Barbara Metzger Read Online Free PDF Page B

marriage. It’s been nearly two years, after all.” She could have said how many days, hours, and minutes, but didn’t.
    Lord Hollister was smiling, relieved. “I knew you were a reasonable chit. Told your mother you were too sweet to hold a grudge so long.”
    Nineteen months, eight days, and seventeen hours since she’d seen the dastard. Nineteen awful monthsof hatinghim and missing him and worrying to death over his horrifying heroics. Daphne vowed to stay in the country until she put down roots like a turnip, rather than batten on the newlyweds—or have to worry about confronting Gray at every social gathering. She supposed it would get easier in time, except for the occasions when she had to look across the theatre at him every night, wondering if the woman in his box was a new bird of paradise or a prospective bride. No, Daphne rather thought she’d prefer to set up housekeeping somewhere with Cousin Harriet and raise pug dogs and roses. She hated pug dogs. And roses made her sneeze.

Chapter Four
    Just when you think things cannot get any worse, they usually do. Lady Whilton decided to hold the wedding in the country. Not only would Daphne have to come face-to-face with Graydon at the ceremony, she’d have to entertain him at her own home! Howell Hall next door was still under lease to Mr. Foggarty of the India trade, so the earl and his family would stay at Woodhill.
    “Don’t you think they should put up at the inn?” Daphne tried. “It is bad luck for a bridegroom to see the bride before the wedding, and all that.”
    “Rubbish,” Lady Whilton replied. “That’s just for the day of the wedding, and I’ll be so busy dressing and such, I won’t get a chance to visit with John, anyway. Besides, can you really imagine the Earl of Hollister putting up at the Golden Crown?”
    No, but she could well visualize his son there, drinking with the local farmers and flirting with the barmaids. And good riddance to him, too.
    “But a tiny chapel wedding, Mama? Wouldn’t you rather have a lavish gala in London, with all of Lord Hollister’s grand connections? Perhaps the prince might even come.”
    “He’d most definitely come, which is why John and I decided we’d rather have a quiet, private ceremony instead of some absurd public spectacle. That’s for the young people. We’re too old for all that folderol, and we’ve each been through it once, anyway. Now we want a simple country wedding, with only those closest to us.”
    Too close. Daphne was getting desperate. “Then why not one of those lovely little churches in Richmond? Or you could even hold the ceremony at the earl’s house in Grosvenor Square.”
    “What, and have everyone thinking there was some hugger-mugger we were trying to hide? Never. There will be talk enough as is. Let it come after the fact, I say, after a perfectly respectable wedding in the church where I’ve worshiped for half my life. You have to admit our own St. Ethelred’s is quaint and dear, especially when it’s filled with flowers. Besides, your father lies in the graveyard there. I’d like to think of him at the wedding. He never wanted me to stay a widow, you know. I think he’d be pleased I’m marrying his friend John.”
    “Yes, Mama, I’m sure he’d rest easy knowing you were so well and happily circumstanced. But…but what about Graydon?”
    Mama willfully misinterpreted. “Oh, he’s pleased as punch, too. He wrote back immediately after his father sent the news. The dear boy wants to know if he should call me Mother when he gets back. What do you think?”
    Daphne thought the dear boy should drown on his way home from Portugal.
    Her mother was going on. “And that’s another reason not to plan a complicated affair: We’re not entirely sure when dear Graydon will arrive, or how well his leg will have healed. His father does want him to stand up as best man. You’ll be my attendant, of course.”
    Of course, so she’d only have to stand next to him