Never a Gentleman by Eileen Dreyer Page B

she said.
     “To either of you.”
    “Ah, sweetheart, you know better than that,” he said, continuing down the street.
    “Yes, I do,” she said, matching his easy stride. “Cousin Charles has agreed to marry you?”
    “He will officiate at our service himself, this afternoon at four.”
    She nodded. “I’ll arrange a little wedding breakfast.” She paused, her focus on the half-timbered houses they passed. “Diccan.
     About Grace…”
    Diccan looked over. “She hasn’t bolted, has she?”
    “Of course not. If there is one thing Grace has had beaten into her over the years, it is her duty. She certainly wouldn’t
     turn her back on it now. Which brings me to my threat.”
    Diccan’s smile was unbearably sweet. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stand in line for that, old dear.”
    She stopped, bringing her much taller cousin to a halt at the edge of the River Stour. “Grace gives everyone the impression
     that she’s made of iron,” Kate said. “She’s always the first one to help. The person everyone goes to. But I have a feeling
     Grace is more fragile than we know. She hasn’t even had the time to grieve for her father. I know you better than anyone,
     Cuz, and I know that as much as you would protest to hear it, you are as honorable as she.”She looked up at him, her favorite person in the world, and she did something inconceivable. She begged. “Promise me you won’t
     hurt her.”
    Diccan lifted a lazy eyebrow. “You make me sound like a savage.”
    Kate snorted. “All men are savages, Diccan. You’re just more elegant than most. Promise me.”
    For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
    He looked away to where swans floated by on the narrow ribbon of water. “I can’t.”
    Kate would have railed at him, if she just hadn’t seen his eyes. Fathomless, icy gray, rimmed in blue, usually as opaque as
     mirrors. Suddenly, here on a street in Canterbury, she could see uncertainty, dismay, pain. She saw that her cousin, the man
     the
ton
called the Perfection, was vulnerable as well.
    “Can you at least tell me you’ll try?” she asked softly.
    He sighed and shifted his shoulders, as if the weight of his promise were almost too heavy. “Yes, Katie. I promise I’ll try.”
    Kate lifted up on her toes to kiss his taut cheek. “Then I am satisfied. Just remember. I’m always there for you both.”
    Giving her hand another kiss, he turned them back toward the inn. “Well, that should keep you busy for the next fifty years
     or so.”
    Grace was married with a full military honor guard in Canterbury Cathedral. And not in a side chapel, where she could have
     at least felt inconspicuous. No. The Most Reverend Charles Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury,insisted that his cousin Diccan be married right at the high altar, as if it would help impress on him the gravity of the
     moment.
    And then, as if Grace weren’t uncomfortable enough, Diccan’s father joined them at the altar. A tall, thin, balding man, he
     would have disappeared into his rich ecclesiastical robes except for the icy disdain in his eyes—the same glacial gray eyes
     his son possessed, but infinitely more inhospitable. He stood just behind the archbishop and glared without once blinking.
    Diccan seemed to find the whole thing entertaining, his face set in a knowing half-smile. Grace found it overwhelming. The
     great church was frigid, the stone beneath her slippers unyielding. Clouds had rolled in to obscure the glorious light from
     the Trinity Chapel windows above the high altar. Candles flickered, but the stone walls rose dim and distant, the archbishop’s
     plummy tones rising into their shadowy recesses like incense.
    Even the attendees conspired to unnerve Grace. Diccan sported his customary faultless black and white, with a silver-threaded
     ivory vest. Pristine to a tee, he had tied his cravat in a perfect
trone d’amour
and secured it with a ruby of obscene size that matched the one that gleamed in his