Barely a Bride (Free Fellows League 1)

The ambulatory passengers were the first to leave, followed by those who required assistance, the bedridden, and finally, the gravely wounded.

Griffin was among the last of the ambulatory passengers to make his way down the gangway. Lord Shepherdston and Eastman closely followed him.

He was easy to recognize. His height set him apart from most of the other passengers, and Griffin wore the distinctive dress uniform of His Majesty’s own Eleventh Blues.

He hadn’t yet spotted them, and Alyssa took the opportunity to feast upon the sight of him and take careful note of the changes.

The sun had burnished his face and neck, but Alyssa could see that he was pale and thin. His coat hung on his muscular frame, clearly marking the loss of a stone or more of weight. His right arm was confined to a sling. He held a cane in his left hand, using it to support his weight as he inched his way down the ramp. His lush lower lip was compressed into a firm, determined line. He struggled valiantly to hide it, but anyone who knew Griffin could see that he was clearly suffering from the pain of his wounds and fighting the effects of overexertion.

“Jesus!” Colin breathed, squeezing Alyssa’s hand once again, but this time more to comfort himself than to comfort her. “He looks as if he’s aged five years.”

Alyssa agreed. Griffin was still one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, but he bore little physical resemblance to the man who had left for the Peninsula fourteen months earlier.

This Griffin was leaner, harder, and the look in his eyes was that of an old man, one who had lost .the sweet innocence of youth and desperately needed to recapture a glimpse of it. Alyssa shivered at the look of guilty anguish she saw on his face.

Lady Weymouth began to cry.

“Griffin!” Lord Weymouth called to his son as he patted his wife on the shoulder in a heartfelt gesture of comfort.

Refusing to greet him with tears in her eyes, Alyssa blinked them back and welcomed him with a smile.

Recognizing the sound of his father’s voice above the noise of the crowd, Griffin turned his head sharply to his left and scanned the faces of the people below. “Where are they?” he demanded, squinting into the morning sun. “I can’t see them.”

“There!” Jarrod pointed. “A bit farther to the left at the end of the red carpet beside Prime Minister Sir Spencer Perceval and the Prince of Wales.”

Griffin recognized the dandily dressed and increasingly corpulent form of the Prince Regent first and then fixed his gaze on his parents, who were standing beside him. “She’s crying,” he said softly. “I have become a hero, and my mother is crying—and in the presence of His Royal Highness.”

“Of course she’s crying,” Jarrod replied in a tone of voice just above a whisper. “I’d cry, too, if I had to stand beside His Highness. Good Lord! Look at his breeches. That shade of green is enough to make anyone cry. Especially a woman of your mother’s exceptional taste.” Jarrod smiled at Griffin and was rewarded, for a split second, by a ghost of his friend’s old smile.

Behind them, Eastman coughed to keep from snickering. Jarrod turned to face his friend. “Those are tears of relief, you big oaf. Your mother missed you something fierce, and she’s terribly grateful to have you home safe and sound.”

“And only a little bit worse for wear.” Griffin said the right thing, but his voice was tight with strain, and his smile was patently artificial. Looking back down at his parents, he caught sight of Alyssa shivering in the cold and sucked in a breath.

“I feel much better,” Jarrod remarked dryly.

“You feel better?” Griffin challenged.

“Yes, indeed,” Jarrod retorted. “Now, I know you’re still alive.”

Griffin shot his friend a nasty look.

Jarrod ignored it. “I was beginning to wonder. It’s about time you took notice of your bride.”

“I didn’t expect her,” Griffin said. “I thought she’d be waiting at the manor where I left her.” The way I left her. He recalled the way Alyssa had looked lying in bed with her hair fanned out across the pillows, the rosy tip of one breast peeking out from beneath the sheets.

“Nearly all of London turns out for your arrival home, and you think your wife is going to wait in the country? Not likely,” Jarrod said.

“I haven’t written in weeks,” Griffin admitted. “Not since…” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t ask her to meet me. I didn’t know when I was coming home or if she—”

“You didn’t write to tell her you were coming home?” Griffin shook his head.

“You would have left her at the manor?”

Griff nodded.

“Then it’s a bloody good thing your father sent for her. You’re a hero, Griff. I know you didn’t want a wife before you left, but you got one, whether you wanted one or not. And since you’ve got one, do yourself a favor and remember that a woman will forgive you just about anything so long as you don’t do anything to embarrass or humiliate her in public. If you had allowed her to miss all of this”—Jarrod waved his arm to encompass the celebratory crowd— “you would have publicly humiliated her.”

“Who made you a bloody authority on wives?” Griffin retorted, suddenly ashamed of himself for being so caught up in his own feelings that he’d forgotten about Alyssa’s.