“I shall wait for you to complete your task,” Charlotte said loftily, “and return when all is ready. Caro, instruct the coachman to drive us around the block until that time.”

“I would prefer you wait inside,” Dare said through softly grinding teeth. God’s spleen, would she argue with him on every point?

“And have everyone see me waiting? Never!”

“You’ll get tired of just riding around and around in a circle. Perhaps Lady Beverly would care to go inside where it is cool.”

Inexplicably, Charlotte dimpled at him. “We’re fine as we are. Caro and I were having the most interesting discussion of the Bible just before we arrived. I’m sure she has no objection to continuing it.”

Lady Beverly giggled. Dare shot Charlotte a look that by rights ought to have sent her screaming from him in horror, but she just deepened the smile into a cheeky grin and added in a little eyelash-fluttering action.

“God save me from all women,” he muttered as he turned back toward the church, reluctantly admitting to himself that her smile had kindled an unexpected warmth in his heart. Then he prepared to buy his bride an audience.

***

Charlotte stopped dead at the back of the church after taking one look at the audience her husband-to-be had purchased to witness her Most Important Moment, intending on throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums.

“There is a monkey in the church,” she ground out through her teeth, pointing to where a small monkey in a red hat and gold-fringed jacket was swinging from a sconce in the nave. “I might have been gone from England for five years, but I doubt if it has suddenly become the rage to have primates swinging from the walls at weddings.”

“Er—” Lord Beverly said, gently tugging at her hand, clearly at a loss as to how to get the bride moving down the aisle toward her groom. “Well—”

“And that woman there, the one with the beard, she’s positively wailing, and I don’t even know her. This is supposed to be a joyous occasion.”

“Eh—” Lord Beverly tugged again, shooting a helpless glance over to where Dare stood, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes on the recalcitrant Charlotte. “I believe Lord Carlisle is waiting for you…”

Charlotte refused to budge, turning her head to glare at the group of musicians in the far corner. “And the band! What on earth are they playing, live cats? Surely this is not suitable marrying music. Surely this is all wrong.”

“Ah—” Lord Beverly took a deep breath, desperate now to fulfill his one (monumental, as it turned out) duty of getting the bride to the altar. “Look, there’s the groom. Why don’t you just stroll down there and take it up with him, hmm?”

“No,” Charlotte said, flinching as the band hit a particularly sour note. “I won’t do it. This just isn’t at all what I had imagined. Dare will have to do better than this.”