Page 83 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

The wedding took place in a small stone chapel on the Redruth estate that had seen centuries of Redruth weddings and baptisms. Inside, the Kubanian and Russian guests nearly equalled the English guests in the small, select group invited to the ceremony. Illarion looked over the front row where Stepan and Ruslan sat with Nikolay’s wife, Klara, and her father, Alexei Grigoriev. Behind them sat Dimitri Petrovich, his English wife, Evie, and their precious two-month-old son, Alexander. Nikolay stood beside him, nudging him as the heavy wood doors of the chapel opened and Dove entered in a shaft of sunlight.

Illarion straightened at the sight of his bride, his pulse quickening. The strains of a single violin began to play as she and her father walked down the aisle. She was stunning in her mother’s wedding gown, her grandmother’s pearls about her neck, a wreath of bright blue forget-me-nots set atop her platinum hair. On the English side of the aisle, Illarion saw her godmother swipe at an early tear. The gossip carried back to London would set the right tone: the bride had been radiant in something borrowed in her mother’s gown, something blue, in the forget-me-nots, something old, in the pearls, and something new in the exquisitely embroidered slippers that peeped beneath her skirts. All the traditions had been followed, including the reading of the banns. Illarion had waited four weeks for this and it was worth it.

He took her hand from the Duke and raised it to his lips. ‘You look beautiful, Snegoruchka,’ he murmured.

She smiled, grey eyes silvery with happy tears. ‘Now we know how the poem ends.’

‘She leaps into immortality.’

‘Love makes one immortal, I think.’ Dove squeezed his hand and his heart was full. Everyone should be able to choose this, to choose a marriage of love. This was what a wedding should be, he thought, as the vicar began the service. This was not a Russian wedding like Nikolay’s a few months earlier, done in the Orthodox way. There would be no crowns or wreaths, or circling the altar. There would not be the words he was familiar with. But there would be love and, if love was present, Illarion could do without the words and rituals.

Illarion slipped his mother’s wedding ring on Dove’s trembling hand and repeated the English words of the service. She was his now in the eyes of the world. She had been his in his heart far earlier. Lady Burton was taking credit for the match, telling everyone how she’d introduced them at Dove’s debut ball, that it was love at first sight. Illarion smiled at Dove. It had been no such thing, but he would allow Lady Burton the illusion. It made a good story. He’d already penned a poem he would present later at the wedding breakfast to commemorate the occasion. He’d put his four weeks to good use, writing poems and arranging for a honeymoon.

‘You may kiss the bride.’ Were there five sweeter words ever heard in a church? Illarion took her mouth in a kiss that promised a lifetime of kisses, a lifetime of love. He would make her other promises with his body later tonight when they were alone.

* * *

If the wedding ceremony had been kept selectively small, the wedding breakfast made up for it as the grandest public affair the Redruth estate had seen for some time. The doors of the Hall were thrown wide. The entire village was invited, as was anyone of consequence in the vicinity. There were tents and tables on the back lawn. The Duke had spared none of his largesse in marrying off his daughter—to a prince, he was careful to emphasise on several occasions. Who else but the Season’s most anticipated debutante would not only marry a prince, but would have her wedding attended by three other princes?

No one could suggest the wedding had been forced, or that the wedding had been on the sly. Some day, a few years from now when they took up their place in the London social whirl, he and Dove would appreciate the groundwork those words and efforts were to lay. Illarion reached for her hand as they mounted the dais to the high table for the wedding feast. For now, he just wanted to appreciate her, to appreciate the feeling of being a new bridegroom, a man wedded to one woman.

‘It’s a lovely day,’ Dove whispered, leaning close to kiss him.

‘It will be an even better night,’ he promised. But night was hours away. There was eating and drinking, and dancing before he could have Dove to himself. He didn’t mind. He felt like celebrating. His life had begun today. Tomorrow they would leave for a year-long honeymoon that would take them through Europe, stopping extensively in Florence for Dove to study art. After that, they might just keep going. There was China to see, and Turkey, and they had a whole house to furnish with their adventures.

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