Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Pitney’s eyes as the man regarded him. Pitney reviewed the changed appearance of his charge and managed a bleak smile.
    â€œI think me mistress will be pleasantly surprised.” He finished his ale in a gulp and consulted his timepiece. “We’d best be on our way.”
    It was a small country church, in summer ivy-twined, but with the crisp chill of the approaching winter, the vines clung dark and brittle against the gray stone of its walls. The drizzle had ceased, and bright shafts of sunlight pierced the broken clouds, setting the crystal panes of the rectory windows aglitter with shifting shards of color.
    Shanna stood bathed in light coming through an oriel. Her face, as she gazed out upon the rolling fields, held the smile of one confident of her goals in life. She had arrived early at the church, in a hired coach, for her carriage had to carry Pitney to the inn, more than an hour’s ride away, and there remain while he journeyed by another hired coach to London and back again with Ruark Beauchamp. But the Reverend and Mrs. Jacobs had been warm and hospitable, and Shanna had managed to endure the wait.
    The plump wife of the good clergyman sat nearby, sipping tea while she observed Shanna. It was not often people of wealth tarried in their quiet village, much less within the humble rectory, and such rich garments Mrs. Jacobs had never seen in her whole life. A mauve cloak of silk moire, lined lavishly with soft, gray fox, lay across the arm of a chair, forgotten as if it were discarded. The woman could not even imagine the cost of the matching silk gown with its tiers of pinkish gray lace cascading down the front of the skirt between twin borders of silk ruching. Lace flounces adorned the sleeves where they ended at mid-arm. Pleated lace spread like a fan from a point at the tightly cinched waist upward to the demure display of creamy skin. A narrow mauve ribbon was tied about the slim column of the young woman’s throat, and the intricately woven coiffure, left unpowdered, was glorious in its own magnificent color. The effect of the golden strands amid the tawny would have challenged the best efforts of the most artful hairdresser.
    Mrs. Jacobs sat much in awe of this beauty, for envy was not in her soul. Deep in her heart she was a romantic and took delight in what was to her the serious art of matchmaking. The groom, as she envisioned him in her mind’s eye, would have to be handsome and charming, for no common sort should have claim upon this bride.
    Shanna leaned forward to gaze intently out the window, and her movement brought Mrs. Jacobs to her side.
    â€œWhat is it, my dear?” the kindly woman inquired with eager interest “Do they return?”
    Mrs. Jacobs’s blue eyes searched the distant road, and, as she had guessed, a carriage was just topping the crest of the hill and would soon be arriving at the church.
    Shanna, a multitude of explanations on the tip of her tongue, thought better of it and bit the words back. If she gave excuses for her husband-to-be, his faults wouldbe all the more apparent. It was better to let the woman think love was blind in her case.
    Shanna smoothed her hair, preparing herself mentally to meet the wretch.
    â€œYe are radiant, my dear.” The “r” rolled from Mrs. Jacobs’s tongue with a thick Scottish burr. “Daen ye worry none ’bout that. Go greet your betrothed. I’ll fetch yer cloak.”
    Gracefully Shanna obeyed, thankful she could catch Ruark before the clergyman and his wife would meet him, on the chance his appearance could be improved at this late date. As she hurried along the covered pathway from the rectory of the church, a thousand reasons to worry raced through her mind, and she swore to herself, using several of her father’s favorite oaths, then gritted her teeth as she thought of the care a gentleman must exercise in dressing.
    â€œThat cloddish colonial,” she fretted. “At