“Evan?” Diana whispered. “What is it?”
Her voice seemed to pull him toward her from a long distance. He opened his eyes, trying to take in some air, and her hand came up to touch his cheek. The caress cooled his skin and seared his blood at the same time, and his gaze locked with hers, as if should he break their eye contact, he might spin off into the blood-soaked darkness of battle once more.
Slowly straightening, Evan panted, sucking in breath and swallowing. Two little furrows formed between Diana’s brows as she studied him. A murmur went through the crowd, and Evan felt like an animal in the menagerie at the Tower of London, to be gawked at and whispered over.
“Evan.” Marcus shook his shoulder. “Pull yourself together. This is no time for cold feet.”
Diana regarded him. Was it with suspicion? Revulsion?
She would run now. Run down the aisle, get away from him as fast as she could. Any second now, Marcus would clamp his hand on Evan’s wrist and shout for a doctor. He would find himself pitched into an asylum. He would never see his family again … what would happen to Diana? Would she think it a fortunate escape?
As if someone had doused him with cold water, he snapped back to attention. Realizing he had a death grip on her hand, he loosened his fingers, blinking and shaking his head to clear it.
“I beg your pardon. Please, sir.” He nodded to the rector. “It was just a dizzy spell.” Please believe me and just get on with it.
“Do you need to sit down?” The rector clasped his service book to his chest, pressing it against his clerical robes.
“No.” Evan shook his head. “I am quite fine. Let’s get this over with.” He winced at the harshness of his words as Diana flinched. “I mean, let’s go ahead with the ceremony.”
He glanced over his shoulder to find Shand only a few feet away, his hat in his hand, ready to lend aid. Evan gave a weak smile and jerked his chin. The little sergeant nodded and stepped back, but it was a comfort to know he was there.
The rector cleared his throat, and Evan and Diana faced him. Her flowers trembled, and she still had a worried tenseness to her brow, but her chin was up, and she appeared calm.
If she can do this, so can you.
“Dearly beloved,” the rector read from The Book of Common Prayer, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.”
Guilt smote Evan, and for a moment he was glad his father wasn’t there to see this. Not only was he about to marry a near stranger, but he was doing so without having spent time in prayer or contemplation. He wasn’t motivated by a desire to love and cherish this woman, but rather at the behest of that known hedonist and womanizer, the Prince Regent.
He was a fraud and a pawn.
And what of Diana? She was a pawn as well, with no more say in whom she married than a horse at Tattersall’s had in saying who purchased it. They were both well and truly trapped, and he had no business hoping that God would bless their union.
Evan started, realizing that the rector had stopped talking and was looking at him expectantly. Marcus nudged his elbow and murmured, “The ring?”
A ring? A sick feeling hit his gut. He’d forgotten to procure a wedding ring for his bride, and now the entire church was waiting. In a flash, he dropped Diana’s hand and jerked his regimental ring from his finger. It was a battered bit of gold with the bugle and crown of the Ninety-Fifth pressed into the oval top, and it was miles too big and masculine for her, but it was all he had, and it was dear to him. Several of his regiment had commissioned the rings after they landed on the Peninsula at Corunna, when he was a green officer, and he’d worn it at every battle.
Diana took one look at it and pressed her lips together. Her shoulders began to shake. For a moment he thought she might be weeping, but then it hit him. She was stifling laughter.
A chuckle at the absurdity of the situation hit Evan broadside, and he bit the inside of his cheek, trying to maintain some semblance of decorum. Marcus snickering at his elbow didn’t help.
The rector gave them a stern look, like a schoolmaster catching children playing a prank, and Evan tried to sober. He squeezed Diana’s hand, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, and for the first time thinking that perhaps things might be looking up. There might be hope for them yet, if she could laugh.
“Forasmuch,” the rector recited, “as Evan and Diana have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a Ring, and by joining of hands; I pronounce that they be Man and Wife together, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
The rector closed his prayer book and beamed at them like a benevolent grandfather.
“I present the Earl and Countess of Whitelock.”
A smattering of applause went through the small crowd. The organ music swelled again. Some Handel tune?—after all, hadn’t Marcus mentioned that the composer had been a parishioner at this very church half a century ago? Evan turned and offered Diana—his wife!—his arm to escort her down the aisle and out of the church. His sword clanked softly at his side, and her dress swished. He noticed for the first time that her gown had a small train and that a length of gauzy white material fell from the curls clustered at the back of her head all the way to the floor.
Pride at how pretty she was hit him in the chest. She was his. His to protect and to provide for. He’d promised her many things in the past few moments, and he’d promised those things before God. Though he had been lax in asking for God’s guidance regarding the engagement, he would not make that mistake again.
At the door, Shand was there to hand him his cloak, but no one was there with a wrap for Diana.
“Where’s your coat?”
She shook her head. “I left it in my father’s carriage. I will be fine. Anyway, a lady never acknowledges the cold or allows it to interfere with her appearance.”
“That’s a load of twaddle.” He swirled the cape in the manner he’d observed Marcus do, but instead of donning it himself, he settled it around her shoulders, careful not to pull on her veil. “You shouldn’t have to acquire pleurisy just to be fashionable.” A sense of satisfaction dropped over him as surely as the cape enveloped her.
As he handed her up into the closed carriage—borrowed again from Marcus for the purpose … he really would have to see to getting his own conveyance—he noticed several dozen onlookers standing along the street. They were bundled to the eyebrows, and their breath hung in frosty puffs in the January air. They appeared to be waiting for something.