Smiling, Madeleine said, “Still a pain-in-the-ass control freak, I see.”
“Yes,” he said.
Madeleine hesitated a moment, and then she put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek and whispered something in his ear that made him smile. “Me, too,” he said quietly, stroking her hair as she drew away.
“Here,” said Madeleine, handing her drink to Emmett so that she could fluff Isabel’s veil and position her bouquet. “I love you,” she murmured as she kissed her daughter’s forehead, a damp rustiness in her voice.
Madeleine turned to leave, spun back around to snatch her martini out of Emmett’s hand, then glided back down the aisle to the rose arch, where she proceeded to relay Emmett’s instructions.
Gravel crunched as a black Peugeot pulled up in front of the gatehouse. Hitch scrambled out of the backseat straightening his tux and saying “Sorry! God, what a day we’ve had. I’m so sorry to have made everybody wait. Sorry! Sorry!”
Emmett said, “All will be forgiven if you let me do something about that bow tie of yours. Looks almost as pathetic as my own first attempt at tying one. It was the same day I learned to tie my shoes, but I had more luck with them.”
“First things first,” Hitch said as he wrapped his arms around Isabel and gave her a good, long hug. “Listen, honey, I hope it didn’t come off as presumptuous, me suggesting music for the processional. If you decided to go with something else, I really don’t—”
“No, your idea rocks. It’s perfect.”
Karen and Jason offered hurried greetings while Emmett brought Hitch’s bow tie up to his exacting standards, and then mother and son made their way to their seats.
The music, Miles Davis’s “Stella by Starlight,” faded into silence. There were some low murmurs from the guests, then nothing. It was that air of hushed expectation that did it. Suddenly, the magnitude of what she was about to do came washing over Isabel in a vertiginous wave.
Her father stroked her cheek, a gesture that, however small, would have stunned her a few months ago. “You okay?” he asked quietly.
His touch had grounded her. She smiled. “I’m fine.”
She turned toward the courtyard, her gaze homing in on the members of the wedding party standing in their assigned places beneath and to either side of the rose arch: Katie, who despite being maid of honor, had chosen to wait by the arch rather than walk down the aisle solo, the mayor, Elic . . .
And Adrien. He looked almost impossibly handsome in his evening clothes, poised and grown-up as always, but there was something about him, a hint of nervous excitement.
She fixed her gaze, concentrating the way he’d taught her, and presently his aura came into view, almost as if she’d turned up the dimmer switch. The “root” of the glow, as Isabel thought of it, was his usual blue-green, but for the most part, it was pink, the kind of pink that signified one thing: LOVE.
Isabel caught Adrien’s eye as she caught his, his gaze shifting from above her as if he’d been checking out her aura, too. If he had, she knew it would have been just as pink as his.
Holding his gaze, she bit her lip and widened her eyes. Do you believe we’re doing this?
His smile was warm, reassuring. He nodded, as if he’d actually heard her unspoken question.
Who knows? Maybe he had.
Her father raised his hand, his signal to fire up the processional. Inigo lowered the needle on the album he’d cued up. He must have cranked up the volume, because when Jimmy Cliff started singing, “You Can Get It if You Really Want,” they probably heard it all the way in Clermont-Ferrand.
Her dad took one arm.
Hitch took the other.
Showtime.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louisa Burton, a lifelong devotee of Victorian erotica, mythology, and history, lives in upstate New York. Visit her website, www.louisaburton.com.
ALSO BY LOUISA BURTON
Bound in Moonlight
House of Dark Delights
If you loved
Whispers of the Flesh,
Don’t miss the next
novel in the Hidden Grotto series,
In the Garden
of Sin
by Louisa Burton
Coming from Bantam Books
in summer 2009
WHISPERS OF THE FLESH
A Bantam Book / October 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Louisa Burton
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burton, Louisa.
Whispers of the flesh / Louisa Burton.
p. cm.—(The Hidden Grotto series ; bk. 3)
1. Castles—France—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.U7698W47 2008
813’.6—dc22
2008013063
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90569-4
v3.0
Whispers of the Flesh Page 28
