Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke Page B

depression and technological advancement, and for the past few generations of British gentlemen, marrying a girl with a fat dowry was as inevitable as a public school education and a tour of the Continent. He, like most men of his class, had been raised to think it perfectly acceptable, even honorable, to secure the future of the family estate by marrying money, without much regard for things like love and affection.
    If Evie hadn’t died, he’d probably think that way still. But her death had revealed to him the sordid consequences that could result from such arrangements, and any notions he’d been stuffed with that marrying a girl for money was an honorable course had died with her.
    â€œSir?”
    He turned to find his valet behind him in the open doorway. “Yes, McIntyre, what is it?”
    â€œThere’s some confusion about Your Grace’s things. Her Ladyship is insisting that you shall need two suits of evening clothes during the voyage as well as your customary wardrobe. I explained that the private card rooms aboard ship do not require formal evening dress, but Lady Sylvia . . .” His voice trailed off tactfully.
    â€œI understand,” he said, appreciating the vital point. “When Sylvia gets a bee in her bonnet, there’s no arguing with her. If you don’t pull out two tuxedos, she’ll do it for you. Besides,” he added, “in this case, she’s right. I doubt I shall be much engaged in cards during this voyage.”
    To McIntyre’s credit, he showed no reaction to this most unexpected development beyond a slight raising of his fiery red eyebrows. “Verra good, sir,” he said, and returned inside to accede to Lady Sylvia’s wishes, and Christian returned his attention to the view from his balcony.
    Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on the rail and looked back toward the stern where the enormous Statue of Liberty could now be seen. A fitting symbol for its host, he decided, for it rose up out of Bedloe’s Island like a resounding shriek of triumph—a bold, brash statement for a bold, brash country. From here, he could also make out Ellis Island, where the immigrants came in to embark upon a new life. America was a country bursting with vitality and hope. England seemed like such a tired jade by comparison, and he wondered, not for the first time, why these American girls were so ready to leave their exciting homeland to live in a place of interminable boredom, where everyone, including him, got through their endless days in a state of perpetual ennui.
    The door directly below him banged open, interrupting his contemplations, and a voice floated up to his ears, an unmistakably female voice. “Dinah? Dinah, where are you?”
    American, he knew at once, American and Southern. Strange how that voice seemed to underscore his very thoughts, for despite its slow and drawling cadence, it managed to convey far more energy than Christian’s clipped and proper British accents ever could. It reminded him of Arthur Ransom, and Christian wondered if it might perhaps belong to the niece.
    He turned from the view of Bedloe’s Island to that of the promenade deck below as a feminine figure dressed in buttery yellow wool emerged from the ship’s interior. She paused only a few feet in front of him, planted the tip of her ruffled parasol on deck, and rested her white-gloved hand on the carved ebony handle, glancing up and down the promenade, which was nearly empty at this time of day. “Dinah?” she called again. “Oh, Lord,” she muttered to herself when there was no answer to her call. “Where has that girl got to now?”
    Though her face was hidden beneath her hat, an enormous, frothy confection of yellow straw, white feathers, and black and yellow ribbons, nothing blocked the rest of her from Christian’s sight, and he was able to indulge in a long and appreciative study of her figure. If