Bedwyn: One Night For Love Part 28

"Not at all." He shook his head. "I know, Lily, that this wedding will take second place to your first. But I want it to be a precious second place. Something you will remember fondly for the rest of your life."

She threw her arms about his neck and hugged him tightly. "It will be," she said. "It will be, Father. You will be there this time, and Elizabeth will be there, and all of Neville's family. Oh, it will not take second place, I promise you, but an equal place."

"A smaller, more intimate wedding it will be then," he told her. "It is what I hoped you would choose, anyway."

It was not as small or as intimate as his own wedding to Elizabeth, though, which took place at Rutland at the beginning of November, with only Lily and the duke's steward in attendance. And yet nothing, he said afterward, could possibly have made the day happier for him or his bride.

Elizabeth, always beautiful, elegant, dignified, serene, glowed with a new happiness that put the bloom of youth back into her cheeks. She threw herself with eager energy into the plans for the wedding of her stepdaughter and her favorite nephew.

And so on a crisp, frosty, sunny morning in December, Neville waited before the altar of the church in Rutland for his bride to make her appearance. The church was not quite full, but everyone who was important in his life and Lily's was there, with the exception of Lauren, who had insisted despite all their protests on staying at home. His mother was there, sitting in the front pew with his uncle and aunt, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Anburey. Elizabeth, the d.u.c.h.ess of Portfrey, was there in the pew across the aisle from them. All the uncles and aunts and cousins were there. Captain and Mrs. Harris had come as well as a number of Portfrey's relatives. Baron Onslow had got up from his sickbed in Leicestershire in order to attend his granddaughter's wedding.

And Joseph, Marquess of Attingsborough, was at Neville's side as his best man.

There was a stirring of movement at the back of the church and a brief glimpse of Gwen as she stooped to straighten the hem of the bride's gown. The bride herself stayed tantalizingly out of sight.

But not for long. Portfrey stepped into view, immaculate in black and silver and white, and then the bride herself stepped up beside him and took his arm. The bride, in a white gown of cla.s.sically simple design that shimmered in the dim light of the church interior, her short blond curls entwined with tiny white flowers and green leaves.

There was a sigh of satisfaction from those gathered in the pews.

But Neville did not see a bride dressed with elegance and taste and at vast expense. He saw Lily. Lily in her faded blue cotton dress, draped in on old army cloak that was still voluminous even though she had cut it down to size. Lily with bare feet despite the December chill, and unfettered hair in a wild mane down her back to her waist.

His bride.

His love.

His life.

He watched her coming toward him, her blue eyes steady on his and looking deep into him. And he knew in that moment that she was not seeing a bridegroom in wine velvet coat with silver brocaded waistcoat and gray knee breeches and crisp white linen. He knew she was seeing on officer of the Ninety-fifth, shabby and dusty in his green and black regimentals, his boots unpolished, his hair cropped short.

She smiled at him and he realized that he was smiling back. Portfrey was placing her hand in his and turning to take his seat beside Elizabeth.

Neville was back in the church at Rutland Park with his elegantly, expensively dressed bride. His beautiful Lily. Beautiful in her wildness, beautiful in her elegance.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered ..."

He turned his attention to the service that would join them together in the eyes of church and state, just as that service in the hills of central Portugal had joined them forever in their own hearts.

Cold air met them when they stepped out of the church. But it was the coldness of a perfect winter's day, the sort of coldness that whipped color into cheeks and a sparkle into eyes and energy into muscles.

Lily laughed. "Oh, dear," she said.

She really had not noticed as they had walked up the aisle after signing the church register, smiling to right and to left at relatives and friends, who beamed back at them, that a significant number of the congregation, especially its younger members, had disappeared. It was obvious now. There they were on either side of the winding churchyard path, their hands loaded with ammunition.

Neville was laughing too. "Where the devil," he asked irreverently, "did they come by all those live flowers in December?"

"Father's hothouses," Lily guessed. "But they are no longer flowers. They are petals."

Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. All in the clutches of cousins who waited gleefully to pelt the bride and groom with them.

"Well," Neville said, eyeing the open carriage that was to take them back to the house for the wedding breakfast, "we must not disappoint them and walk sedately as if we did not mind being covered with debris, Lily. We had better run for it."

He grasped her hand tightly, and laughing gaily they ran the gauntlet down the winding path while the cousins cheered and whooped and had the air raining multicolored petals on their hair and their bridal clothes.

"Sanctuary," Neville said, still laughing when they reached the carriage. He handed Lily inside and reached out to wrap about her shoulders the white, fur-trimmed cloak that awaited her there. "Uh-oh."

Lily snuggled into her petal-lined cloak while Neville stood up in the carriage and shook one fist at the merry wedding guests. They were all there now, sober adults as well as riotous youngsters. The countess had been weeping, Lily saw, and she stretched out a hand to her mother-in-law and kissed her when she came closer. She kissed Elizabeth, who was also dewy-eyed, and hugged her father, who was pretending that the cold had set his eyes to watering.

Neville, still standing in the carriage, was hurling a shower of coins in the direction of a large group of villagers gathered to observe the spectacle. The children among them shrieked and scampered to pick up the treasure.

And then the carriage was in motion, and both Lily and Neville became aware that it was dragging a whole a.r.s.enal of ribbons and bows and bells behind it.

"One would think," Neville said, settling beside Lily, "that the cousins had nothing better to do with their time."

"You have a petal on your nose," she said, laughing gleefully and reaching out to remove it.

But he captured her hand as soon as she had done so and carried it to his lips. His own laughter had faded. She gazed into his eyes, her own glowing.

"Lily," he said. "My wife. My countess."

"Yes." She opened her hand to cup his cheek. They had turned a bend in the country lane that would take them back to the house. Church and wedding guests and villagers had disappeared from sight. "I have changed ident.i.ty so many times in the past two years that I have not known quite who I am or who I ought to be."

"I know." He set his hand over the back of hers. "And now you have found yourself at last? Who are you, Lily?'

"I am Lily Doyle," she said, "and Lady Frances Lilian Montague. And Lily Wyatt, Countess of Kilbourne. I am all three."

"You sound confused still," he said wistfully.

But she shook her head and smiled at him, all her happiness shining from her eyes.

"I am all the persons I have ever been," she said, "and all the experiences I have ever lived. I do not have to make choices. I do not have to deny one ident.i.ty in order to claim another. I am who I am. I am Lily." Her smile became gay. "Also known as your wife."

He turned his head, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to her wrist. "Yes," he said. "That is exactly who you are. You are Lily. The woman I love. I do love you, Lily."

"I know." She bent her head closer to his. "You loved me enough to let me go in order that I might find myself."

"And you have come back to me."

"Yes," she said. "Because I did not have to, Neville. Because I could come freely and offer myself freely. And because I love you. I always have. From the first moment I saw you talking to Papa. You were my hero then. You became my friend after that. And then my love. And now you are even more than that. You are the person I can meet as an equal and love as an equal."

"Have I told you," he asked her, smiling slowly at her, "what a beautiful bride you make, Lily?"

"Oh," she said, "you have Elizabeth to thank for that. She is the one who convinced me that this gown was the one and that I would look better with just flowers in my hair than with a bonnet and veil."

"I meant," he said, "in your blue cotton dress with your army cloak and nothing in your hair at all. Not even a hairpin."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "What a lovely thing to say. And you were never more handsome than in your well-worn regimentals. Neville, how fortunate we are to have two such wedding days to remember."

"Uh-oh," he said suddenly. He was looking ahead along the lane while Lily was still looking into his face. She turned her head sharply.

"Oh, dear," she said.

Every servant from Rutland Park, she would swear, from the butler on down to the lowliest undergardener, was out on the terrace. They were neatly lined up in order of rank to greet the newlyweds. They were also-every last one of them-armed to the teeth with flower petals.

Neville set an arm about Lily's shoulders and bent his head to look into her face. She gazed back at him. Their lovely interlude of privacy was over, it seemed. At least for now.

"Until tonight, my love," he said.

"Yes," she said wistfully. "Until tonight."

They turned laughing faces toward the servants and the floral ambush awaiting them.

To Gayle Knutson.

a former student and present friend,

who designed and created my Web site

in time for the promotion of this book.

With thanks.

www.marybalogh.com.