Clara stood beside Melvin and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, I have something to say.” She patted Melvin’s arm. “Hold your horses for a moment.”
The whispers around them doubled in volume. At least half the people here knew who she was. Getting tangled up in scandals in New York and Chicago didn’t exactly make for anonymity.
But the only person whose reaction Clara cared about was Marcus. His blue eyes were enormous; his mouth gaped open.
The boy was dumbfounded.
“I object,” Clara said, causing more than one wedding guest to gasp. A woman whipped out a feathered fan and began flapping it in front of her face as though she might faint. “Marcus, I don’t believe you can love that woman—Anastasia or Deirdre or whatever her name is.”
Clara nudged through the row so she could stand in the aisle. She’d been sitting in the eighth row of guests. Not a bad seat if all you wanted to do was watch a wedding—but Clara couldn’t have this kind of conversation with Marcus from a distance.
She rushed closer to the platform, careful not to trip over her dress. She couldn’t get the courage to climb up onto the platform. Plus she was a little scared of what Marcus’s fiancée might try to do to her if she did. So she stopped just in front of the platform. Clara ignored the stunned gazes of the wedding party, Deirdre’s affronted scowl, Gloria mouthing What are you doing?, and the weight of the hundreds of eyes on her back. Clara couldn’t look at or think of anyone but Marcus, not if she was really going to go through with this.
“If I let you marry that viper beside you,” Clara said to him, “not only will you be making the biggest mistake of your life, but so will I.”
“Why, you—” Deirdre began, her dainty hands clenching into fists.
Marcus held up a finger to shush Deirdre. “The minister said it himself: This is the part where people are allowed to speak. So what exactly are you saying, Clara?” he asked. Marcus’s eyes were bright again, and he looked like he was fighting a smile.
That gave Clara the courage to keep going. “I have made some big mistakes in my life. But my biggest mistake was letting you go. But it stops here: Marcus, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me.”
“ ’Ow dare you!” Deirdre screeched at Clara. She turned back to Marcus and grasped his wrists with her tiny hands. The minister took a step or two away from them and stroked his gray beard nervously. “You should ’ave zat woman arrested. She’s ze one ’oo attacked me at ze bridal shop!”
“Oh, shut your trap, sister!” Lorraine yelled before Marcus could react. She barreled through the row, stepping on feet left and right. “You get your hands off me—I’m not sitting in your lap on purpose!” she yelled at a leering, bearded man sitting by the aisle after she tripped and nearly fell.
Lorraine pulled up her dress enough to expose part of her lacy white slip and ran down the aisle. She stopped beside Clara and heaved a few deep breaths.
“Lorraine?” Gloria asked, holding her hand to her chest. Gloria looked between her old friend, Marcus, and Clara. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“All in good time! Love your dress, by the way. You’re like some kind of classy penguin,” Lorraine said.
“Thank you?” Gloria said, blinking.
Lorraine pointed at Deirdre. “And you, drop the fake French accent. The closest you’ve ever been to Paris was when you looked at a map … of Paris!”
The crowd gasped, and now guests didn’t even bother to whisper their suspicions.
“Could it be true?”
“But she’s so beautiful!”
“They did get engaged quickly.…”
“Never trust the French—that’s what I always say.”
“Our buddy, Benji,” Lorraine went on, beckoning to Melvin, “he knows what we’re talking about. You two used to date, isn’t that right?”
Clara could see a glimmer of fear in Deirdre’s copper-flecked eyes. “I do not know what you are talkeeng about.”
“Oh yes you do,” Clara said. “Just like you know you’re wanted in three states for armed robbery. You were nearly arrested outside a restaurant in New Orleans for destruction of property and, oh, right, attempting to stab the owner with a steak knife.”
“That was you?” a middle-aged woman with her black hair piled on top of her head asked from the second row. She