The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(8)

Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang, nine loud peals, each one causing more and more pain in his heart. The wedding had started and he was still several long minutes away from the church. He stopped, breathing hard, sweat dripping from his forehead, his hands on his knees, failure gripping him. It hit him then that perhaps Joseph hadn’t been helping him all these years but rather torturing him. She’s getting married. Suffer. She didn’t get married. Relief! Again and again. Until this day when he’d been so very close to finally at least trying to do something, only to have fate step in again. Or Joseph, who was no doubt up in heaven wearing a satisfied smirk on his face. If you had been there that night, I wouldn’t be dead. It was nothing but the truth.

After that, he’d walked with slow purpose toward the church as a punishment of sorts. For if he hadn’t left England, she might be his wife even now. Surely he could have convinced Lord Hubbard that he was worthy of her. He’d gone quietly into a side door at the church and slipped into a pew toward the back. And waited. When the vicar started to make his way to the back of the church, Henderson walked out the way he’d come in and waited until Alice and her sister emerged from the church. She looked pale and distraught, but all he could think was, I still have a chance.



*



Alice settled in front of her mirror as Hazel, clucking her tongue in sympathy, removed her veil and started unpinning her hair. It was the second time in three years that she’d sat in this very spot, her throat thick, her eyes dry, wondering what would become of her.

“A terrible thing, miss,” Hazel said. “Everyone downstairs is so upset for you.”

“Thank you, Hazel.” After first removing her wedding dress, Hazel had swiftly, and unceremoniously, put the garment away and out of sight before focusing on her veil and hair. No doubt her mother would donate the dress to charity. Perhaps the League of Impoverished Women Who Were Actually Getting Married. She sighed, staring at herself and promising with every fiber of her being to say no the next time someone proposed.

At least her friends from St. Ives hadn’t made the trip this time. They had wanted to come, of course, but Alice told them it was to be a small ceremony. The truth was, most of her friends could hardly spare the expense of attending yet another wedding. Alice wondered if she’d had a feeling even weeks ago that this wedding would never occur. Looking back, she tried to see if she’d missed something, a sign that Lord Northrup was lying to her. He’d told her several times that he adored her, that he was looking forward to their life together. All along, he’d been in love with someone else, somehow realizing she was not nearly the catch he’d thought she was.

Just the idea of going home to St. Ives, still Miss Hubbard when everyone in that little seaside village thought she’d be Lady Northrup, made a fresh rush of humiliation flood her. Although Alice had never put too much stock in attaining a titled husband, she had indulged in writing her name over and over: Lady Alice Heddingford, Viscountess Northrup.

“Shall I brush out your hair, miss?”

“No, thank you, Hazel,” Alice said, taking the brush from her maid’s hands and setting it on the vanity in front of her.

It wasn’t until Hazel had softly closed the door behind her that Alice gave in to the tears pressing painfully against her eyes, and for that moment she fervently wished that her small group of friends were with her. They were all a bit younger than Alice, all unmarried, and all her champions. Except, perhaps, for Eliza, who had always been a bit jealous of the fact that Alice had gotten engaged three times when she’d never even had a serious beau. Still, she knew Eliza would drop everything to be with her. They all would: Eliza, Harriet, and Rebecca. They had spent endless hours together since they were still in short skirts. Alice wondered if the four of them were cursed, because though the women were all attractive, all intelligent (some less than others, but still), and all of marriageable age, each remained steadfastly single.

A soft knock on the door had her quickly dabbing her eyes and casting a quick look in the mirror to make sure she didn’t look quite as devastated as she felt.

“Come in,” she called, hastily rising and pulling on her wrap just in case it was her brother. But it was her mother, her face filled with concern, who came into her room, still wearing the dress she’d worn in the church.

“How are you really?” she asked.

“Awful,” Alice said with a watery laugh. Her mother hurried to her and gave her a warm hug. Just feeling her mother’s arms wrap around her, with her familiar mother-smell, made Alice want to weep all the more.

“I daresay I don’t know what words to tell you to make this better. It is unbelievable that this has happened to you.”

“Again.”

“Again.” Her mother let out a sigh and stepped back so she could peer into Alice’s eyes. “Are you certain you don’t want to take any legal action against him? What he did is unconscionable. Why not tell you last evening? Or any other time? He certainly had plenty of opportunity to call things off.”

“I believe he meant to see it through; I could tell something was wrong yesterday evening. I thought perhaps he was just nervous about the wedding. I know what he did was wrong, Mama, believe me I do. But I just want it over. I want to forget it happened. I want everyone to forget that it happened.”

Elda walked to the window and looked out. “Henderson is leaving.” She sounded unaccountably sad, and Alice understood that her mother felt very much the same way she did when she saw him. Joseph and he had been so inseparable; one could hardly think of Joseph without thinking of Henderson. “Odd that he’s shown up now, today, after all these years.”