“We’ll let him have his fun with it at the reception,” I said. “I designed this one for him.”
Jess playfully swatted my behind. “No kidding.”
Will’s mother, Mary Hastings, had insisted that nothing less than two gowns would do for our traditional English wedding, so I’d sketched a classic, embroidered ball gown for the ceremony and reserved the unconventional design that I’d already drawn for later. Will had commissioned a well-known fashion designer in London to help me refine the details and ultimately bring both of my drawings to life.
The dress for the reception was a vintage-inspired white lace gown with a deeply cut bodice and an open back with a skirt that fell into a train that swept gracefully from the hem. The band at the dropped waist and the long sleeves were fashioned of the same antique lace but were unlined, while the skirt and bodice were lined in white silk. Slight ruching along the hips created a snug fit on my backside.
Will’s knuckles rapped on the door again. “Elle, how much longer? Come with me to the church for the final inspection so the contractor can be dismissed.”
We had decided to be married in a private ceremony on the Hastings estate, where we were happiest, though it meant declining the Crown’s thoughtful invitation to wed at St. George’s Chapel in London. Our guest list wasn’t meager by any means—it was longer each time Mary and the wedding planner placed it in front of me for approval—but it was limited to people who held some significance for the family. Will and I wanted our day to be as intimate as possible. We wanted to know that between the two of us, we would recognize the faces present on our special day. No strangers. No twice-removed acquaintances.
Across the meadow, beyond a grove of near lifeless wintering t
rees, was a chapel built of the same native stone as the lavish mansion where we now lived. Eastridge was Will’s family home, an eighteenth-century country estate in South East England. The house was perched high on the ridge of an old seaside town located along the coast of the English Channel. The quaint little church nestled deep inside the property had been neglected for decades, so Will had hired a contractor to supervise a full restoration.
The new steeple lantern would be lit for the first time that evening and burn for the next few nights through Christmas, and it would be visible from the town below, Will had told me earlier in the week.
“The bishop will arrive soon,” he said through the door. “Baby, do you hear me? I won’t see him without you, goddammit.”
“Give me five more minutes,” I called back. “Your mother will manage the bishop until everyone gathers for dinner. Leave it to her.”
The bishop of Chichester had agreed to perform the ceremony on our terms. Although he seemed to be a congenial man who, like me, had spent years studying art history, I still sensed some level of disapproval over our decision to marry at Eastridge.
Mary patted my arm and excused herself from the dressing room. “He’ll come in for you, dear, if you don’t hurry along. My son is not pleased with my direction to keep his distance from you tonight.”
“Your what?”
“He must stay with his brothers tonight. Lissie and Jessica will stay here with you to free up a few more guest rooms,” she said over her shoulder as she pushed through the door without allowing Will to see inside.
Right then a twinge of anxiety turned over in my stomach. Will and I hadn’t spent a night apart since he’d been shot two months before. He’d taken an assassin’s bullet meant for me that day. Our obsessive behaviors with one another had intensified after our near misses with death, and we had clung to each other, body and soul, every night since.
“Thank you. It’s perfect,” I told the seamstress after she placed the final stitch. I stepped down from the platform, and as she unfastened my gown, I twisted my ruby and diamond engagement ring from side to side on my finger.
Jess placed her hand over mine for a moment before helping me into my robe. “Mary means well. She doesn’t realize what she’s asking. I know you don’t want to let her down, but go with your gut on this. If you’re not ready to be separated from him, then we’ll make sure you’re not separated. Talk to her.”
I nodded. “I’ve given way and trusted her with the details of the wedding, but I can’t give her this. The reality is, if I’m to be whole tomorrow, I need him tonight. I hope she understands. Maybe there’s some sort of compromise.”
“Since when is Will a compromising man? When he sees that you’re uncomfortable with it, that’ll be the end of it. You know that.” She lifted my chin, and her eyes were filled with the kind of love a sister would reveal. “Back to happy, Ells. We win today. Anxiety loses.”
“We win,” I repeated.
Will turned the doorknob, pausing only to announce that he was coming in, and my heart leaped at the sound of his deep, rasping voice.
I found my smile and pointed as he opened the door.
“I’m getting married, Jess—to that magnificent man.”
Will and I stepped out of the estate’s Land Rover and walked hand in hand along the granite pavers that led through a grove of large trees to an iron gate that secured the church. Crisp, briny winds blew in from the west and stirred my longing for the sea. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, and twilight was quickly becoming dusk. The steeple lamp was burning, providing plenty of light for us to see our way to the little stone building beyond the gate.
We passed through patches of winter-flowering heather and dormant grass, and a young tree with bare branches caught my attention. It was as if the tree had been planted with intent in the precise location in which it now stood.
“It’s a wishing tree,” Will said, catching the question on my face. “Guests will hang ribbons on the branches that represent their wishes for our marriage . . . and probably for Lissie and for our future children. It’s a resilient oak species, chosen because it’ll remain long after we’re gone.”
“That’s really beautiful.”
“It’s an old custom from Ireland. Mum’s mother was Irish,” he said.
“Are she and Mrs. Bates related?”