“Charlotte,” he said, preparing to soften his words with a little judicious begging. It would be a blow to his pride, but that was already so tattered a little more damage wouldn’t trouble him.

“Please, Alasdair,” she whispered, her eyes shimmering with pain behind a shield of tears. “Please don’t shame me in front of everyone. I couldn’t bear it if you did. I just couldn’t bear it.”

“Shame you?” He put his hands on her arms and tugged her closer, his frown deepening. “How is marrying me going to shame you?”

She waved one hand toward the church, two tears spilling over lashes suddenly made dark and spiky with sorrow. “There’s no one there. No one! How can I tell anyone that we were wed in an empty church, that no one cared enough about us to see us wed but your sister and my friend?” She hiccupped. “How can I face anyone once they know the truth about our wedding, that you didn’t care enough about it or me to have a proper wedding?”

He stared at her at a loss for words, unable to understand what she found wrong with the small, intimate wedding necessary due to economies and his own personal preference, but recognizing that whatever troubled her, it was of great importance. He had seen enough crocodile tears to recognize genuine distress when he saw it, and Charlotte’s eyes were all but shrieking their pain to him. He took a deep breath, battling with the desire to maintain control of the situation, while unwilling to have her think he was a coldhearted monster who cared little for her desires and wishes.

“Charlotte, even if I wanted to give you what you ask, it’s impossible. We are to wed today, almost an hour ago to be precise.” He ran a hand through his hair as he tried to think of how he could delay the wedding, deal with Patricia’s upcoming nuptials, and still have time to finish the engine and test it before Whitney arrived. “To invite everyone you know would take days, weeks in the planning. I agreed to wed you now because it falls in well with my plans, but to delay—”

“It doesn’t have to be people I know,” she said quietly, one hand on his sleeve, a soft, hopeful look in her eyes that he had never seen. It called to him, drew him, made him want to promise her anything if only she would look at him again like that. “I don’t want to delay the wedding any more than you do. I told you I had to be wed before your sister; it’s only fitting.”

He rubbed his forehead, willing the headache away as he tried to see a solution. “Then what do you want me to do, fill the church with strangers to witness our marriage?”

She was nodding even before he finished the sentence.

He closed his eyes for a moment against the trembling hope in hers, then opened them again. “This means that much to you?”