Archer handed her down proudly from the coach, sketched a charming little bow to the throng in answer to their huzzahs for one of the heroes of Vittoria. Then he escorted her into the Regent’s glittering home, where, apparently, His Royal Highness’s estranged wife, the bride’s mother, had not been invited. A particularly bad match, that.
But tonight, Elle observed, as she made her curtsey, the Regent was all smiles, proud father of the bride.
The ceremony began at nine sharp in the Crimson Drawing Room. The Archbishop of Canterbury stood before the makeshift altar. There were only fifty guests or so; Elle still wasn’t quite sure how Archer had got them invited.
As the music played, the royal bride arrived. Princess Charlotte was at her most beautiful, her apple cheeks beaming with joy as her father handed her over to the young, serious, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. It was well known the two young people, opposite as they were, had become inseparable.
A love match, thought Elle, watching wistfully.
Memories of her own wedding day at the quaint little stone church near their country estate stirred as the couple exchanged their vows.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health . . .”
All of a sudden, Archer reached over and took her hand. Elle glanced at him in surprise and an immediate rush of painful hope. He gazed into her eyes with such tender determination aimed frankly at their marriage that a lump rose in her throat.
Forsaking all others.
Could there be a chance she was wrong? That he was faithful? Dared she hope?
Just come to me, she told him with her gaze. I know you suffer. I love you. I’ll make it go away.
“. . . To love and to cherish . . .”
She dropped her gaze from Archer’s to fight once more the tears that threatened to be her undoing tonight. But she held on more tightly to his hand.
Till death do us part.
The match was made, the ceremony concluded a short while later, and everyone applauded while the exuberant princess hugged her father. Congratulations went round, and the guests were invited to mingle about and take refreshments. Further celebration would continue at Buckingham House.
Archer looked from across the drawing room as Ellie went to work like some gorgeous genie on the goal that he had set for her. He hoped she’d find a way to mention his ambitions. The prime minister got to choose the man for such appointments, but a little royal influence never hurt.
She was paying her respects to Queen Charlotte, Prinny’s mother, since the Regent was surrounded, and it said a great deal about his wife, Archer mused, that she could charm even the old, no-nonsense, German queen.
This majestic personage, stalwart as a seventy-four-gun ship of the line, gave off a formidable glory like burnished gold, accepting Ellie’s curtsey with a nod.
Watching their exchange from a distance, the vows just spoken echoing through his mind, Archer wondered not only at the guts of the young wife making her move for her husband, but at the strength of the aged Queen as well, nursing her royal husband through his madness.
Who knew what private suffering Her Majesty had endured, seeing her lifelong mate turn into a raving madman, even forgetting who she was? And yet she had been resolute, finding doctors to try to reclaim his mind, while she did aught in her power to save his pride.
Archer did not doubt that Elle would have done the same for him, and who could say? She might have to, at the rate he was going. She was good as gold, that one.
Even now she was carrying out a task for him that he knew she found distasteful. Politicking at a wedding, yes, it was rather crass, he supposed, but the country’s postwar finances were in too dire a state to trust a corrupt schemer like Northrop Hayes with the military purse strings.
Then, as Archer waited for her to return with her report, he suddenly learned he was not the only man watching her.
“Mein Gott!” exclaimed a colorful grand duke from the Continent, lifting a monocle to his eye. “Who is zis radiant creature?”
Archer glanced over in surprise, then he let out a low, wry laugh. “Er, Your Royal Highness, that is my wife.”
The mustachioed German turned to him, startled. “Why, you are a lucky man, my lord.”
“So I am,” he agreed in a murmur.
With a polite bow, the chagrined foreign nobleman took hasty leave of him. Archer glanced around the room, wondering in annoyance who else here might be ogling his lady. Then he returned his full attention to her, watching her work her usual magic on all who crossed her path. To be sure, he knew the power of that smile better than anyone.
How many battles had he survived only to be slain in some ballroom six years ago, when he’d first laid eyes on her? She had been barely eighteen at the time.