by Lisa Kleypas
Leo looked sardonic. “Someone may want to ask Win if she is willing to be married in a former chapel that now amounts to a shed attached to the barn. Forbearing as my sister is, even she has standards.”
“I’m willing!” came Win’s voice from the stairs.
Cam smothered a grin.
Leo shook his head and spoke in his sister’s direction. “It’s a barn, Win.”
“If our Lord didn’t mind being born in a stable,” she replied cheerfully, “I certainly have no objection to being married in a barn.”
Briefly lifting his gaze heavenward, Leo muttered, “I’ll go take care of the renewal fee. I can hardly wait to see the vicar’s expression when I tell him we’ve turned the chapel into a granary. It doesn’t reflect well on this family’s piety, let me tell you.”
“You’re concerned about appearing pious?” Kev asked.
“Not yet. I’m still in the process of being led astray. But when I finally get around to repenting, I’ll have no damned chapel for it.”
“You can repent in our officially licensed granary,” Cam said, shrugging into his coat. He headed to the front door, opened it, and paused as the ebullient sound of guitars and Romany voices flowed inside.
Joining him at the door, Kev saw at least three dozen of their Romany relations clustered at the front of the house, dressed in colorful finery, singing and playing.
“They’re supposed to be traveling,” Kev said dazedly. “What are they doing here?”
Cam rubbed his forehead as if to push away an encroaching headache. “It looks like they’ve come to help us celebrate your wedding.”
“I don’t need that kind of help,” Kev said.
Leo came up behind them. “Well,” he remarked, “the good news is, there’s not much else than can go wrong now.”
Thanks to the hurried efforts of Amelia, Poppy, Beatrix and their companion Miss Marks, the granary was adorned with flowers and white ribbon, and rose petals were scattered generously over the wooden floor.
After a generous so-called “renewal fee,” the vicar offered no objections to performing the ceremony in the makeshift chapel. “As long as it’s done by twelve,” he told the family, “the marriage will be registered today.”
At precisely eleven-thirty, Kev waited with Cam at one end of the granary, which had been modified with large doors on both sides to allow for the easy transport of grain, implements and carts. Romantic guitar music floated in from outside, while an eclectic mixture of guests crowded into every inch of available space in the granary. A path was left clear for the bride.
Standing in the front of the granary with her family, Beatrix sneezed into a lace handkerchief. As she glanced at Merripen, she felt a surge of overwhelming happiness for him. He and Win had loved each other for so long, and had overcome so many seemingly impossible obstacles. How many people took marriage for granted, whereas for Merripen it was a reward for years of sacrifice.
Win entered the church on Leo’s arm, and proceeded through the granary. She was pristine and beautiful in a simple dress, silk whiter than moonlight, overlaid with lace gauze, her face partially concealed by a lace veil. Merripen watched her as if he’d found himself in some wondrous dream he didn’t want to wake from.
Carefully he lifted the veil and folded it back, and stared down into Win’s smiling face. The gaze they shared was intimate, trusting, ardent . . . it was devotion, Beatrix realized. The feeling between them seemed to cast a spell over the gathering.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar began, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony . . .”
Beatrix couldn’t help but wish that the vicar would hurry. The hour of noon was fast approaching.
“. . . therefore is not an enterprise to be taken unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly . . .”
Feeling another sneeze come on, Beatrix hastily buried her nose in her handkerchief. It was one of those sneezes that couldn’t quite decide what it was going to do . . . it just hovered, tickling and stinging, until finally the feeling subsided.
Beatrix was relieved, because she certainly didn’t want to disrupt the ceremony with a loud sneeze.
And then she saw it . . . a long gray trunk emerging from an open transom space between the barn and the granary. Beatrix’s eyes widened. She couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t say anything as the trunk delicately reached for Win’s veil and headpiece, and plucked it off her head.
A few gasps and yelps of surprise came from the crowd.
Lifting a hand to her head, Win shot a confused glance toward the transom.
Kev instinctively put a protective arm in front of her. Together they stared at Ollie, who watched them through the opening in the wall, waving the veil back and forth as if he were cheering them on.
Everyone fell silent, the group struggling as a whole to comprehend what their gazes were telling them.
Leo was the first to speak. “Beatrix,” he said calmly, “do you have something you’d like to tell us?”
