The Proposal: Number 1 in series (Survivors’ Club)
The Proposal: Chapter 24

It was raining on the morning of their wedding day. Quite heavily.

Hugo, who did not believe in omens, nevertheless thought that sunshine, or at least fine weather, would have been more convenient for all concerned when there was a wedding to attend. But when the sun did come out just as he was leaving the house and the roads and pavements began almost instantly to dry, he thought that perhaps he did believe in omens just a little bit after all.

He had asked Flavian to be his best man, hoping as he did so that he was not about to offend at least half a dozen cousins. But Flavian still felt almost as close to him as his own heart. And he had accepted after only a long enough delay to raise his eyebrows and sigh deeply and deliver himself of a short, languid speech.

“Hugo, my dear old chap,” he said, “the world would take one look at you and conclude that you must be the very last man on earth to succumb to something as flimsy as romantic love. But any one of the Survivors would have been able to tell the world long ago that if anyone was likely to fall, it was going to be you. And this despite all your very sensible talk earlier in the year about replaceing a suitable mate. Yes, yes, I will be your best man. And I would wager that you will still be gazing at your bride with the eyes of romance when she is eighty and you are a few years older. And she will be gazing back at you in the same way. You are enough almost to restore one’s shattered faith in happy endings.”

“A simple yes would have sufficed, Flave,” Hugo told him.

“Quite so,” Flavian agreed.

All of Hugo’s family members were to attend the wedding, of course. So were George and Ralph. Imogen had surprised Hugo by accepting his invitation. She would come to London for a few days and stay with George, she had said in her letter. Ben was in the north of England, visiting his sister. Vincent was not at home, and his family did not know where he had gone. But he had taken his clothes and his valet with him, and the man had always proved quite capable of caring for all his needs. No one was worried—yet.

Gwendoline’s family had all been invited too as well as a few friends. But it was not to be a typical ton wedding of the Season. The church would not be overflowing with the crème-de-la-crème of English society. Large though the guest list inevitably was, they had both wanted an intimate atmosphere with only those closest to them to witness the occasion.

“I think,” Hugo said when he arrived at the church and was met by a small crowd of the curious that would inevitably grow larger within the next hour, “I would rather be facing another Forlorn Hope.”

“If you had just eaten some breakfast, as I advised,” Flavian said, “you would be feeling vastly better, old chap.”

“An opinion delivered from the voice of experience?” Hugo asked.

“Not at all,” Flavian said. “I never reached the altar or even came within sight of it.”

Hugo winced. That had been insensitive of him.

“For which blessing I will be eternally thankful,” Flavian said. “It would be a touch deflating, do you not think, to discover after one’s marriage that when one’s bride had said that she would love one for better or for worse, what she had really meant was that she might love one for better but would run like hell if ever confronted with the worse?”

Yes, Hugo thought, it would. And he remembered that when Gwendoline had said those words to her first husband, she had meant them. He reached out and squeezed his friend’s arm as they made their way inside the church.

“Do not, I beg you, Hugo,” Flavian said with a shudder, “turn sentimental on me. I am beginning to wonder if I would not prefer a Forlorn Hope myself to being best man to a romantic soul.”

Hugo chuckled.

By the time his bride arrived sometime later, but not a minute late, he was feeling far more relaxed. And excited. And eager to begin his new life. To live happily ever after. Oh, yes, though he did not believe in it, he sometimes forgot to be skeptical. And surely he could be excused on his wedding day.

She had arrived. The organ had begun to play, and the clergyman had taken his place. Hugo could not decide whether he should stand rigidly facing the altar, or whether he should turn and watch her approach. He had forgotten to ask what was the right thing to do.

He compromised. He turned and stood rigidly watching her come, on the arm of her brother. She was wearing rich rose pink and looked … Well, sometimes English was a total, miserable failure of a language. Her eyes were on his, and he could see that behind the light veil that covered her face she was smiling.

He did a mental check of his own expression. His teeth were tightly clamped together. That meant his jaw was hard. His eyebrows were tense. He could almost feel the frown line between them. His hands were clasped at his back. Good Lord, he must look as if he were on parade. Or attending someone’s funeral. Why? Was he afraid to smile?

He was, he realized. He would not be able to keep all that was within him in place if he smiled. He would feel damned vulnerable, to tell the truth. Vulnerable to what, though? To love?

He had already vaulted off the end of the earth and been caught safely in the arms of love.

What else was there to fear?

That after all she would not come?

She was here.

That she would not say I do or I will or whatever the devil it was supposed to be when the time came?

She would.

