“Like Queen Victoria,” Anne had remarked dryly when Julia had once described it to her.

As Lord Ridgeway’s carriage departed the small church in Camden, with its sagging gate and overgrown cemetery, Julia couldn’t help but wonder what her best friend would have made of the slapdash ceremony Julia had just participated in.

It had been nothing like her dream.

The church had been dark and dreary, the vicar as cross as a badger at having his tea interrupted, and the ceremony itself—witnessed by two of the vicar’s slatternly servants—had been less evident of romance than expedience.

Julia didn’t regret any of it.

From the moment Jasper had insisted on carrying her down the stairs of Lord Ridgeway’s house and into the waiting carriage, he’d been all that was solicitous. A kind and caring groom, even if he hadn’t kissed her when they were pronounced man and wife, and even if he was presently sitting beside her, looking as cross as the vicar had as he’d read the wedding ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer.

She rested her head against his shoulder, crushing the cluster of lilacs that adorned the side of her fashionable leghorn bonnet.

“Are you all right?” he asked gruffly.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just dreadfully weary.”

His arm came around her as the carriage rolled through the street, jostling them against each other. “We’re not far from King’s Cross. Once we’re on the train, you can sleep all the way to York.”

Julia didn’t answer. It seemed too much of an effort to talk. It was only as the carriage was pulling up outside of the bustling railway station that she gave voice to a niggling doubt. “You don’t think it was bad luck, do you?”

Jasper didn’t need to ask what she meant.

When signing the register, she’d mistakenly used her new name: Julia Blunt. The curmudgeonly vicar had immediately stricken it out, commanding her to sign with her maiden name. Julia had done so, but not before one of the servants muttered the two damning words: Bad luck.

“You’re not superstitious?” Jasper asked.

“Not any more than reason,” she replied. “But one doesn’t wish to start one’s married life under a cloud.”

“There are no clouds today,” he said.

Julia waited in the carriage while he procured their tickets and found a porter to see to their luggage. As she gazed out the window, her heart beat like a drum. He was right. The sky was clear and cloudless, a blue so bright it almost hurt her eyes.

She wasn’t going to be afraid. This was an adventure. The adventure she’d dreamed of all her life. Any doubts she had were probably only because she was so exhausted from Dr. Cordingley’s treatments.

Thank heaven for Jasper.

He didn’t carry her from the coach, but he kept an arm about her waist, strong as an oaken band, steadying her as they crossed the crowded smoke-filled platform to board the first-class railway carriage.

Their compartment was empty. It was also rather luxurious, paneled in gleaming polished wood, with a carpeted floor, shuttered windows, and racks fixed overhead to store their parcels.