So what if his input on the actual wedding and their future relationship had been virtually non-existent? He had hired a wedding organiser to take care of the arrangements and hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest about the details that had unexpectedly consumed Merry. Was that just Angel being a man or a dangerous sign that he couldn’t care less about the woman he was about to marry? Merry stifled a shiver, rammed down the fear that had flared and contemplated her manicured fingernails with rampant nervous tension. She had made her choice and she had to live with it when the alternative was so much worse and so much emptier. Surely it was better to give marriage a chance?
It had been embarrassing to tell Fergus that she was marrying Angel but he had taken the news in good part, possibly having already worked out that she was still far from indifferent to her daughter’s father.
The first shock of Merry’s wedding day was the unexpected sight of Sybil waiting on the church steps, a tall, slender figure attired in a very elegant blue dress and brimmed hat. Eyes wide with astonishment, Merry emerged from the limousine that had ferried her to the church from the hotel where she had stayed the night before and exclaimed in shaken disbelief, ‘Sybil?’
‘Obviously I couldn’t miss your big day, darling. I got back in the early hours,’ Sybil breathed with a revealing shimmer in her eyes as she reached for Merry’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry about the things I said. I overstepped, interfered—’
‘No, I was too touchy!’ Merry slotted in, stretching up on tiptoe to press a forgiving kiss to the older woman’s cheek. ‘You were shocked, of course you were.’
‘Yes, especially as you’re contriving to do what I never managed…you’re getting married,’ Sybil murmured fondly. ‘And you didn’t do too badly at all picking that dress without my advice. It’s a stunner.’
Her heartache subsiding in the balm of her aunt’s reassuring presence, Merry grinned. ‘Your voice was in my head when I was choosing. Tailored, structured,’ she teased, stepping into the church porch. ‘Where’s Angel’s father? He offered to walk me down the aisle, which I thought was very kind of him.’
‘Yes, quite the charmer, that man,’ Sybil pronounced a shade tartly, evidently having already met Charles Russell. ‘But I told him he could sit back down because I’m here now and I’ll do the long walk.’
‘I think you’d rather take a long walk off a plank,’ Merry warned the older woman gently.
Sybil squeezed the hand she was gripping and smiled warmly down at the young woman who had been more her daughter than her niece, only to stiffen nervously at the prospect of the confession that she knew she had to make some time soon. Natalie had asked her to tell Merry the truth and Sybil was now duty-bound to reveal that family secret. Sadly, telling that same truth had shattered her relationship with Natalie when Natalie was eighteen years old and she could only hope that it would not have the same devastating effect on her bond with Merry and her child.
Gloriously ignorant of that approaching emotional storm, Merry smoothed down her dress, which effortlessly delineated the high curve of her breasts and her neat waist before falling softly to her feet, lending her a shapely silhouette. Straightening her slight shoulders, she lifted her head high, her short flirty veil dancing round her flushed face, accentuating the light blue of her eyes.
Even before she went down the aisle, she heard Elyssa chuckling. Her daughter was in the care of her new nanny, a lovely down-to-earth young woman from Yorkshire called Sally, who had impressed both Merry and Angel with her genuine warmth and interest in children. Merry’s eyes skimmed from her daughter’s curly head and waving arms as she danced on Sally’s knee and settled on Angel, poised at the altar with an equally tall dark male, Vitale, whose resemblance to Angel echoed his obvious family relationship to his brother. But Angel had the edge in Merry’s biased opinion, the lean, beautiful precision of his bronzed features highlighting the shimmering brilliance of his dark eyes and his undeniable hold on her attention.
Her breath caught in her dry throat and butterflies ran amok in her tummy, her chest stretched so tightly that her lungs felt compressed. Her hand slid off Sybil’s arm, suddenly nerveless as she reached the altar to be greeted by the Greek Orthodox priest. Angel gripped her cold fingers, startling her, and she glanced up at him, noticing the tension stamped in his strong cheekbones and the compressed line of his wide, sensual mouth. Yes, getting wed had to be a sheer endurance test for a wayward playboy like Angel Valtinos, Merry reflected with rueful amusement, but it was an unfortunate thought because she started wondering then whether he would find the tedious domestic aspects of family life and the unchanging nature of a wife a trial and a bore. The service marched on regardless of her teeming anxiety. The vows were exchanged, an ornately plaited gold wedding ring that she savoured for its distinctiveness and his selection of it slid onto her finger and then a matching one onto his.