ve found for myself, my brother.” His brown eyes sparkled with unshed tears.
 

Lance found himself swallowing down a wave of unmanly sentiment. He patted George’s shoulder vigorously. “There now, man! Have you got the ring?”
 

George grinned, and pulled out the little box from his waistcoat pocket. “Here; safe and sound.”
 

“Lance? Is that you?” A well-remembered throaty voice intruded.

Lance nodded.
 

“It took me a while to figure out it was you. How dramatic!”
 

Lance turned to face Caroline, looking delightful in a lilac lace Victorian ball gown, her silver-blond hair upswept into an elegant bouffant, her throat bedecked with a broad band of silver-set amethysts.
 

Lance smiled. She looked good; time had been kind—and the surgeon skilled. Her lips still promised lush delights, her violet eyes, enhanced by fascinating lines that hinted at sensual experience, still sparkled in invitation. She reached up to brush soft lips to his cheek, enveloping him in a cloud of jasmine. “Darling Lance, I’ve missed you!”

“Hello, Caro. I’ve missed you, too. You look very well.”

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him flirtatiously and offered him her arm. “Would you be so kind as to show me around?”

Lance took the proffered arm and allowed her to draw him away from George. “You’ve been here longer than me, Caroline. That was a lame excuse.”

“Nonsense, I wanted to talk to you alone. So what? We’re old, old friends.”

“Some of us older than others.”

“Meow, darling! That was beneath you.”

“I
am
sorry. I suppose I’m still a little resentful.”

“Twenty years ago, Lance, I made the best decision for the both of us. The decision you weren’t mature enough to make.”

“Not mature enough to make decisions, but mature enough to fuck?”

“Touché.” Caroline was pale, her lips drawn into a narrow line that aged her immeasurably. “I suppose I deserved that, but still, darling, a woman always prefers to be the one to do the leaving. I didn’t want to wake up one morning and find you’d outgrown me.”

“It’s taken me these twenty years, Caro, but I finally have. I’ve chosen another path, one that isn’t shadowed by what we were.” Lance took her hand and brought it to his lips. He turned it to press a kiss onto her palm. “I don’t regret us, Caro. I never will, but you were wrong. Wrong to use me, wrong to leave me, and I was mistaken in my devotion.”

Caroline drew her breath in sharply, her anger drawing an ugly caul over her exquisite features. She unlocked her lips to reply, then thought better of it and turned away, the train of her gown swishing behind her.

Lance turned and walked back towards George, amiably chatting to their mutual stepfather, who joyfully embraced him. The remaining guests arrived, gorgeously attired ladies filling the salon with a rainbow of soft-toned ball gowns, contrasting with the sober elegance of the men’s Victorian-style frock coats.

Lance glimpsed Millie, quietly conferring with Hendricks who looked splendid in his livery while his servers moved smoothly through the crowd proffering flutes of champagne on silver trays.
 

She’d never looked so lovely to him. She wore a soberly cut black velvet ball gown that left her soft dimpled shoulders bare, and a pretty jet and marquisette necklace and long matching earrings dancing around her round face. Her hair was swept up, and flirted around her temples in soft tendrils.
 

George dragged him away to introduce him to several of Francine’s relations and friends and finally stopped in front of Millie who was busily chatting and dimpling up at a distinguished looking man in his late fifties. “Miss Deafly, let me introduce you to my best man, Lance Packhard. Lance this is our hostess, Miss Millicent Deafly.”

Millie swept a cursory gaze over him and smiled absently. “Charmed, Mr. Packhard.”

Lance nodded stiffly and turned away, pursued by George. She hadn’t recognised him. In fact, she’d not even looked at him. She’d been too busy talking to some bloody man.
 

“Hey, man, you didn’t give me time to introduce you to the French ambassador, Jean-Luc Chevalier-Dupree. He’s the one springing for the entire extravaganza, you know. Francine and his daughter, Delphine, have been best friends from the cradle, and he’s always seen himself as her father, too. A wonderful man.”

“Sorry, George. Maybe later, I think they’re signalling us to take our places.”

A tall man in a dog collar stood under the flowered arch. George and Lance quickly took up their places, and waited as the orchestra struck up Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” Francine, a vision in seed pearls and blond lace, her face enchanting under a delicate sparkling veil, walked in on the arm of the tall man, who solemnly handed her over to George with a tremulous smile and a hint of Gallic emotion clouding his eyes.

The priest began. “Dearly beloved, we are here today to bless the union of George and Francine who, in choosing to share their lives in love, have also enriched us with hope for the future. George, do you take this woman in love, kindness, and understanding, freely accepting what changes life might bring to her in the future?”

George was crying. “I do. Yes, I do!”

“Francine, do you take this man in love, kindness, and understanding, freely accepting what changes life might bring to him in the future?”

“I will.” Francine’s voice was firm and sure, resonant with love.

George fumbled at his pocket and managed to take out the ring without dropping it. “Francine, please accept this ring as a symbol of my love and fidelity.”

“George, I will wear this ring as a symbol of the bond between us, as your wife and faithful lover.”

“May God bless this union, may he shower you with his blessings, and endow you with his everlasting love and a good measure of his patience, too—you’ll need it.” The priest chuckled happily at his own joke. “You may kiss the bride!”

The guests surged forward, swallowing the happy couple in a congratulatory wave.

Lance looked around for Millie and saw her surreptitiously wiping away a tear. She stepped forward to embrace Francine, and the two shared a smile of pure feminine understanding.

“Thank you, Millie. It’s a dream come true!”

Lance looked down the gleaming table at Millie, surprisingly seated next to the freaking French ambassador, partaking of the dinner. In fact, she was socialising enthusiastically with at least
one
of the guests.
 

He studied the man, haunted by a strange familiarity, something about his gestures, the set of his lips. The man smiled, and suddenly Lance got it. He looked like him, like Lance, with a few more years and a more practised charm.

Millie’s tinkling laughter assaulted his ears with monotonous regularity. The silvery head frequently bent forward to speak confidentially in her ear, the grey eyes under the crow-black eyebrows glowing with admiration. Hendricks’s servers placed plate after plate of delights before him:
Consommé Julienne, Langoustes à la Diable, Filets de Truite à la Reine, Noisettes de Mouton à la Chasseur, Asperges au Sauce Hollandaise, Pommes de Terre Dauphine,
and
Zéphirs de Volaille à la Renaissance.

He could barely taste a thing, consoling himself with the variety of wines, unobtrusively replenished by the velvet-footed wait staff. The drink seemed to sharpen his hearing and blunt his judgment.
 

“Jean-Luc, you’re an absolute shocker! I won’t believe a word of it!” Millie exclaimed.

“My dear, come with me to Carcassonne next weekend and I’ll prove it to you, on my honour.”

She was laughing. His Millie was laughing, lifting one dimpled shoulder flirtatiously. “Certainly not. I don’t think you should swear on your honour, you don’t seem the least bit trustworthy, sir! I know what French men are like.”

“My little English rose, what are we like?”

“Well, you are rumoured to think yourselves irresistible.”

“All the more reason to come. I promise you will not be disappointed.”

The fucking Frog bent down to brush his lips against the delicate skin of her wrist.
 

Lance saw her suddenly frown and pale, her hand flying to her mouth. She pushed back her chair and ran for the door to the cloakrooms.
 

“Millie!” the Frenchman called out in alarm. “Are you well?” He got up and followed her out.
 

Lance was stuck, frozen in place, trapped by his disguise.

Hendricks followed and returned shortly to murmur something discreetly in Francine’s ear, who also rose and hurried towards the cloakroom. Not long afterwards Francine and Jean-Luc returned looking concerned. They conferred with George, then Jean-Luc kissed Francine and Delphine on the cheek and left.
 

Lance signalled George. “What’s up?”
 

George leaned down, frowning. “Our hostess fainted. Jean-Luc is taking her to the hospital. The poor girl is not well at all.”

“Probably drunk,” Lance said through gritted teeth. “The way she was throwing herself around.”

George looked at him strangely. “That’s a bit harsh. Besides, Jean-Luc said she drank only water and ate hardly anything at all. You, however, look like you’ve had more than what’s good for you.”

“You’re right, George. I’m sorry.”

“Just be cool,” George said, turning away. “Let me find out what’s going on.”

Hendricks took the helm and the celebration continued smoothly. At the end of the sumptuous dinner, he escorted the guests to the small salon—charmingly decorated in the style of the now defunct smoking-parlour—where he served them port and Madeira, while his staff transformed the dining room into a ballroom.

The table had been removed, low divans and loveseats scattered along the walls and one round table held the magnificent wedding cake, draped in silver sugar cobwebs, charming silver marzipan mice with pink tails climbing from tier to tier. At the very top was one solitary white sugar high-heeled slipper with a silver and diamante buckle.

The delighted guests distributed themselves around the salon, some gossiping, or availing themselves of the champagne, a few venturing out to dance.