The dowager duchess hugged both her daughter and Gabriel after they had signed the register. Netherby hugged his sister and gave Gabriel a firm handshake. Bertie wrung his hand and bowed to Jessica and called her Mrs. Thorne. And it was time to go back into the church to greet her family and his godparents. There was to be no formal procession out. They had decided that it would be a bit ridiculous. Only smiles and greetings wherever they turned, and endless handshakes and back slappings and a few hugs.
“I thought,” Lady Hodges told him, “that Avery’s wedding here to Anna could not be surpassed in loveliness, Mr. Thorne. And I was quite right. It has not been. But it has been equaled today.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “But I must be Gabriel, please.”
“Elizabeth,” she said, smiling kindly at him. “Welcome to the Westcott family, Gabriel.”
Jessica, he saw, was locked in the arms of a tall, thin young man, who was rocking her on the spot and laughing.
“I came yesterday,” he was saying as Gabriel approached, “because Mama had been pestering me to stop being a hermit for five minutes. I came just for a week, just long enough to be measured for a new coat and boots. And what should I discover when I got here but that you were getting married today, Jess? Abby is not going to be happy to have missed it. Nor is Camille.”
“Oh, but Harry,” she protested, drawing back from him, “Abby did not wait for any of us to attend her wedding. Only you did because you were already there at Hinsford. But how simply wonderful that you are here today of all days. I would have had a tantrum if you had arrived tomorrow. And you are looking well.” For a moment she cupped his face with both hands, having set her rose down on the end of a pew, but then she saw Gabriel standing slightly behind her.
“Gabriel,” she said. “Look who has come. My cousin Harry—Harry Westcott. He never goes anywhere, but I am going to pretend he came especially for my wedding. This is Gabriel, Harry. My . . . husband.”
“Yes, I sort of gathered that, Jess,” he said, and the two men shook hands and took each other’s measure as they did so. This, then, was the cousin who had once, very briefly, been the Earl of Riverdale after his father’s death, only to have both the title and his legitimacy ripped away when it was discovered that his father and mother’s marriage had been bigamous.
How did one recover from such a life-changing catastrophe? Though perhaps he had experienced something not too dissimilar, Gabriel thought.
“It was a fortunate coincidence I came when I did,” Harry said. “I understand you are going to whisk Jessica off up north somewhere tomorrow, Thorne.”
“I believe,” Gabriel said, “our plans must change. We will be staying for a while longer after all.”
Jessica looked at him in surprise, but her grandmother and her great-aunt had come up and she turned to hug them.
Viscount Dirkson had come to shake Gabriel’s hand. The viscountess hugged him and kissed his cheek.
“Weddings are invariably romantic occasions no matter where they take place or what the size of the congregation,” she said, beaming at him. “This one is no exception, Mr. Thorne. No, Gabriel. You are one of the family now. I am Aunt Matilda.”
Her husband grinned at him. “If you should ever call me Uncle Charles,” he said, “I do believe I would have to deck you, Thorne.”
Aunt Matilda was the first to laugh merrily.
They exited the church a few minutes later to bright sunshine instead of the high clouds that had covered the sky when Gabriel arrived. A small crowd of curious pedestrians gathered outside murmured and even applauded and cheered a bit self-consciously when it must have become apparent to them that this was the bride and groom. Jessica smiled brightly at them and waved her free arm, her yellow rose clutched in her hand. Gabriel lifted a hand in acknowledgment. And then they were showered with rose petals, hurled by Lady Estelle and Bertrand Lamarr and by the Wayne brothers—and the little girl, who was giggling helplessly.
“Oh goodness,” Jessica said as Gabriel handed her into the flower-decked carriage that would take them to Archer House. “That has happened at every wedding I have ever attended. Why was I not expecting it with my own?” She sat and gazed at him. “You do look