“Yes,” Hermione replied, as if she were mad even to question it. “But it’s what I love best about you.”
And Lucy managed another smile.
Maybe everything would be all right. Maybe she would be happy. If she could manage two smiles in one morning, then surely it couldn’t be that bad. She needed only to keep moving forward, in her mind and her body. She needed to have this thing done, to make it permanent, so she could place Gregory in her past and at least pretend to embrace her new life as Lord Haselby’s wife.
But Hermione was asking Richard if she might have a moment alone with Lucy, and then she was taking her hands, leaning in and whispering, “Lucy, are you certain you wish to do this?”
Lucy looked up at her in surprise. Why was Hermione asking her this? Right at the moment when she most wanted to run.
Hadn’t she been smiling? Hadn’t Hermione seen her smiling?
Lucy swallowed. She tried to straighten her shoulders. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. Why would you ask such a thing?”
Hermione did not answer right away. But her eyes—those huge, green eyes that rendered grown men senseless—they answered for her.
Lucy swallowed and turned away, unable to bear what she saw there.
And Hermione whispered, “Lucy.”
That was all. Just Lucy.
Lucy turned back. She wanted to ask Hermione what she meant. She wanted to ask why she said her name as if it were a tragedy. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. And so she hoped Hermione saw her questions in her eyes.
She did. Hermione touched her cheek, smiling sadly. “You look like the saddest bride I’ve ever seen.”
Lucy closed her eyes. “I’m not sad. I just feel…”
But she didn’t know what she felt. What was she supposed to feel? No one had trained her for this. In all her education, with her nurse, and governess, and three years at Miss Moss’s, no one had given her lessons in this.
Why hadn’t anyone realized that this was far more important than needlework or country dances?
“I feel…” And then she understood. “I feel like I’m saying goodbye.”
Hermione blinked with surprise. “To whom?”
To myself.
And she was. She was saying goodbye to herself, and everything she might have become.
She felt her brother’s hand on her arm. “It’s time to begin,” he said.
She nodded.
“Where is your bouquet?” Hermione asked, then answered herself with, “Oh. Right there.” She retrieved the flowers, along with her own, from a nearby table and handed them to Lucy. “You shall be happy,” she whispered, as she kissed Lucy’s cheek. “You must. I simply will not tolerate a world in which you are not.”
Lucy’s lips wobbled.
“Oh dear,” Hermione said. “I sound like you now. Do you see what a good influence you are?” And then, with one last blown kiss, she entered the chapel.
“Your turn,” Richard said.
“Almost,” Lucy answered.
And then it was.
She was in the church, walking down the aisle. She was at the front, nodding at the priest, looking at Haselby and reminding herself that despite…well, despite certain habits she did not quite understand, he would make a perfectly acceptable husband.
This was what she had to do.