CHAPTER1
Hurstbourne Manor Chapel, Sussex. Early January 1816.
There was nothing Gregory Brennan, Viscount Silverton, disliked more than a wedding. The simple fact was that it brought out the cantankerous grump in him. This was a shame because at thirty-two, it was the done thing to arrive at a chapel, looking like a dressed-up idiot and acting even worse. Matrimony had a lot to answer for. Several of his Oxford Set, his dear friends from university, were now married, and now another one of them was about to enter the wretched state. They had been nicknamed the Oxford Set because of their friendships and illustrious titles.
The wedding celebrations had been planned with maximum effort to include all the festive, wintry joys of the season. The chapel had been decorated with candles as well as poinsettias, holly, ivy, and mistletoe, which had been gathered and hung from the ancient chapel ceiling. It filled the building with a delicious and wholesome scent.
Suppressing a curl of his lip, Silverton looked around the chapel and tried his best to smile. It came out as something closer to a grimace. A small child, he could not remember who the cherub belonged to, glanced back at him and shrank away, obviously frightened by his intimidating visage. Clearly, his grimace would not cut it. Although the fact that Silverton had grown a full black beard and not let his valet near to trim his hair in over three months didn’t help matters.
The whole ritualistic affair seemed especially bad since it was lasting a huge amount of time. The Earl of Hurstbourne was their host, celebrating the wedding of his only son, Nicholas, to a young widow, Mrs. Isabel Hall. The bride seemed to have invited all her relatives, and they were in a cheerful, celebratory mood.
None of this brought any relief to Silverton’s demeanour. His eyes travelled over the gathered guests, his mouth curling with distaste at the visible displays of mass touching, affection, and laughter.
Where was the restraint? Displays of affection should be confined to one’s mistress. Not that he had time for such indulgences. He hadn’t had a mistress since… his mind stretched, and he realised that he could not even remember the last woman he had flirted with, let alone anything else. His work was rendering him a monk and a suspicious one at that. It hardly made for relaxing sport if he feared any woman that he bedded might murder him if he slipped into unconsciousness.
It was an odd assortment of guests. No one in attendance, beyond the members of the Set, could be called prominent members of London society. No, gathered here were a small selection of peoples that the bridal couple considered vital to their happiness.
No one was paying Silverton any attention. They were too caught up in their own happiness to be dinted by his lonesome, quietly furious presence at the rear of the chapel.
Close by was Silverton’s dearest friend, Edward, Lord Verne, and the baronet’s heavily pregnant wife, Olympe. The two of them were dressed handsomely, their bodies bent close to each other. They were nearly as sick-inducing as the couple at the front of the chapel, who were taking a very long time to make their vows.
As the vicar droned on, Olympe leant in close to her husband and kissed Verne’s neck, as if they weren’t in a public place. She dimpled, and briefly Silverton caught his friend’s lust-filled and affectionate look. It was enough to turn his stomach.
“Ugh.” Silverton couldn’t contain himself.
Verne turned and looked at Silverton, quirking his eyebrow with an amused chuckle at the response. “Any more of that and people will start to think you were jealous.”
“Bah, of what exactly?”
“Of not having your own lady love,” Olympe teased, leaning forward to see Silverton more clearly. She had bright brown eyes that sparkled with wit and she simply glowed. Whether this was due to Olympe’s pregnancy or from a general amassing of happiness, Silverton didn’t want to speculate.
“No, no,” Verne said. “Nothing would tempt Silverton away from his spinster ways.”
“Now that does sound like a challenge,” Olympe joked. “I know Silverton fair broke little Juliet’s heart in the summer.”
The reference to Verne’s seventeen-year-old niece had Verne frowning and Silverton backing off with a frown. The idea of pursuing a girl he thought of as little more than a child was an unpleasant element of thetonmarriage games, which Silverton had never enjoyed. Why would someone want to wed a girl? The thought revolted him.
“Hmm.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t have to justify the way he felt. Overt displays of affection were distasteful to him. Sniffing loudly, he looked away and settled on staring at the floor. But even the cobbled slates below him seemed brighter due to the candles, as if they, too, were celebrating. Neither Verne nor Olympe knew what it was like to live with such a flawed family as Silverton had, and why that might leave him skittish and feeling as if love was something alien to him. Perhaps Woolwich had the right idea, having avoided the whole sorry affair, and had simply sent a gift in lieu of attending.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Olympe said as the couple kissed, having finally been declared husband and wife. The guests got to their feet in preparation to congratulate the couple and then make their way towards the exit. There was the wedding breakfast to get to, and with one glance out of the window, Silverton could see it was snowing.
“Looks like a blizzard,” he said loudly to the assembled merry guests.
Protectively, Verne stepped forward as if he would shield his wife from the bad weather, and the three of them exited the little chapel, with Verne leading the way, determined to check the pathway for any danger. So much for Silverton’s dire prediction because the snow was actually dancing in the air, creating a glittering magical effect all around the chapel. The Hurstbourne servants had set out a trail of dotted lanterns to show the guests the route back towards the house, and through the gathering throng, Silverton heard ominous whispers of dancing.
He marched ahead, leaving the Vernes in his wake. His leg had been injured previously, which meant he had to use a cane. There had also been a lingering illness that came on the heels of that injury, which never seemed to go away. He had been seeing his family physician since then, with the hopes that his poor health would improve, but if anything, he had been getting steadily worse. Perhaps old age had found Silverton before his time.
There was a half a mile or so walk between the little chapel and the main manor house, and its way was filled with sparse trees, and a grey, sombre landscape beyond it. But the surroundings were elevated by the lanterns, the bright snow, and the general merriment of the guests.
God, he wouldn’t be surprised if they started singing soon.
Glancing back, Silverton saw the new bride and groom approaching him. They made for a handsome couple. Isabel was a slim, silvery blonde lady, whereas Lynde topped six feet, and had a handsomely aristocratic face that displayed his warmth, wit, and kindness. Their wedding attire was traditional, with a few touches of fur trim in a nod to the season, and the bride wore a handsome lace trimmed veil that framed her pretty face. The pair of them looked as if they were content to be all alone in their own happy world. Isabel was grinning with slight, gentle amusement, and there was such a soft look in Lynde’s eyes that it stopped Silverton short.
It did not simply speak of lust. It seemed to dig into the emotions that the vicar had discussed—devotion, adoration, the tenderest of respects—feelings that Silverton was not sure he had ever felt in his life. Suddenly, Olympe’s light teasing words of being a spinster did not seem too far off the mark.
Maybe he was jealous. He didn’t want precisely what the Lyndes had. It was more that he doubted he was capable of such feelings. And wasn’t that a pity? That he was such an embittered man. The sheer shame at the sentiment rolled through him, so he didn’t hear whatever it was that Lynde was saying to him.
“What?” Silverton asked, blinking at his friend.
