They spent the next two hours defining the guests and family members, more than anything else clarifying precedence. Titles were one thing, family relationships were another. Finally, Meg felt informed enough to make a start on the seating arrangements for the wedding and the breakfast to follow; she knew better than to leave the matter to Juliette and her mother—both were sweet, but not worldly.
Gathering the sheets, she said, “As I told your father when I spoke with him earlier, I’ve conferred with the various church and state authorities, and we’ve confirmed that the ceremony will take place on the eighteenth of June in St. James Chapel in Manchester Square.”
Juliette, who was already getting that rather strained look of all brides-to-be, relaxed a trifle. “Good. At least I’ll know where I am.”
St. James was the family’s customary church. Given both sides of the equation were of the Roman Catholic faith, Meg had of necessity sited the ceremony somewhere other than St. George’s, Hanover Square. Rising, tucking the sheets into the leather satchel she carried, she nodded briskly. “I’ll be arranging a rehearsal a few days before the wedding day. Please let all those in the wedding party itself know they will need to make themselves available—I’ll notify you of the time and date as soon as I have them set.”
June 15, 1820, 3:00 P.M., three days before the wedding
St. James Chapel, Manchester Square, London
“Where’s your best man—the principal groomsman?” Meg fixed Robert with an incipient frown. Everybody else in the wedding party had obeyed her orders, and was neatly arrayed before the altar, exactly as they should be.
In her peripheral vision, she saw a long, lean figure push away from one of the columns flanking the nave.
“I’m here.”
Even before, turning, she set eyes on him, his deep voice, faintly accented, triggered memories—a raft of memories she thought she’d forgotten long ago. Not that any memories prepared her for . . .
She stared at him—tall, long, lean, and even more overpowering than he had been, with his hair still black as a crow’s wing, and his aristocratically aesthetic features and eyes so dark they were pools of deepest night as mesmerizing as ever. Realizing she was staring, literally struck dumb, she forced herself to look down at her list. “You’re the Duc of Perigord?” Her tone was bordering on insult, but then . . .
Looking up, she found he’d drawn much closer—he moved so silently, so smoothly, so ineffably gracefully, she’d never learned the knack of making him keep his distance—and, as had happened years ago, his eyes were twinkling.
No other man had ever dared twinkle at her like that. She wasn’t sure any other man could. Almost as if he were . . . not laughing at her, but certainly amused, and in some odd way inviting her to be amused with him.
As if they shared a secret. Some secret understanding.
She realized she’d forgotten to breathe, with an effort rectified the lack.
His lips curved in a knowing smile, but to her relief, all he said was, “Louis reinstated the title. It was always mine.”
She’d previously known him as the Chevalier Devilliers. He’d followed his king into exile, had been in Louis the Pretender’s entourage for years. He was known as a superb swordsman, a cavalryman who had rallied the French nobles fighting on the side of the allies at Waterloo, and, if half the tales she’d heard were true, had performed feats of bravery upon that bloody field that had passed into legend . . . while elsewhere on that same battlefield, her fiancé, John Beaumont, had been cut down.
When her older brother Geoffrey, knowing she’d met Devilliers, had been telling her some of those tales, and she’d waspishly remarked at how unfair it was that such a reckless hothead like Gaston Devilliers had come through the battle unscathed while a cautious man like John Beaumont had died, Geoffrey had looked at her as if she’d been touched—as that had never happened, before or since, the moment was etched in her mind—and explained, “Beaumont was a loyal man, but his arm was weak. Devilliers . . . was a fiend on the field. No one came close enough to touch him. It takes more than courage to fight like that, and at the same time lead a group of men.”
She’d humphed and held her tongue.
And now the fiend stood before her, twinkling at her again.
But this time he stood on her battlefield.
She turned and pointed to the vacant space in the row before the altar. “Now you’re here, please take your place. We need to get this rehearsal under way.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The quiet words were taunting, of course, as was the polite salute he bestowed on her, but he did as she wanted and she was thankful enough for that.