Chapter Five
“I’m so sorry,” Beatrix said, “but I can explain everything. You see, this poor animal was being terribly abused, and so I thought—”
“Beatrix,” Merripen interrupted, “I’m very interested to hear your explanation, but we only have a quarter-hour left. Could we—” He paused as Win turned her face into his shoulder and made a peculiar gasping sound. At first Beatrix thought her sister might have been crying, but as Merripen slid his fingers beneath Win’s chin and tilted her face upward, it became evident that she was choking on giggles. Merripen couldn’t hold back a grin. With an effort, he mastered himself and asked Beatrix mildly, “Could the explanation wait until after twelve?”
“Certainly,” she said, and motioned to Ollie to cease his veil-waving. He stopped and watched the ceremony attentively.
The vicar gave the elephant an apprehensive glance. “I’m not certain the church allows animals to attend weddings.”
“If there’s a fee for it,” Leo assured him, “we’ll settle up later. For now, let’s proceed.”
“Yes, my lord.” Clearing his throat, the vicar continued the ceremony with great dignity. Eventually he said, “Therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his—”
“Stop at once!” came a booming, stentorian voice, and the entire congregation turned toward the back of the granary.
Beatrix’s stomach dropped as she recognized the man’s distinctive white moustache and goatee.
It was Mr. Fulloway, the owner of the traveling menagerie.
She didn’t dare glance at Ollie, but out of the periphery of her vision she saw his trunk withdraw stealthily into the barn.
“I’m here to retrieve stolen property,” Fulloway announced, his eyes narrowed to slits.
The man beside him carried a bull hook. He and Beatrix recognized each other at the same time. “That’s her, Mr. Fulloway,” he snapped. “The Hathaway girl I caught visiting Ollie in his pen yesterday. She’s the one who took him, I guarantee it!”
Leo stepped forward, suddenly looking every inch the aristocrat, his face hard, his eyes the icy blue of glaciers. “I am Lord Ramsay,” he said. “You’re trespassing on my estate. And in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re interrupting a wedding.”
Fulloway made a scoffing sound. “You can’t get married in a barn.”
“This isn’t a barn,” Leo said, “it’s our family chapel. There’s the vicar, and that fellow with the large fists and the feral gaze is the bridegroom. And if I were you I wouldn’t delay his wedding, or you may not live to see another morning.”
“I’m not leaving until I get my elephant,” Fulloway thundered. “He draws in paying customers, and I need him for my busine
ss, and besides, he’s mine.”
“He’s here, Mr. Fulloway!” came a muffled shout from the other side of the wall, and Beatrix realized with alarm that Fulloway had sent someone into the barn to look for Ollie.
The air was rent with a frightened trumpet. Ollie fled the barn and came racing into the attached granary, desperately seeking refuge. Seeing Beatrix, he went to hide behind her, his entire body trembling. She backed up to him protectively, and glared at the man with the bull hook as he strode toward her. “You can’t have him, you butcher!” she shouted.
“You’re a thief!” Fulloway bellowed. “I’ll have you prosecuted!”
The entire barn erupted into a cacophony, everyone shouting, Gypsies crowding in from outside, while Ollie trumpeted and screamed. Even the vicar had raised his voice in the effort to be heard.
Merripen viewed the chaos in the granary with baffled fury.
“Quiet!” he thundered.
Everyone fell silent. Even the elephant.
“For the next ten minutes,” Merripen warned the entire gathering, “no one is to move, speak, or even breathe. All of this will be sorted out after noon. For now, any one of you who interrupts will find himself tossed headfirst into the nearest grain bin.”
Win slipped her arm through his, and they turned to face the vicar.
As Merripen stared at him expectantly, the vicar proceeded. “Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will.” Merripen’s voice was quiet but strong.
The vicar asked the same of Win.
“I will.” A flush of happiness rose in her cheeks.
And the vows continued. “For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish . . . with this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship . . .”
Finally, Merripen slid a simple gold band onto Win’s finger.
The vicar finished, “Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”
And in one impassioned, decidedly improper, highly romantic moment, Merripen bent to kiss his bride. Her lace-covered arms rose around his neck, and she clasped him tightly, their mutual joy radiating through the makeshift chapel.
Beatrix smiled and dabbed her eyes. Still standing behind her, Ollie waved the wedding veil briskly, the tail of it flapping against her side.
