What he wouldn’t give to confide in her before the wedding, perhaps with warm milk before a fire in the sitting room, and truly reveal all he was feeling in anticipation of his marriage. It might have been nothing, but he felt tied up in knots rather than settled. It was not nerves, he had ascertained that, and it was not reluctance. It seemed, rather, to be a conglomeration of various bits and pieces of emotions rather than an excess of anything in particular.

Emblyn had a clarity in vision and thought that might have been able to help him there, and she would not mince her words. That was what he needed, but he dared not go to Cornwall and back before the wedding just to have such a talk.

He would have to make do on his own until they returned to Trevadden. Perhaps by then, he might have figured a few things out, and then that conversation might be more engaging.

It was not lost on him that his conversation with one sibling had led him to wish for one with another. Where Richard was lost, Emblyn had been found; where he was forever abusing Harrison, she was timidly accepting him; where he was wicked, she was wholesome.

Outspoken, but wholesome.

Should any of his family have attended his wedding, Harrison would have wanted Emblyn. But he would stand alone on that coming day and occasion and do the deed adequately enough. If Richard managed to avoid attempts at ruining it all, he would count the day a success. Perhaps even victorious.

Would he regret having told his brother about the wedding at all, despite everything? Only time would tell, and time had never endeared itself to Harrison in the past.

All he could do was hope; and hope he would.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

“I don’t even like weddings. Can’t abide anything about them. What is the point in all of this?”

“It is a celebration of your marriage, dear. And you do love celebrations, do you not?”

Adelaide rolled her eyes and sighed heavily at her mother’s patronizing attempts at soothing her. “What is there to celebrate in my marrying a man who has only succeeded in courting Father’s opinion of him and not my own?”

Her mother gave her a disparaging look that was mingled with desperation and pleading. “Darling, this is the way things are. Marriage offers women freedom they do not otherwise have, and that is something to be celebrated. You will marry Lord Basset next week, and then you may do as you choose without respect to anyone else.”