No Greater Love by Katherine Kingsley

“You have been married before. Surely you understand?”
    Georgia nodded again, feeling more miserable than ever. She understood perfectly. Nicholas just had a pretty way of putting it.
    “Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I’ve been insensitive. Perhaps it will help if we look at this as a fresh start for us both, an adventure we are undertaking together.”
    She looked over at him and managed a slight smile. “You must forgive me as well. You are being uncommonly kind, and I am behaving in a most foolish fashion. You are quite correct. We are both embarking on an adventure, and I shall try to keep that in mind.”
    “Good. And here we are, Georgia.” He alighted and helped her down from the carriage, and then he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and took her into the church to be married.
    It was dark and cool inside and Georgia noticed that there was a comfortable smell of old wood and beeswax. The vicar was perfectly pleasant, delighted to see Nicholas again, whom apparently he’d christened, and he professed himself delighted to marry them.
    “It’s no trouble at all, Nicholas, my boy. What a lovely woman you have chose as your bride. I am so pleased you decided to come back to your old parish to be married. Now, if you’ll just stand here, Mrs. Wells and you here, Nicholas, and your man behind you—and Mrs. Petersby, over there, thank you. Now, shall we begin?”
    Georgia thought she was going to be sick. She remembered this far too clearly from the last time, only then the vicar’s face had been cold and disapproving, and the other faces had held barely disguised sniggers. But she had been innocent then, had not understood what the sniggers meant.
    “Wilt thou, Georgina Eugenie, have this man to thy wedded husband?”
    Georgia glanced over and up at Nicholas as the words droned on. He couldn’t have been more different from Baggie. The diffused light of the sun fell through the stained glass onto his cheek and the shoulder nearest her. She could only see the straight bridge of his nose, the definition of his cheekbone, the side of his mouth, and the smooth angle of his jawline, ending in a well-shaped ear, behind which his black hair curled.
    Nicholas suddenly turned his head and met her eyes, and he smiled. She dropped her eyes abruptly, coloring.
    No, there was no external resemblance to Baggie, none whatsoever. Baggie had stood at the altar in his best clothes, eye level to her, and he had never once taken those eyes off her. But he hadn’t smiled. He hadn’t smiled once. Now she knew what he had been thinking about.
    “With this ring I thee wed. With my body I thee worship…” Nicholas said, slipping the gold ring onto her finger. She looked down at it. It was heavier than Baggie’s had been, and the gold was deep and rich. Worship? It was a peculiar way to put it.
    She stiffened as Nicholas lifted her chin and bent down and lightly kissed her. He kissed her in a far more circumspect fashion than he had in the weeds outside Raven’s Close, his warm lips just brushing hers, and it really wasn’t so bad after all. After receiving the congratulations of the vicar, the vicar’s cleaning lady, and Binkley, he took her back to the Cock and Bull and told her to wait for him.
    “I’ll be back, Georgia. I’m going to Ravenswalk to claim the Close, and I think this is something I’d best do alone.”
    Georgia merely nodded, wishing him out the door as fast as possible. As soon as he’d gone, she went straight back outside and walked as quickly as possible down the village lane toward the open country. She needed a good quantity of fresh air and exercise to blow the troubles out of her brain, proprieties be damned.
    She was not aware that Binkley had taken note of her flight and kept a discreet distance behind.
    Jacqueline stood in the middle of the library, quivering with fury. “What do you mean, you are married?” She spat each word out separately. “I do not believe it. It is a