“You did?”

“I just said so.” The Roman nose sniffed at the birch tea and decided it was drinkable. “They married her off to a particularly dull clergyman in the fens. I suspect they rather hoped she would drown, but she had nine children and became a thorn in the ample flesh of the Bishop of Ely. Do eat, child.”

The wedding dress was the most magnificent that could be made in Oxford. The petticoat was of white silk, worked all over with small flowers in pale blue silk thread. Enid, under Lady Margaret’s directions, laced the petticoat tight and then picked up the wedding dress itself from the bed.

It was mostly of white satin, brilliant white, the skirt folded back at the front to show the petticoat, and the two folds held in place by rows of blue silk roses. There were no hooks or laces on the dress. Instead Enid tightened it by threading blue ribbons into the holes at the back of the dress, tying each ribbon in a large bow. The sleeves of the dress were also attached by bows to the bodice, each bow would yield to a single pull. The collar of the dress, heavy and stiff, was of silk brocade, white and cream, the weave expensive and beautiful.

There was more. The shoes, that daringly showed under the hem of her petticoat when she walked, were covered in silver satin and each had a blue flower on its toe. Her earrings were sapphire, the fillet in her hair was silver and from it hung seven yards of lace that Lady Margaret had worn at her own wedding. Lady Margaret twitched the lace into place. “One more thing.”

“More?”

“Try not to be impatient, child.” Lady Margaret went to her workbox. “Here.”

The lace gloves, edged with pearls, were in Lady Margaret’s hands. Campion looked at them, remembering the night she had found them in Matthew Slythe’s hiding place in his great chest, and she knew that these gloves had been her mother’s. Kit Aretine, doubtless, had given them to his “angel,” and perhaps she had hoped, against hope itself, that she would wear them at her own wedding. They had been sent to Werlatton, the only possessions of Agatha Prescott that still survived. Lady Margaret sniffed. “I brought them from Lazen when that odious little man evicted me. I can’t think why you’re crying, child.”

“Oh, Lady Margaret!” Campion wondered if her mother could see her from heaven now. She pulled the gloves on, delicate and fine. “How will he put the ring on?”

“You still assume he’ll be there? He’ll just have to shove away, won’t he. You don’t want to make things easy for men, dear. Now. Let me look at you.”

Lady Margaret, who was proud that her son had found and was to marry such a beautiful girl, and even prouder of the fact that Campion wore her beauty lightly and not as a weapon, stepped back and looked her up and down critically. “You can change your mind, of course.”