Page 79 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

‘If you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it!’

‘But I’d be letting everyone down!’

‘Sod everyone.’

‘Charles!’ Kate looked around helplessly. The vicar was looking perplexed and she really didn’t like the pressure. Why on earth had Cat allowed it to get to this point? She must have wanted to marry him — rebound, loneliness, forgiveness — whatever had been in Cat’s head, she had made the decision to marry Edward and Kate had to abide by it.

‘I’ll do it. I’ll do it. It’s what she would have wanted,’ she heard herself say. Charles started, and she realised he would assume she meant Millie. She pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll do it. Come on.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ No, not at all.

‘Very well.’ His fuzzy face didn’t look convinced but she took a determined step forwards, forcing him to walk alongside her, and they started to make their way slowly and elegantly down the aisle of Hartsford church.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kate tried to maintain some sort of distance as she walked with Charles. Psychologically, she knew it wasn’t her and the words she would say meant nothing to Kate Howard of contemporary Hartsford. She was also aware they would clearly mean a lot to Catriona Aphrodite Tredegar (who would cringe when her full name was read out during the ceremony), but still, part of Kate railed at the process by which Cat was tying herself to Edward for the rest of her life. It had been an unpleasant shock seeing Chris again, even in the guise of Edward, and she really didn’t like it.

When she was finally next to her bridegroom, the vicar cleared his throat and began his little speech. The words washed over Kate as she tried to concentrate on the fact that this was Cat’s wedding and Cat’s decision.

‘Dearly beloved, 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 . . . honourable estate . . . mystical union . . . ordained for the procreation of children . . . 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 peace—’

Oh, Will.

* * *

The cooper had barely pulled up outside the lychgate, when Will leapt off and hurtled up the path to the church door. The first thing he was aware of was Hector, lying by a gravestone, his chin on his paws and a blue ribbon around his neck.

The dog looked up as Will approached and leapt to his feet, barking joyfully. He bounded off the patch of flattened grass he’d been guarding, ran towards Will, then streaked ahead of him to the door.

Will was just about to shoulder it open, when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye; a bright blue flicker, the colour of the heavens. He couldn’t help but look, and he saw her.

The dimpled smile was unmistakeable and she directed that smile right at him. ‘Do hurry up!’ was all she said. And then she was gone.

‘I’m doing my best, Millie,’ he whispered. Then the door gave under his weight.

* * *

The thought of Will rushed in from nowhere, tearing Kate up inside, as if it had been her own subconscious saying it, and a fleeting image of Theo came into her head. She didn’t have time to process it much further though; there was a sound of the door slamming open, a frenzied barking and running footsteps coming into the church, skittering claws echoing around them.

‘I shall speak!’

The voice was loud, confident and not an ounce of deference was shown to anybody in that congregation.

The skittering stopped, and Kate spun around. Will Haddon was standing there, Hector at his heels, staring at her. His dark eyes were drilling into hers, full of pain and anguish and love. ‘I shall speak,’ he continued and took two steps forward. ‘They cannot marry.’

‘What the hell?’ That was Edward, and the vicar sucked in his breath in horror.

‘Oh, my word,’ muttered Charles, hiding his face in his palms and shaking his head. ‘What a bloody time to turn up. What timing!’

‘Will!’ Kate stared at him, and, hitching her skirts up, ran towards him, forgetting Cat was supposed to be marrying the man in the suit at the altar who had tried to grab at her to stop her running off. She tossed her veil over her head so she could see clearly and continued up the aisle — and not in the direction she was supposed to be heading on her wedding day.

‘Cat. My love — my only love.’ Will took a few more steps forward and they met in the middle. He held his hands out.

Kate dropped her bouquet on the floor and clasped them, her heart pounding so much she felt faint. ‘You’re alive!’ She searched his face. It was a little thinner, his eyes darker and more haunted, his hair longer than it had been. He was tanned and looked as if he had been working out of doors. ‘Where on earth were you? All this time?’ His hands were calloused, rough against hers, but so warm and so real, she never wanted to let them go again.

He lowered his voice and spoke only to her, his eyes burning into hers. ‘You probably know the steamer I was on sank, but I managed to cling onto some wreckage and got picked up by a fishing boat off the coast of Belgium. It took me ashore, but I had no clue where I was and I took a fever and when I woke up I didn’t remember a thing. I had nothing, no identification, no money — nothing. A family took me in and I stayed with them for a while. I worked my debt off to them on their farm, and then managed to pick up some work here and there on my way to France, and eventually, I reached Calais. I had just enough by then for passage back. And then I worked my way up the country to you. I’m sorry. I had no way of contacting you for so long — and then when I could, God alone knows whether the letters reached you.’