“Now,” Mr. Fulloway said, coming forward, “I’ll take my elephant.”
“No,” Beatrix cried, glancing desperately at her family. “They’ll kill him as they did his mother. Look at the wounds around his neck, and the—”
“Hush,” Merripen said, making a staying gesture with his hand. Keeping his gaze on Fulloway, Merripen paused as Win stood on her toes to whisper something in his ear. He smiled ruefully. “Anything you ask,” he murmured. Stepping forward, Merripen inserted himself between Fulloway and the elephant. “It seems that my wife—” He hesitated almost imperceptibly, seeming to savor the last two words, “would like to have the elephant as a wedding present. Which means we’ll be negotiating for him.”
“I’m not open to bargaining,” Fulloway said. “He’s the only elephant I’ve got left, and—”
“You misunderstand,” Merripen interrupted quietly. “I’m not asking if we can negotiate, I’m informing you that we will.”
Fulloway’s complexion reddened behind snowy swaths of facial hair. “No one tells me what to do. Do you know who I am?” He turned to gesture sharply to the man with the bull hook.
But at that precise moment Cam grasped the man’s wrist, twisted sharply, and the bull hook clattered to the floor.
Behind Beatrix, Ollie flapped his ears and gave a rumbling chortle.
Fulloway found himself corralled between Leo and Merripen.
“Have you heard of the legislation passed three years ago, outlawing wanton and malicious cruelty to animals?” Leo asked. “No? Well, I know all about it, as I’ve had to sit through everlasting sessions of Parliament while they’ve brought up new amendments. And if you give us any further difficulty, you’ll find yourself so busy defending against prosecutions, you’ll have to close your bloody traveling show and—”
“All right,” Fulloway said, unnerved by Merripen’s threatening glare. “I’m willing to negotiate. But I want a fair price. This is no cut-rate elephant!”
Beatrix sighed in relief. Ollie came to stand beside her, and she stroked his ear comfortingly. “You’re not going back,” she murmured. “You’re safe now.”
Her sister Amelia approached them, gazing at Ollie in wonder. Carefully Amelia reached out and rubbed the elephant’s forehead, and smiled into his clear brown eyes. “What a well-behaved fellow,” she said. “I never suspected an elephant would comport himself so nicely at a wedding.”
“Amelia,” Beatrix said apologetically, “I know what I promised earlier, but—”
“Wait,” Amelia said, her voice gentle. “Before you say anything, Bea . . . Cam told me to let you follow your own path. And he was right. You don’t have to change yourself to suit someone else. You’re perfectly wonderful the way you are.” She smiled. “All I want is for you to be happy. And I don’t think you could be, if you weren’t free to follow your heart.”
Beatrix launched forward and hugged her sister. “I love you,” she said.
As they stood embracing, Ollie tried to wrap his trunk around them.
“We’re not keeping him,” Leo warned. “You’re going to find some kind of sanctuary or refuge for him, Beatrix.”
“Yes, of course. Some place with other elephants. He’ll want to live among his own kind.” Beaming, Beatrix led the elephant out of the granary. “But in the meantime . . . won’t the neighbors love it when I take Ollie out for a walk?”
Dressed in a white nightgown, her fair hair loose and flowing, Win entered the bedroom to find Kev waiting for her.
Their first night as husband and wife.
And although Kev, in all his dark handsomeness, was beloved and familiar to her, she felt a pleasant ripple of nervousness.
He stripped off his shirt, revealing a sleek, powerful torso, and tossed it aside.
His gaze smoldered as it passed over her slowly. Standing beside the bed, he extended a commanding hand, palm-up.
“Your slipper,” he said.
So he intended to adhere to the Romany tradition, Win thought, amused and perhaps the slightest bit annoyed. Her shoe would be placed on his side of the bed to show who was master. Very well. He could have his symbolic victory.
Although it would prove nothing.
Win removed a slipper and went to hand it to him.
In the process, however, she nearly tripped over something on the floor. She paused to glance down at it in mild surprise.
A large black man’s shoe had been placed on her side of the bed.
Understanding, Win glanced up at him with laughter in her gaze. “But who’ll be in charge?”
Taking her slipper, Kev set it ceremoniously on the floor, and reached for her.
“We’ll take turns,” he said, his hard arms closing around her, his warm breath caressing her lips just before he kissed her. “Me first.”
— The End —
