Page 59 of The Girl Out of Time
But if it would, would it be such an awful outcome? Daniel wasn’t as bad as he’d appeared at first, and he was so handsome, and that kiss …
“But my wedding at St. George’s,” the duchess said with a shaky lip.
“No, Mother,mywedding.”
“Well, I’m all for it!” Louisa gave Emmeline a wide smile. “We’re going to be sisters even sooner! Oh, we should go shopping.” She rose from the table and danced around Emmeline’s chair. “Come. We must get you dresses and jewelry and everything you’ll need!” She turned to the duchess. “Could we—”
“You’renotgoing to Plymouth.”
Louisa pouted, but cheered back up. “I’d invite you, Brother, but this is strictly female business.”
“I regret to inform you I planned to go riding, anyway,” Daniel said.
“Oh, boo. You’re no fun.”
The duchess let out a sound similar to a boiling teapot.
“And you’ve broken Mama,” Louisa said.
“Finally. Thank you, my son. I knew you’d come in useful one day,” the duke said.
Louisa giggled and dragged Emmeline out of the chair. “We must not lose a minute. We’ll take you to the best seamstress in Redbridge. She’ll throw a fit when she finds out she only has a month to work on a gown, but you’ll see, we’ll convince her …”
The shopping trip took hours, even though all that was accomplished by the end was the assurance of the service of Mrs. Lemmont, the finest seamstress in town, and the narrowing down of the wedding gown fabricto three candidates—a pale pink satin, a cream muslin as soft as a cloud, and a silvery white taffeta.
And they didn’t even get to the embellishments yet—lace, embroidery, perhaps a lamé net?
Only when they returned home, and Louisa retired to her room—purely because she’d worked her voice down to a whisper at this point—did Emmeline remember she was supposed to talk with Theo regarding their plans.
And she hadn’t made any plans.
She found him in the stables, whispering something to a fine-looking black stallion.
“Emmeline,” Theo greeted, his eyes lighting up.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Well, we didn’t specify a time.”
“I’ve been busy. Louisa and I went to town. The wedding is getting moved up, so we have many things to plan.”
She could’ve sworn Theo’s face fell, but when she blinked, it was back to normal.
“The wedding,” he said.
“Mine and Daniel’s. It’s to be at the end of August. But don’t worry! I still have our plan in mind. I’ll figure out how to get back to Lady Scarlet. The others will take care of the wedding stuff. There won’t be that much to plan, anyway.”
Theo gave her a restrained smile.
“Miss Grey?” A footman appeared at the entrance. “Her Grace requires your presence in the drawing room.”
Emmeline nodded to him, then turned to Theo. “I’ll be back when I have it planned out!”
The next two weeks passed in a whirlwind of activities and felt like a fever dream. Emmeline could’ve never imagined a wedding needed so much planning, but the duchess’s list of items never ran out. Emmeline suspected it was out of spite, since Daniel had told her to keep it simple. Meanwhile, it had turned out the times had not yet caught up with Emmeline’s fanciful ideas of a wedding. Sending out invitations was simply not a thing, and out-of-town relatives were not expected to attend—which, while sad in any other case, spared her the problem of Maria’s parents finding out about the change of plans.
It also explained why the duchess kept crying over her lost Hanover Square location. Instead of thehaut tonof London, she’d get the two local genteel families as her attendants to the weddings.
Under her limitations, the duchess did the best she could. Planned a grand dinner feast afterward; fussed over food selection and tablecloths and flowers and ribbons, and how those should match Emmeline’s dress; convinced the duke to purchase a brand new curricle, so the newly married couple could drive from the church in it.