That he would not be able to love her forever and ever?

He would, and even longer than that.

He let his hands fall to his sides.

And he smiled as his bride approached him.

Did he imagine a collective sort of sigh from the congregation gathered there?

How strange a thing life was, Gwen thought. If she had not read that letter of her mother’s aloud to Vera that day in early March and Vera had not lashed out at her, if she had not gone walking along that rocky beach and stopped to stare out at the distant sea, she might not even have realized how deeply lonely she was. She might have denied reality for a lot longer.

And if she had not climbed that steep slope and sprained her ankle, she would not have met Hugo.

She had never believed in fate. She still did not. It would make nonsense of freedom of will and choice, and it was through such freedom that we worked our way through life and learned what we needed to learn. But sometimes, it seemed to her, there was something, some sign, to nudge one along in a certain direction. What one chose to do with that nudge was up to that person.

Her accident, Hugo’s presence nearby, both coming so soon after her realization that she was lonely were surely more than just coincidence. And perhaps it really was right that there is no such thing as coincidence.

The chances against her meeting Hugo and knowing him long enough to penetrate his dour military façade until she loved him were massive. But it had happened.

She loved him more than she had known it possible to love.

Her family all approved the match, with the possible exception of Wilma, who unusually offered no opinion at all. They all seemed to understand that what she felt for Hugo was extraordinary, that if she was prepared to love and marry a man so seemingly wrong for her, then he must actually be right for her. And of course they were all relieved that at last she had come out of the cocoon in which she had safely resided since Vernon’s death and was ready to live again.

Her mother had shed tears over her.

So had Lauren.

Lily had whisked her off to buy bride clothes.

And now it was happening. At last. A month for the banns to be read could sometimes seem more like a year. But the wait was over, and she was inside St. George’s on Hanover Square, and she knew that all her family and his were gathered there, though she did not really look to see. She clung to Neville’s arm and saw only Hugo.

He was looking very much as he had looked on that slope above the beach, except that then he had been wearing a greatcoat and now he was dressed smartly for a wedding.

He was scowling at her.

She smiled.

And then wonderfully, incredibly, despite the fact that he was on full view with a churchful of people to see, he smiled back at her—a warm smile that lit up his face and made him incredibly handsome.

A murmur throughout the church suggested that everyone else had noticed too.

She took her place beside him, the organ stopped playing, and the wedding service began.

It was as if time slowed. She listened to every word, heard every response, including her own, felt the smooth coldness of the gold as her ring slid onto the finger, sticking for just a moment at her knuckle before he eased it over.

And then, far too soon, but, oh, at last, the nuptial service was over and they were man and wife and no man was to put them asunder. He squeezed her hand and smiled at her, looking almost like a little boy brimming over with excitement, and raised her veil and arranged it over the brim of her bonnet.

She gazed back at him.

Her husband.

Her husband.

And then the rest of the service proceeded and the register was signed and they were leaving the church, smiling now to either side of them to make eye contact with as many of their relatives and friends as they could. Her arm was drawn through his and their hands were clasped tightly.

Sunshine greeted them beyond the doors of the church.

And a hearty cheer from the small crowd gathered outside.

Hugo looked down at her.

“Well, wife,” he said.

“Well, husband.”

“Does it sound good?” he asked her. “Or does it sound great?”

“Umm,” she said. “Great, I think.”

“Me too, Lady Trentham,” he said. “Shall we make a bolt for the carriage before everyone spills out of church behind us?”

“We are too late, I believe,” she said.

And sure enough, the open barouche that was to take them back to Kilbourne House for the wedding breakfast was festooned with ribbons and bows and old boots and even an iron kettle. And there were Kit and Joseph and Mark Emes and the Earl of Berwick lying in wait with fistfuls of flower petals that they pelted as Hugo and Gwen made a run for the carriage, laughing.

“I hope,” Hugo said as he gave the coachman the signal to start and the barouche lurched into well-sprung motion and rattled out of the square, “no one is intending to use that kettle ever again.”

“Everyone will hear us coming from five miles away,” Gwen said.

“There are two things we can do, love,” Hugo said. “We can cower down on the floor of the vehicle—and that alternative actually has much to be said in its favor. Or we can brazen it out and help take people’s minds off the din.”

“How?” she asked, laughing.

“Like this,” he said, turning to her, cupping her chin in his great hand, and lowering his head to kiss her—openmouthed.

Somewhere someone was cheering. Someone else whistled piercingly enough to be heard above the din of the kettle.

The second alternative, if you please, Gwen would have said if she had had her mouth to herself.

But she did not.