Page 70 of Taken to the Grave
The valet had admonished him to stand still, but Hugh still caught the slight tug at the corner of his mouth.
The morning after Philip’s letter burned in the grate inside Audrey’s bedchamber, Hugh told Basil to purchase whatever he thought necessary for a wedding at the new residence. The valet had taken charge of the planning, rapturous with the task, and entirely disapproving when Hugh had rejected his suggestion that the wedding take place in the more fashionable St. George’s Cathedral. Audrey had agreed that fashion and convention did not matter. There could be no better way to christen their new home than with their own wedding.
Now, Hugh stood beside Thornton at the front of the drawing room. As the furniture at 19 Bedford Street had yet to be moved, the new house was still mostly unfurnished, but it wasn’t empty. Floral arrangements dressed the corners of the room, and a crowd of about a dozen people milled about. Everyone from Genie and Fournier and Tobias to Audrey’s sister and her husband Reggie to Sir Gabriel Poston and his wife, Lady Rebecca, and Hugh’s cook, Mrs. Peets. Basil waited patiently at the door to the receiving room, while Sir, who had reluctantly permitted Basil to tie a cravat, looked sharp but bored as he rocked on his heels beside Thornton. A vicar stood on Hugh’s other side.
It was a small crowd, and excepting Millie, none of them were blood relations. But everyone here was someone he and Audrey cared for, and who cared for them in return. These were the people who would be in their lives from that day forward.
Hugh wanted to rock onto his heels, as Sir was, but instead, he twitched his nose at the scent of the lily and honeysuckle nosegay pinned to his lapel.
“Patience,” Thornton murmured. “It isn’t as though she is going to flee. Unless, of course, she comes to her senses.”
The bruises on Thornton’s face had not had much time to heal, and his arm was still in a sling to keep his broken fingers stationary. But despite his battered appearance, his friend claimed he’d never been so popular. “I can’t tell you how many women seem to think I’m a hero for enduring torture just to save your skin,” he’d said with a waggle of his brow—which had thankfully pained him.
“The moment this wedding concludes, I’m booting you all out of this house. Beginning with you,” Hugh told Thornton, his voice muted by the murmuring in the drawing room.
Their guests had been mingling while waiting for the bride to arrive, but now, an hour after Audrey had been whisked upstairs to dress, they had taken their seats—the chairs arranged by Basil to create a center aisle for Audrey to come down.
“I know you are eager to be alone with your bride, but I’m afraid no one here cares. I hear Mrs. Peets has made a lovely cake for afterward, and I intend to sit and eat several slices,” his friend said.
“These chairs are the only furniture in the house. I kept the rooms bare for a reason. No furniture means no sitting, which means no lingering.”
Thornton whispered, “I hope you at least had a bed installed into the bedchamber.”
Hugh glared at him. Sir leaned forward to look past Thornton. “Does that mean Baz and I have to go back to the old digs?”
“It does,” Hugh replied, his patience wearing thin. Where was she? How long did it take to dress?
“I can’t take Baz for a full week all by myself. You won’t mind if I go back to Surrey, will you?” Sir asked.
That he’d just returned from there the previous day didn’t signify. Sir had been helping his mother and sisters settle into the cottage and small plot of land Hugh had offered them at Cranleigh. Mrs. Givens had accepted it without hesitation, knowing that life would be far better for them there than in London. Spending the last week there had also kept him away from the news in regard to his father’s murderer.
The trial against Hammond Abbey had been swift and decisive. Abbey would face the noose. A handful of Sanctuary members had been revealed publicly, including Sir Oliver Pendleton, who, as co-owner of theMorning Post, had disclosed the story of the bodies to help along Mr. Gye’s crisis at Vauxhall. However, after the fiasco, Mr. Gye decided against selling the lease, and in the last week, Vauxhall had become a crush again.
“Go to Surrey if you like,” Hugh said. “So long as no one comes back here for one full week. The duchess and I will get on just fine, all on our own.”
Thornton snickered, but Sir leaned forward again to look past him. “You mean the viscountess.”
Hugh’s chest clamped hard, and all his impatience fizzled. He blinked, his eyes strangely burning. Speaking around a sudden knob in his throat, he said, “The viscountess. Right you are, Sir.”
Had he never been named viscount, she would have married him still, of that he was certain. She would have become Mrs. Audrey Marsden just as willingly as she would have the Viscountess Neatham. The only thing that she would care about was simply being hiswife. He swallowed hard, and Thornton clapped him on the back, as if in understanding.
The doors to the drawing room opened, and Hugh’s heart lurched. Basil stepped to the side and cleared his throat. Helooked inordinately pleased with the ceremony of it all as he snapped his fingers, and the strains of a violin filled the room. Hugh’s butler, Whitlock, had been in an orchestra in his youth and had offered to play.
Everyone turned in their seats to view Audrey’s attendant, Cassie, entering first. As she took measured steps down the aisle, Hugh refrained from tapping his foot, though just barely.
“A sloth may have moved faster,” Thornton muttered as she came to stand across from them. She shot him a glare, but then faced the doors again.
And then, there she was. Audrey’s eyes immediately found him, and Hugh was lost. She was a vision in cream silk. Perfect in every way. He stood tall and waited for his bride to come to him.
Two years ago,Audrey had descended a set of steps, into the dark, dank cellar of the Brown Bear on Bow Street. In that moment, her heart had been in her throat. Her best friend, her husband, had just been arrested for a crime that she knew, in her soul, he never could have committed. When she’d walked into that cellar and met with the arrogant, belittling arresting officer, Audrey never could have imagined that she was, in fact, meeting her next husband. The love of her life.
As she entered the drawing room, clutching the small bouquet of lilies and honeysuckle, the officer she had so detested upon their first meeting blinked to keep his tears at bay. Now, she knew Hugh Marsden was neither arrogant nor belittling. She’d come to know him as the kindest, most honorable, caring, intelligent, and loyal man she had ever met. He could still be infuriating at times, but she’d never felt more loved.
A person’s life could take such curious and serendipitous turns. Though Philip was gone, he would always have a place in her heart. Without him, she would have gone through with the arranged marriage to Lord Bainbury. She would have continued to feel like an outcast, afraid to be who she was.
Most importantly, without Philip, she would have never met Hugh Marsden.
As she walked slowly down the aisle between the chairs filled with their friends and family, a violin playing a soft piece, she felt full of gratitude that they were here, rather than in some church that held no meaning for them. This would be their home. It would be where they would love each other and grow old together and raise children together. There could be no better place to take Hugh as her husband.
