If Vanessa had hoped to have a private word with her betrothed - and she /had /so hoped - in order to ask him once more if he really minded marrying her or if he would prefer her to grant him his freedom, any such hope was dashed soon after her return from London.

She saw him only twice before her wedding day - once when he escorted the Duke and Duchess of Moreland and his two elder sisters to Warren Hall, and once when he brought his aunts and uncles and their offspring.

He looked positively morose both times, like a dark and bronzed Greek god who had been expelled from Mount Olympus for some heinous crime.

Both times he conversed with Margaret and Katherine and Stephen and made Vanessa an elaborate and formal bow and asked after her health.

His visits certainly did not aid her digestion as she awaited her wedding day.

Neither did the appearance of the duke and duchess, who were both very gracious and very kind - she almost confided to the duke that it was she who had proposed marriage to his grandson, not the other way around, but Viscount Lyngate was within earshot at the time and she supposed he might be annoyed at what he would surely construe as a slur on his manhood.

But even so, they were a real live duke and duchess. She was awed by them. And she was to marry their heir.

The presence of her mother- and father-in-law and her sisters-in-law did not help either. They were so pleased to see her again and so pleased to be at Warren Hall and to see Meg and Kate and Stephen. And they were so pleased that she was betrothed to Viscount Lyngate. Sir Humphrey even took full credit for bringing them together and told the duke and duchess so - in the viscount's hearing. It was another of those occasions on which Vanessa would cheerfully have sunk through the floor if only it had been possible.

But Vanessa loved the Dews. And she knew they loved her. Soon she would no longer share their name. She would be married to someone else.

Surely they must feel some sadness.

And of course they did. On the night before the wedding, when she was bidding them good night, Vanessa kissed Lady Dew on the cheek and hugged her as she had used to do each night, and she had smiled at Sir Humphrey as she had always done. But then she had hugged him impulsively - very tightly about the neck, her face buried against his shoulder, and had felt as if her heart would break. "There, there," he said, patting her on the back. "You were good to our boy, Nessie. More than good. He died a happy man. Far too young, it is true, but happy nevertheless. And all because of you. But he is gone now and we must live on. You must be happy again, and we must be happy to see it. Viscount Lyngate is a good man. I picked him out for you myself." "Papa." She laughed shakily at the absurdity. "May I always call you that? And Mama?" "We would be mortally offended if you ever called us anything else," he said.

And Lady Dew got to her feet to share the hug. "When you have children, Nessie," she said, "they must call us Grandmama and Grandpapa. They will be our grandchildren, you know, just as surely as if you had had them with Hedley." It was almost too much to bear.

Vanessa was glad they stayed out of her dressing room the next morning.

Mrs. Thrush insisted upon being there, of course, fussing over Vanessa and getting in the way of the maid who had come down from London to work for Meg and Kate. And everyone else came there. "Lord, Nessie," Stephen said, looking her up and down in her pale spring-green dress and pelisse with the absurdly festive flower-trimmed straw hat that Cecily had spotted at one of the milliners they had visited in London. Her hair curled and bounced beneath its brim. "You look as fine as fivepence. And years younger than you did when you went away to London." He was looking very smart indeed, with far more /presence /than he had had when they left Throckbridge. Vanessa told him so and he waved off the compliment with a careless hand.

Kate was biting her lower lip. "And to think," she said, "that just a few weeks ago Meg was darning stockings, Stephen was translating Latin texts, I was romping with the infants at school, and you were at Rundle Park, Nessie. And now here we are. And today brings the greatest change of all." Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her lip again. "Today," Margaret said firmly, "Nessie begins her happily-ever-after.

And she looks absolutely spendid." She was dry-eyed and rather tight-jawed. But there was such fierce affection in her eyes that Vanessa could not look into them for longer than a few moments at a time for fear of breaking down.

