Charlotte raised her eyes. Alex was smiling down at her so tenderly that her heart turned over. The archbishop cleared his throat and they both faced the altar.

Afterward Charlotte could remember only bits and patches of the ceremony. The vows—the vows sunk deep into her mind and soul. Forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live. And the moment when Alex looked at her solemnly, repeating everything the priest said, and then his eyebrow flew up and he said, “with my body I thee worship.” And after the service when the trumpets carolled joyously from the choir loft, and Alex pulled her into his arms and kissed her as if he would never let her go. And, finally, when they started back down the aisle and Alex stopped and picked up Pippa in the first row and she held out her arms and said, “My not-nanny,” and Charlotte carried her down the aisle, Pippa’s small head of soft curls nestled on her shoulder, to thunderous applause.

It was agreed by all that the wedding of the Earl of Sheffield and Downes to Lady Charlotte Daicheston was the most romantic ceremony in recent history. Only the truly petty murmured anything about ineligibility or past marriages. Lady Skiffing was seen to wipe away a tear, and later allowed as how it had been a very touching occasion. Lady Prestlefield boasted loudly about how the dear children had met in her very own house.

There were, of course, those men who looked at the creamy expanse of Charlotte’s bosom, the shadowed cleft between her breasts, and prayed fervently for the moment when the bride would tire of her incapable husband. But they said nothing. And there were women struck by so fierce a stab of jealousy, seeing Alex’s adoring expression, that they could have tripped the bride as she walked out of the church. But they didn’t. The wedding was a huge success. It did exactly as Charlotte’s mother and father had planned. It established Charlotte and Alex as a pair to be admired, courted, and imitated; it cast the rumors about his previous marriage far into the past.

Indeed only a proper paperskull could have watched the newlywed couple dancing at the ball given by the Duke of Calverstill after the wedding and not realized that the night was going to be a long and passionate one. There were many sighs as Alex swept Charlotte down the room in their first dance as a married couple.

“How long do we have to stay here?” Alex’s eyes were twinkling wickedly at Charlotte.

“Be still!” She couldn’t not giggle.

“This is it, the limits of my control. Over two months of extreme torture … and you want me to stay here and grin at my old cronies and your great-aunts?”

“Why torture?” Charlotte pretended to take offense. “Didn’t I kiss you good night every night?”