In answer, he curved his hand around her nape, pressed her cheek tightly to his chest, and whispered, "Whitney's wedding gown. She wanted you to wear it if you came back with me."

Sheridan decided it was absurd to cry merely because she was happy.

"How long will it take you to get ready?"

"An hour," Sheridan said regretfully, "if we have to try anything elaborate with my hair."

For the second time, he bent his head and whispered something the maids couldn't hear: "Brush it if you must, and then leave it alone."

"Oh, but-"

"I have a distinct partiality for that long, shining, brazen red hair of yours."

"In that case," she said a little shakily as he let her go, "I think I'll wear it down tonight."

"Good, because we only have fifteen minutes left."

The dowager duchess looked at Hugh Whitticomb when the under-butler, who was stationed on the balcony, called out the name of the Duke and Duchess of Hawthorne as they passed by him and made their way into the crowded ballroom. "Hugh, do you have the time?" she asked.

Clayton, who had just looked at his own watch, answered for the physician. "It's after ten o'clock."

The answer caused the small group of people to look despondently at one another. Whitney expressed all their thoughts in a voice filled with sad resignation. "Sherry refused him or they would have been here three hours ago."

"I felt so very certain-" Miss Charity began, then broke off, her narrow shoulders drooping with despair.

"Perhaps DuVille couldn't get her to agree to go to the chapel," Jason Fielding suggested, but his wife shook her head and said flatly, "If Nicki DuVille wanted her to accompany him, he'd have found a way to persuade her to do it."

Unaware that she'd made it sound as if no woman could refuse Nicki anything, she glanced up and saw her husband frowning at Clayton Westmoreland. "Is there something about DuVille that I haven't noticed?" he demanded of the duke. "Something that makes him irresistible?"

"I have no trouble resisting him," Clayton said dryly, then he stopped while one of his great-aunts came over to congratulate his mother on her birthday.

"This is such a lovely ball, Alicia. You must be very happy tonight."

"I could be happier," the dowager duchess said with a sigh as she turned to begin mingling with the guests in the ballroom.

On the balcony above, the under-butler called out more new arrivals. "Sir Roderick Carstairs. Mr. Nicholas DuVille…"

The dowager whirled around and looked up, along with the rest of the small group that had been waiting for word of the day's outcome. Nicki looked down at them, his handsome face solemn as he walked slowly along the balcony toward the stairs leading down to the ballroom. "It didn't happen!" Whitney whispered achingly, studying his expression. "We failed."

Her husband slid his hand around her waist and pulled her close. "You tried, darling. You did everything that could be done."

"We all did," Charity Thornton agreed, her chin trembling as she looked sadly at Hugh Whitticomb and then up at Nicholas DuVille.

"The Earl and Countess of Langford!"

That announcement caused an immediate reaction among the inhabitants of the ballroom, who began looking at one another in surprise and then turned to the balcony, but it was nothing compared to the reaction among the small group of seven people who'd been keeping a vigil of hope. A jolt went through the entire group; hands reached out blindly and were clasped tightly by other hands; faces lifted to the balcony, while joyous smiles dawned brightly and eyes misted with tears.

Attired in formal black evening clothes with a white waistcoat and frilled white shirt, Stephen Westmoreland, Earl of Langford, was walking across the balcony. On his arm was a medieval princess clad in a pearl-encrusted ivory satin gown with a low, square bodice that tapered to a deep V at the waist. A gold chain with clusters of diamonds and pearls in each link rode low on her hips, swaying with each step, and her hair tumbled in flaming waves and heavy curls over her shoulders and back.

"Oh, my-" Charity breathed in awe, but her exclamation was drowned by the thunder of applause that had begun all over the ballroom and was gaining in volume, until it seemed to shake the very rafters.

62

It was his wedding night.

With his shirt open at the collar and his cuffs rolled back on his forearms, Stephen sat in a wing-backed chair in his bedchamber, his feet propped upon a low table, while he lingered over a glass of brandy, giving his bride ample time to disrobe and dismiss her maids.

His wedding night…

His bride…

He looked round in surprise as his valet let himself into the suite. "May I be of assistance this evening?" Damson suggested when his master seemed baffled by what was actually a routine appearance each night.

Assistance? Stephen stifled a smile as his wayward thoughts refused to switch from the pleasurable task that lay ahead of him to Damson's offer to assist him tonight. His mind conjured a comic image of his conscientious valet hovering at Sheridan's bedside, his clothing brush in hand, waiting for Stephen to hand him his trousers so he could hang them properly, then bustling back to the bedside for each additional piece of clothing as Stephen removed it.

"My lord?" Damson prompted and Stephen gave his head a slight shake as he realized he was staring past the servant with what surely must look like an idiot's smile.

"No," he said with polite firmness. "Thank you."

Damson eyed Stephen's open shirt and rolled-back cuffs with disapproval. "Your dressing robe perhaps, my lord, the black brocade?"

Stephen tried, very seriously, to imagine what possible use he was going to have for a dressing robe, and felt the smile tug at his cheek again. "No, I think not."

"The wine silk, then?" Damson persevered doggedly. "Or the dark green, perhaps?" It hit Stephen that his middle-aged valet, who had never been married, was gravely concerned that Stephen was not likely to make a good impression on his new bride were he to walk into her bedchamber casually attired in trousers and shirtsleeves.

"Neither one."

"Perhaps the-"

"Go to bed, Damson," Stephen said, cutting off any discussion of silk neckcloths and appropriate shirt studs, which he felt certain would be the valet's next point of concern. "And, thank you," he added with a brief smile to take any sting out of the dismissal.

Damson obeyed with a bow, but not before he cast a tortured look at Stephen's open shirtfront and the glimpse of bare throat and chest it allowed.

Half-convinced the man would make one more attempt to save him from the unspeakable indignity of appearing for his wedding night inappropriately attired, Stephen put the brandy glass on the table. Then he got up, walked over to the door, and threw the bolt.

Damson did not know, of course, that Stephen had already precipitated his wedding night with Sherry, and as Stephen opened the connecting door between the suites, he felt a sharp stab of guilty regret for the way he had begun and ended that night, but not for what they had done in the middle of it. Resolved to atone for everything their last encounter lacked, he walked into the connecting bedchamber. He stopped in surprise when she wasn't waiting for him in bed, since he'd given her more than enough time to disrobe. Then he walked slowly toward the adjoining bathing room. He was partway there when the hall door of her bedchamber opened, and a maid rushed in carrying a pile of fluffy towels.