“Speaking of which, I’m starting to wonder if leaving London will have thwarted our attacker. The business in the study could have been the work of someone sneaking into the house. It’s quite a different matter to sneak into the castle.”
She started to frown, then remembered and banished the expression, reinstating her delighted smile. “I thought you suspected it was the work of someone on the staff.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “That’s one possibility, but on reflection, it’s just as possible someone broke in and rigged it one night.”
The frown continued to threaten. “Did Crosby find any signs of a break-in?”
He shook his head. “But it’s a huge old house with lots of external doors and windows with lots of different locks. It’s possible someone broke in and Crosby hasn’t found the evidence yet, or there wasn’t enough evidence to notice.”
The last notes of the waltz floated over the heads now crowding the dance floor.
Moving with easy grace, they halted, stepped apart, and Julian bowed as Melissa curtsied.
Still smiling, he raised her. As he wound her arm in his, she tipped her head close and murmured, “Perhaps now we’re finally wed, the attacks will cease.”
Julian met her gaze. “As we’ve no idea of the motivation behind them…then yes, perhaps they will.”
As, with their expressions suitably relaxed and happy, they turned to meet the guests waiting to waylay them, she murmured, “You don’t believe that.”
“You don’t, either.”
She sighed. “Regardless, I’ve a feeling they’re not going to attempt anything today—not with so many people, so much of the haut ton, in attendance. In light of that”—she threw him an openly challenging look—“might I suggest we truly relax and give ourselves over to enjoying our wedding day?”
The smile that overtook his face was entirely genuine. “Your wish is my command, my lady.” With an elegant flourish, he waved. “Lead on.”
She laughed and promptly did.
Her uncle Christopher and his wife, Marion, both of whom Julian had met long ago in Little Moseley, were waiting to have a word with them. With a wide grin on his face, Christopher, who was rather senior in the Foreign Office, shook Julian’s hand. “It was a surprise to learn you two knew each other from Christmases spent in Little Moseley”—releasing Julian, Christopher glanced fondly at his wife—“given that was where we met, too.”
Marion smiled benevolently, then looked at Melissa. “You weren’t there that year, when I chased your uncle into Hampshire.”
“No.” Melissa’s smile deepened. She exchanged a glance with Julian. “I was busy elsewhere that year.”
According to Mandy, Melissa had deliberately avoided the place in order to ensure she didn’t run into him. He arched a brow at her, but she only laughed, then Christopher and Marion tendered their farewells, as they had arranged to travel on to visit Marion’s brother and his family, who lived near Chesterfield.
“Going on a journey with children,” Christopher informed them, “is an entirely different experience to any other form of travel.”
Marion poked him in the ribs. “You’re the one who plays games with them until they’re so exhausted they fall asleep.”
“And why,” Christopher said, laughing, “do I do that?”
Marion shook her head at him. To Julian and Melissa, she said, “You’ll understand when you have your own.”
After exchanging handclasps and kisses, Marion swept off in search of her children, towing a smiling Christopher behind her.
The next guests to accost them were Melissa’s cousins Jamie and George, along with Sir Henry Fitzgibbon, Thomas Kilburn, Roger Carnaby, and George Wiley, now Viscount Worth.
Julian and Melissa had been thrilled when they’d learned all six would be there.
Henry enthusiastically kissed Melissa’s hand. “Everyone at Fulsom Hall was delighted to hear of your news. Aunt Ermintrude claims she always knew you two would wed, and Eugenia and Christian send their best.”
Thomas Kilburn grinned unabashedly at Julian and Melissa. “When you two met in Little Moseley all those years ago, the rest of us always thought you’d tie the knot someday—and here we are, on that day, celebrating with you. It’s like we’re the wise men, and our prediction came true.”
The others all nodded.
“It was fated,” George, her cousin, declared. “Jamie, Lottie, and I were certain of that, even all those years ago, and apparently, Grandmama was, too, and you know she’s almost always right.” George grinned, then said, “Remember the Roman hoard?”
Yes,” Roger Carnaby said. “Whatever happened to that?”
