Page 5 of To Catch a Viscount

Except, why… isn’t he here,a voice niggled at the back of her head.

Stop it!She fought the urge to clamp her hands over her ears and tamp out the thoughts and fears that had taken shape.

Charles loved her, deeply and truly.

There was certainly…somejustifiable reason for his delay.

Marcia forced herself to turn and steal another peek into the church at Lord Stormont, the tall, slender gentleman at the front of the church. He stood with his arms clasped behind his back and periodically looked down the long length of the aisle.

She found comfort and reassurance in that.

Because surely if Charles wasn’t coming, his best friend wouldn’t be standing at that altar, waiting for him to arrive.

He is coming.

Sometimes Marcia repeated those three words in her head in a clipped, firm way. Other times, she sang them silently, to try to distract herself from the discomfort of waiting.

Nonetheless, the mantra remained the same.

He is coming.

Just as she continued to believe that, a ticking clock somewhere in the hall chimed, marking the passage of fifteen minutes… and then another fifteen minutes.

There could be any number of reasons for why he was late.

Charles was responsible for four sisters, two who were out for the London Season. He was often squiring the spirited, noisy, and always endearing ladies to everything fromtonevents to ices at Gunter’s.

They were notorious for arriving after the expected hour.

With a grin, he’d often lamented about that to Marcia and then had smiled in that wistful, devoted, loving-brother way that had always touched her heart and reminded her of the manner of man he was and how fortunate she was that he’d offered her marriage.

Yes, there were many reasons for why Charles hadn’t yet arrived.

And she couldn’t even think of one why he wouldn’t come.

Her father, the man who’d raised her, abruptly stopped pacing just at her shoulder and stared in the direction of her own unblinking gaze.

“He is coming, Papa,” she said tightly.

“I know,” he returned with such firm conviction that she glanced over, believing him. “I’m sure there is a reason for his delay.”

“Theirdelay,” she corrected. Because that mattered. Surely. Charles’ difficult-to-corral sisters had to be the reason behind his absence.

“Yes, yes, that makes sense. I am sure…”

As his words trailed off, Marcia followed his stare to that tiny crack in the door.

Whispers had broken out in the church, a noisy buzz like the swarm of bees that pollinated her mother’s favorite lavender bush.

Marcia’s palms grew moist inside her gloves, and her mouth went dry, her throat becoming even more parched.

Through the crack, she saw a servant in the livery of her future husband’s family, a young footman whom she recognized from the dinner she and her family had first attended at Charles’ household.

A servant, but no Charles.

Marcia trembled.

“I… am certain he has merely come to announce that Thornton is on his way,” her father said.

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