I’m so sorry, I say silently, before waving what might be my final good-bye and riding the swell of their good cheer through the doors.
Westminster Abbey is a transcendent, transporting place, all soaring stone arches and marble columns, capped with fan vaulting a distant hundred feet above our heads (which is, somehow, still only a fraction of the aisle that I’ll walk). Right now, men in bright yellow work vests lug flowering shrubs inside, which will be blessed and replanted in public parks on Sunday, and the juxtaposition is so unexpected that it looks like a movie set. The greenery was Nick’s suggestion. In fact, his return had given the entire creative team a jolt of inspiration, like finally finding the missing piece to our jigsaw puzzle and tapping it in place with glee. After a desperate and lonely year, the last four months passed in a giddy breeze.
Until this morning.
I hear a loud sniffle. Gaz is walking toward me, blotting his face with a hanky.
“Just a little emotional. Nothing I can’t handle tomorrow,” he says, patting my arm in a fatherly way, as if getting into the spirit of his role. “You look lovely, Future Duchess, but no offense, you cannot hold a candle to your sexy matron of honor.”
“I reckon the words sexy and matron don’t get paired up often,” Cilla says from behind me, taking Adelaide’s freesias and giving her husband a peck.
“They will now,” he says. “Can’t I be called man of honor in the program, if I’m giving away the bride and married to the matron?”
“We printed it up in Garamond, isn’t that enough?” she teases.
Suddenly, the roar of the crowd trickles in again as the Abbey doors open.
“Right, everyone’s here, let’s get on with it,” Marj says.
I swivel around to see her and Nick and Freddie. We are only rehearsing our part, as the rest of our families have roles that mostly come down to their drivers and styling teams staying on schedule. Nick looks flushed and self-conscious, even tense, as he always does after the dog-and-pony-show part of his job. He’s in rolled-up shirtsleeves and navy pants—his frequent uniform, approachably debonair—and after all these years, even knowing that I’m going to have a catastrophic conversation with him later, the sight of Nick still makes my heart swell against my ribs. Slipping back into our cozy trio with Freddie has been both easier and harder than I thought—easier because Freddie and I love Nick, and don’t love each other; harder because we feel the burden of proving, even to an unknowing Nick, that everything is normal.
“The bride and groom! What an honor,” says the Dean of Westminster, approaching in my periphery. As he crosses the nave, he and Nick reach me simultaneously.
“Hi,” I whisper.
Nick gives me what can only be described as a perfunctory bump that involves less lip than it does his own cheek grazing mine. When we break away, he is staring elsewhere, and a glance behind me shows that Freddie’s own jaw is clenched and his gaze is locked straight ahead of him. I realize with a sinking feeling that I have misread Nick’s expression. He is not tense from the crowd, nor his shyness, nor nerves.
He knows.
Chapter Two
Your Highness, sir, are you in place at the altar?” the Dean of Westminster shouts.
We hear Nick’s faint call of assent.
“Need a walkie-talkie in this old heap, eh?” the dean says, winking and clapping merrily. “Right! Let’s get cracking. Rebecca, you’ll be greeted here by me and the Archbishop of Canterbury for a little chitchat, how’d you sleep, did you eat your brekkie, while everyone gets your skirts in order. The archbish loves a spot of marmalade in the a.m. so file that away for easy small talk. And then you and your, er…”
He cocks his head at Gaz.
“Her man of honor,” Gaz says hopefully.
“Her distinguished escort,” Cilla corrects him.
“Quite right. The distinguished Mr. Bates will take Miss Porter around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, like so, careful not to molest the poppies, and then bang on up the aisle for a bit past the cheap seats. Steady, that’s right. We’ll be at this for about five minutes so I hope you wear your trainers tomorrow, eh?”
He chuckles, thrilling to this. We stare at the dean’s back, following diligently and practicing the walking cadence, as he drones on about the history of the Abbey and the “O Rare Ben Jonson” stone on the floor. (Legend has it that when the poet