“Stop the carriage,” he said again.
“Why?” his mother asked, clearly suspicious.
“I need air,” he replied, and it wasn’t even a lie.
Colin knocked on the wall. “I’ll walk with you.”
“No. I prefer to be alone.”
His mother’s eyes widened. “Gregory…You don’t plan to…”
“Storm the church?” he finished for her. He leaned back, giving her a casually lopsided smile. “I believe I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day, wouldn’t you think?”
“They’ll have said their vows by now, anyway,” Hyacinth put in.
Gregory fought the urge to glare at his sister, who never seemed to miss an opportunity to poke, prod, or twist. “Precisely,” he replied.
“I would feel better if you weren’t alone,” Violet said, her blue eyes still filled with concern.
“Let him go,” Colin said softly.
Gregory turned to his older brother in surprise. He had not expected to be championed by him.
“He is a man,” Colin added. “He can make his own decisions.”
Even Hyacinth did not attempt to contradict.
The carriage had already come to a halt, and the driver was waiting outside the door. At Colin’s nod, he opened it.
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Violet said.
Gregory kissed her cheek. “I need air,” he said. “That is all.”
He hopped down, but before he could shut the door, Colin leaned out.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Colin said quietly.
“Nothing foolish,” Gregory promised him, “only what is necessary.”
He took stock of his location, and then, as his mother’s carriage had not moved, deliberately set off to the south.
Away from St. George’s.
But once he reached the next street he doubled around.
Running.
Twenty-three
In which Our Hero risks everything. Again.
In the ten years since her uncle had become her guardian, Lucy had never known him to host a party. He was not one to smile upon any sort of unnecessary expense—in truth, he was not one to smile at all. So it was with some suspicion that she approached the lavish fête being thrown in her honor at Fennsworth House following the wedding ceremony.
Lord Davenport had surely insisted upon it. Uncle Robert would have been content to serve tea cakes at the church and be done with it.
But no, the wedding must be an event, in the most extravagant sense of the word, and so as soon as the ceremony was over, Lucy was whisked to her soon-to-be-former home and given just enough time in her soon-to-be-former bedchamber to splash some cool water on her face before she was summoned to greet her guests below.
It was remarkable, she thought as she nodded and received the well wishes of the attendees, just how good the ton was at pretending nothing had happened.