The Gates of Sleep Page 41
The gardens at Oakhurst, cleansed and scoured of all of the blood-magic Arachne and Reggie had done there—with every vestige of Cold Iron removed and hauled off as scrap—and with a section carefully set aside as a “wild garden” where no gardener was allowed to trespass—made the perfect setting for a wedding. And it was going to be a very, very large wedding. Every room at Oakhurst was full, not only with fellow Masters, but with some of the many friends that Marina had made in her two successful London seasons. Most of those were girl friends—a young lady who was safely engaged to a sober and undesirable young working man was no rival, and thus safe to become friends with. Besides, it soon proved that Andrew Pike knew an amazing number of other, quite personable young men, who, even if they weren’t all precisely what a marriage-minded mama would have preferred, made very good escorts. And generally were good dancers into the bargain.
The rooms in all the inns for miles around were full. All of the stately homes and some of the not-so-stately had guests. There were even guests at Briareley, in the special, private rooms. This was a wedding long-anticipated, long in the planning, and long in the consummation.
Andrew had insisted—and had gotten his way—that they not actually get married until Marina was twenty-one. He wanted not a shadow of doubt that she was making a free choice among all the possible suitors. He had almost relented, when his head nurse Eleanor had wed Thomas Buford—finally meeting the mate she deserved over Andrew’s sickbed. Thomas had moved his workshop to Briareley when Andrew burst in on the two and demanded to know just what he was going to do without the best nurse he had.
All in fun, of course, but the workshop was proving to be very useful in providing some of the poorer children with an opportunity to learn a skill. That left the Tarrants alone in Blackbird Cottage for the first time in their lives, a state which seemed to agree perfectly with them. Marina had never seen them so happy.
Margherita was Marina’s matron-of-honor, and Ellen, who was now a nurse herself, her chief maid-of-honor, and Sebastian was giving the bride away. Thomas was standing up for Andrew, who, if Sebastian was to be believed, was as nervous as a cat and white as a sheet.
She didn’t believe it. After all he’d been through, what could possibly make him nervous about a little thing like a wedding?
With Ellen, Margherita, and her society friends hovering around her like a flock of twittering birds, she took a last, long look in the mirror, and was pleased with what she saw. If she was no beauty—despite what Andrew said—she thought she cut a rather handsome figure.
And with Lady Elizabeth in charge of the wedding itself, she’d had only to make easy decisions, and now had nothing to do but enjoy herself to the uttermost.
Drifting through the open window she heard the sounds of the string quartet beginning the melody that would end in the processional. It was time to go.
She gathered up her skirts in both hands and led the way out to the gardens, trailing brightly gowned girls like streamers behind her.
It was a real pity, she thought, that so few of her guests could see the other guests—fauns peeking out from every possible vantage, Sylphs hiding in the trees, a trio of Undines sporting in the fountains, and a veritable bestiary of other creatures of myth and legend hovering at the edge of the human crowd. She beamed at all of them, and if her un-magical guests thought that her smile was a bit unfocused, well, that was to be expected in someone who was only minutes from being married.
The processional began. Andrew was led to his place in front of Mr. Davies by Uncle Thomas (who was wearing what could only be described as a smirk) when suddenly, Marina lost her smile, and stared—
For there were three figures, not one, on the little podium where Clifton Davies stood waiting to do his duty.
For one brief moment, the two of those figures who shone with their own light smiled with delight on their daughter. Holding hands, Alanna and Hugh Roeswood made a gesture of scattering rice, and tiny sparks of Earth-magic flitted from their hands to land on the heads or the hearts of each of the guests in blessing—and two of the largest, flitting like flowers in the wind, settled softly over Andrew’s heart, and Marina’s.
Then they were gone. But Marina knew what they had left behind with her.
Love. Love she could accept with a whole and full heart, at last.
And she stepped forward with the first bars of processional, and into a life she had not even imagined the day she was taken from Blackbird Cottage—and this time, it would not be alone.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue