Wedding of the Season: Abandoned at the Altar

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  It hurt like hell.

  Will jerked to a sitting position, sealing the dangerous fracture inside himself before it could open further. He hadn’t expected his first encounter with her to be easy, but no matter what happened, no matter what it cost him, he intended to act like he just didn’t give a damn.

  “Hullo, Trix,” he said, proud of the carefree note he was able to put into his voice. “I say, you’re looking well.”

  She glanced over his supine body, then back to his face. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same. You look awful. Life in Egypt is obviously just as arduous as I thought it would be.”

  “Life in Devonshire seems equally fraught with difficulties these days, at least for people on horseback. I approve the motorcar, but who taught you to drive it? The devil?”

  “No, Julia.”

  He thought of her mad cousin and gave a nod. “That’s rather the same thing, I suppose.”

  Beatrix folded her arms. “What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were still in Egypt, looking for King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Have you found it yet, or are you still digging up nothing but clay pots and cylinder seals?”

  The derision in her voice was unmistakable as she mentioned the life he had now, the life he’d only dreamed of when he was a boy, the life he’d thought she would want to share with him if it ever came to pass; and the anger he’d worked so hard to vanquish flared up again before he could stop it. “The prodigal always returns,” he shot back, giving her a pointed glance. “If only to remind himself why he left.”

  Those big dark eyes narrowed. “You’ve been gone six years. What’s brought you back after being so long away?”

  He smiled wide enough to make his jaw ache. “You, sweet pea. What else?”

  She made a sound of obvious skepticism. “I should have known not to expect a serious answer from you.”

  “None of your business. Is that answer serious enough for you?” He tried to stand up, but pain shot through his knee, making him grimace. “Damn,” he muttered as he sank back down to the ground. “I really took a tumble this time.”

  She seemed indifferent to his pain. “I’d have thought six years away would have given you some measure of maturity, but I was obviously mistaken.”

  Will bit back the angry words that hovered on the tip of his tongue, and strove to maintain his careless air. “Six years?” he drawled after a moment. “My, how time does fly.”

  “Doesn’t it? I’m surprised you would even bother to come back after all this time.”

  “I don’t know why you should be surprised, old thing,” he answered, and gave her a wink. “You didn’t really think I’d miss your wedding, did you?”

  Beatrix stared at the man she’d never expected to see again, unable to think of a thing to say, wondering if she was having a dream—or more accurately, a nightmare.

  Still, dream or reality, this was definitely Will. She’d recognized him at once. Some people wouldn’t have, she supposed as she studied him, for life in an uncivilized country had clearly left its mark. His hair was still the same dark coffee-brown color it had been when he went away, but the Egyptian sun had tanned his skin to a golden bronze, making his light green eyes seem like glittering peridot jewels. His face was leaner, harder than that of the man she remembered, but the rugged harshness that marked his countenance only seemed to make him even handsomer than he’d been six years ago. With these observations going through her mind, it took her a moment to appreciate the ramifications of what he’d just said.

  “My wedding?” she echoed with a dawning horror. She lowered her arms and straightened on her knees. “You’ve come home for my wedding?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, and smiled at her.

  Beatrix felt the impact of that smile like a blow to the chest. Will might have changed in many ways, but if she had failed to recognize him, that devilish smile would have set her straight, for with it came a rush of excitement and pleasure so intense that she felt momentarily giddy, as if caught in the violent throes of first love all over again.

  Yes, this was Will, who’d led her in her first waltz at her first ball and given her her first kiss. Will, who’d always been able to provoke her temper, stir her passions, and derail her common sense like no other person in the world. Will, the man she’d loved and adored as far back as she could remember, the man who’d jilted her, broken her heart, and shattered her dreams.

  “I told you I’d come home one day,” he said, his lighthearted voice cutting through her shock. “Hurts to know you didn’t believe me.”

  She looked up into the brilliant green eyes she’d once loved so much, and the silly rush of pleasure and excitement she’d felt at the sight of him vanished as if it had never been, replaced by something darker, deeper, and far more shattering. Rage.

  Over five years she’d needed to get over him, and now he decided to come back? Five years of trying to accept that he was gone for good, five years of trying not to hope he’d change his mind and come back to her. And now, when six years had passed, when she was finally over him and she was about to marry someone else, he was here to undo the contentment she’d worked so hard to achieve? If Beatrix had any lingering doubts as to whether her love for him was truly gone, the burning rage within her was enough to banish them.

  “Go to hell,” she said, and stood up. “Or better yet, go back to Egypt. That godforsaken place is probably hotter and more miserable than hell anyway.”

  She caught a flash of her own anger mirrored in his eyes, but when he spoke, he was smiling. “Go back to Egypt?” he said, sounding as if he thought her off her onion for even suggesting such a thing. “And forgo the wedding of the season? I couldn’t possibly. The scandalmongers are counting on me to make an appearance and upset the applecart. They’d be so disappointed if I failed to show.”

  “You have not been invited!” she cried. “Neither Aidan nor I would ever dream of allowing you to attend our wedding.”

  With that, she turned her back on the man sitting in the road and started toward her motorcar.

  “Aidan?” he echoed as she walked away. “Ah, yes, Aidan Carr, the Duke of Trathen. Trading up, aren’t you? Trathen’s what—tenth in line to the throne, or something like that?”

  “Trading up? I’m not doing any such thing. I’m—” She broke off, realizing that she was starting to explain when she didn’t owe him any explanations.

  Clamping her lips together, she turned away without another word and resumed walking to the front of the vehicle. Still ignoring him, she leaned down, grasped the brass handle, and with the expertise of long practice, gave a hard twist to crank the engine just as Julia had taught her, keeping her thumb back to avoid breaking it on the kickback.

  “Wait!” Will shouted over the rumble of the motorcar’s engine as she walked around to the driver’s side. “You have to take me with you.”

  “No, I don’t,” she shot back and climbed into the vehicle. Hitching up her ankle-length motoring coat, she settled herself on the red leather seat. “You can lie in the road until you rot as far as I’m concerned. If you want to go to Sunderland Park, you’ll have to walk.”

  “Walk? But I’m injured, and it’s five miles to the house from here.”

  “Five and a half,” she corrected, pulling her driving goggles up to protect her eyes. She turned in her seat to look at him over one shoulder, watching as he struggled to his feet, and she forced herself to ignore the pain that crossed his face, reminding herself of all the pain he’d given her. “Don’t worry, Will. I’m sure some farmer will come along and give you a ride. Eventually.”

  “Beatrix!” he shouted, limping forward toward the vehicle. “You can’t just leave me here!”

  “Why not?” she countered smoothly. “You had no compunction about leaving me six years ago.”

  With that parting shot, she turned her back, curled her gloved fingers around the polished wood steering wheel, and pushed the petrol pedal. As the motorcar rolled down th
e road, it took all the willpower she possessed not to turn her head and look back at the man she’d left behind.

  There was no looking back, she reminded herself, keeping her gaze fixed on the road ahead. Not now, not ever.

  Chapter Two

  It wasn’t until she turned the Daimler onto the long, shaded lane leading to Danbury Downs that Beatrix allowed herself a glance behind her. By then, of course, the trees and shrubbery that lined the winding road obscured any view of the tall, dark-haired nemesis from her past. Too bad Beatrix’s mind wasn’t so obliging.

  Come with me.

  She fixed her attention on the road ahead as Will’s voice came back to her, echoing from six years ago, urging her to a course she could not accept.

  As if to torment her, her horrified reply also came to her out of the past.

  Go to Egypt? Abandon my father, my home, and all our friends? Sleep in a tent, drink water from a canteen, and bathe out of a tin basin? Are you mad?

  In her mind’s eye, she could still see him holding up that telegram from Sir Edmund, his buoyant expression at the news it contained hardening into resolve.

  This is what I’ve always dreamed of. The chance of a lifetime. I can’t let it pass me by, not even for you, Trix.

  Remembering his face, she felt a shiver of the same cold dread that had gripped her that awful day, as she’d sensed everything she’d ever wanted slipping away from her and into the desolate Egyptian desert.

  For three days, they had argued hammer and tongs. Her father had tried to reason with him, his father had threatened to disown him. She had argued, pleaded, even—God help her—begged for him to stay. None of it had mattered.

  Not even for you, Trix.

  He’d gone off to find the tomb of King Tutankhamen with his revered mentor from Cambridge days while she’d written letters of regret to four hundred and eighty-six wedding guests, with nothing but her love, an ivory silk wedding dress, and a lifetime of shattered dreams to console her.

  Beatrix realized she was clenching the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers ached, and she forced herself to relax her grip, reminding herself that Will was in the past. She had new dreams now, dreams that involved a different man, an honorable man who loved her, who would never abandon her. As she drove, Beatrix tried to focus her mind’s eye on Aidan’s face, but his grave good looks seemed elusive just now, pushed aside by the brilliant green eyes and heart-bruising smile of her first love.

  It was after her father’s death that she’d truly faced reality; the only man she’d ever wanted wasn’t coming back, and the life she’d always envisioned with him was never going to happen. Beatrix squeezed her eyes shut. Because Will had refused to surrender his childhood dream, she had lost hers.

  The Daimler lurched, and she opened her eyes to find the stout trunk of an elm looming before her. With a cry of alarm, she gave the wheel a violent twist, bringing the vehicle out of the ditch and back onto the road just in time to avoid a smash-up.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Beatrix shoved memories of the past out of her mind and brought her attention back to the road in front of her. Her cousin had given her the Daimler as a birthday present, and if she was hurt because of it, Julia would never forgive herself. Beatrix concentrated on getting herself and the Daimler safely home.

  Passing the lane to Sunderland Park, she took the Daimler a mile farther on, through the open wrought-iron gates that led to Danbury House. She turned onto the sweeping gravel drive, but she didn’t stop there. Instead, she circled the motorcar around the south wing to the stables. There was no space in the carriage house for the Daimler, but two stalls of the stables had been thrown into one and a pair of wide doors added to make a place for storing the vehicle. Mr. Warren had left the doors flung back in anticipation of her return from town, and she pulled the automobile carefully into place.

  But even after she’d applied the braking lever and extinguished the engine, Beatrix remained in the vehicle. She couldn’t have said why she was choosing to linger here, for it was in the stables where her memories of Will had always been strongest. He loved horses, loved everything about them, particularly riding them as fast as possible, a fact that had always left her in perpetual fear he’d break his neck.

  She turned in the leather seat of the motorcar, studying her surroundings. To her right, horses’ heads were visible over the tops of their stalls—chestnut, bay, black, and piebald. To her left, saddles, reins, and grooming equipment lined the wooden wall. How many times had she and Will ridden together when he’d been home from school? Not many, she supposed. He’d usually preferred to ride with her cousin Paul, who had always stayed at Danbury Downs in the summer holiday. She was hampered by a sidesaddle, and far less able to keep up with Will’s reckless speed.

  Whenever she and Will had ridden together, he’d been forever urging her to ride astride, go faster, take higher jumps, push herself beyond the rigid limits to which ladies were expected to adhere.

  He’d pushed her in other ways, too, she remembered, spiriting her away from prying eyes, stealing kisses from her behind the hedgerows, always wanting more from her, no matter how much she gave, until finally, he’d demanded the impossible.

  Come with me.

  Will had always been the one to take chances and tempt the devil, not she. Only after he’d been gone five years had she finally realized what he had always known: one couldn’t spend one’s entire life waiting for life to start. That was why she’d gone to Cornwall with Julia. That was why she’d left her love for Will behind at last. That was why she’d accepted Aidan’s proposal after three months of acquaintance. Because time was going by, because she wanted marriage and children, because she’d come to care deeply for Aidan, and because life was short and sweet and meant to be lived, not wasted waiting for someone who was never coming back, someone who hadn’t loved her enough to stay.

  Egypt’s always been your dream, Will. Not mine.

  How strange life was. She’d finally left behind the man she’d thought would give her everything she’d ever wanted, and then, as if by magic, a different man had dropped everything she’d ever wanted right into her lap.

  Beatrix pressed her gloved hand to her mouth, catching back a sob.

  “My lady? Are you all right?”

  She jumped, jerking her hand down, and glanced toward Mr. Warren, who was standing beside the Daimler. She wondered how long she’d been sitting here, woolgathering. A while, she concluded, if the chauffeur’s frown of concern was anything to go by.

  “I’m perfectly well, Mr. Warren,” she answered, forcing aside her momentary despondency. When the chauffeur opened the door, she gave him her hand and allowed him to help her step down, but she didn’t return to the house straightaway. Instead, she spent a good ten minutes fussing over the Daimler, giving Warren explicit instructions on just how to refuel, wash, and wax the vehicle. The chauffeur, despite having heard all this from her a dozen times before and having some experience with automobiles, listened with patient forbearance. Finally satisfied, Beatrix left the stables and walked back to the house.

  A maid must have spied her approach through a window, for the servant opened the side door for her the moment she reached it. “Thank you, Avery,” she said as she handed over her goggles and gloves, and began to unbutton her motoring coat. “Where is Aunt Eugenia?”

  “She is in the library having tea.”

  “Tea? So soon?”

  “It’s just five o’clock, miss,” the maid informed her as she took Beatrix’s motoring coat.

  Heavens, she must have been sitting in the Daimler at least twenty minutes. With a sound of vexation, Beatrix hurried down the corridor toward the library.

  As she approached the door, she wondered if she should inform her aunt of Will’s return, but before she could make up her mind, the decision was taken out of her hands.

  “Sunderland has come back from Egypt,” Eugenia announced the moment her niece came into the room.

  Beatrix h
alted just inside the doorway, unable to fathom how this news had reached her aunt so quickly. She opened her mouth to say she already knew, but then she reconsidered and closed it again. If she told Eugenia she’d already seen Will, there would be questions, and she’d have to explain, and when Auntie discovered that she’d left the Duke of Sunderland sitting ignominiously in the middle of the road, there would be no end of a fuss. Best all around, she decided, if she feigned ignorance of the matter.

  “Sunderland?” She gave a little laugh as she pulled out her hat pin and removed her hat. “Don’t be silly, Auntie,” she chided gently, hoping her voice carried just the right hint of uncaring amusement. “I think we are both painfully aware that nothing on earth could force Will to come home,” she added, weaving her hat pin through the brim of her straw boater before tossing both onto a nearby chair. “I doubt even dynamite would do the trick.”

  “Nonetheless, he has returned.”

  Beatrix worked to paste a deprecating little smile on her face. “How did you come by this piece of news?”

  “Groves told me, of course.”

  “Groves?” This time Beatrix didn’t have to feign surprise. “Why should Groves know anything about it?”

  “My dear niece, butlers always know everything. That is part of their duties.”

  “Nonsense. Groves should be ashamed of himself, spreading rumors.”

  “It’s not a rumor.” An amused voice had Beatrix turning around to find her cousin Geoffrey behind her, shoulder against the doorjamb, hands in the pockets of his striped trousers. “It’s a fact. I saw him myself,” he added, straightening in the doorway, shaking back the straight blond locks of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Passed him on my bicycle not ten minutes ago.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Beatrix countered. “You were only ten when Will left for Egypt. You couldn’t possibly have recognized him after all this time.”