They had sat up far too late last night, Vanessa propped against the pillows of her bed, Margaret seated at the foot, her legs drawn up to her chin. "I want you to promise me," she had said, "that you will not lose your ability to be happy and to spread happiness about you, Nessie. No matter what. You must not lose yourself. Promise me." She was afraid that living with Viscount Lyngate would drag at Vanessa's spirit. How foolish she was. The opposite would be true. She would make him smile and laugh. She would make him happy.

She had promised him that she would. She had promised his mother the same thing. More important, she had promised herself. "I promise," she had said, smiling. "You goose, Meg. I am not going to the guillotine tomorrow. I am going to my own wedding. I did not tell you before, but on the day he asked me to marry him - we were out at the lake - he kissed me." Margaret stared at her. "I liked it," Vanessa said. "I really /really /liked it. And I think he did too." That part was probably untrue, but it was not an outright lie because she had not asked him and so did not know for sure. Anyway, he had certainly /wanted /her.

Margaret rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped about her knees. "I /need /kisses, Meg," Vanessa had said. "And I need more than kisses.

I need to be married again. I think sometimes men believe that only they need…kisses. But they are wrong. Women have such needs too. I am glad I am getting married again." And it was not even a complete lie, she had thought. She really did want more of his kisses and more /than /his kisses.

She wanted love and happiness too. If she tried very hard, perhaps she could achieve one of the two.

This morning, though, as Stephen held out his arm and she took it so that he could lead her downstairs and out to the carriage for the short ride to the chapel, she was not so sure that she wanted any of this.

She was going to marry a stranger. A handsome, virile, frowning, impatient, morose, sneering…

Oh, dear.

He had also gone down on one knee to propose marriage to her even though it had been unnecessary since /she /had already proposed to /him/ - and he had probably ruined his pantaloons on the wet grass in the process.

She settled herself on the carriage seat, leaving room for Stephen beside her, and felt a little as if she /were /on the way to the guillotine after all.

Foolishly, she wanted Hedley.

There were no more than thirty wedding guests all told. Even so, they almost filled the small private chapel.

The nuptial service was not a long one. That fact had always surprised Vanessa at the weddings she had attended - including her own first wedding. And this one was no different.

How could such a momentous and irrevocable change in two lives be effected in so short a time and with such little fuss? The only real moment of drama came with that short pause after the clergyman asked if anyone knew of any impediment to the proposed marriage.

As on all other such occasions that Vanessa knew of, that pause remained unfilled today, and the service swept onward to its inevitable conclusion.

She was aware, as soon as Stephen placed her hand in Viscount Lyngate's, that her own was cold, that his was firm and steady and warm. She was aware of his immaculate tailoring - he wore unadorned black and white, as he had at the Valentine's assembly - of his height and the breadth of his shoulders. She was aware of his cologne.

She was aware of the quickened beating of her heart.

And she was aware of an era slipping away from her as her name changed and she became Vanessa Wallace, Viscountess Lyngate.

Hedley slipped farther into her past, and she had to let him go.

She belonged to this man now.

To this stranger.

She raised her eyes to his as he slipped her new wedding ring on her finger.

How was it possible to marry a stranger?

But she was doing it.

So was he. Did he even realize how little he knew her? Did it matter to him?

The ring safely in place, he looked up into her eyes.

She smiled.

He did not.

And then, a dizzyingly short number of moments later, they were man and wife. And what God had joined together, no man was to put asunder. No woman either, presumably.

They signed the church register and then walked along the short nave of the church together while Vanessa smiled to the left and the right at their guests. Meg was dry-eyed, Kate was not. Stephen was grinning. So was Mr. Bowen. The viscountess - now the /dowager /viscountess - was dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. The duke was looking at them from beneath craggy eyebrows, a ferocious frown on his face. The duchess was smiling sweetly and nodding her head. Sir Humphrey was blowing his nose.

Everything else was a blur.

The first thing Vanessa noticed as they stepped out of the chapel - she had not noticed on the way in - was that the grass of the churchyard and the hedgerows beneath the trees were dotted with crocuses and primroses and clumps of daffodils.