She Fled Her Wedding — Then Found the Duke Escaping on the Same Train
Chapter 20
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The Dowager offered the lace again. Annora used a small length at her cuffs and asked to keep the rest uncut; it was too beautiful to spend entirely on a single morning. Piers's mother agreed after examining precisely what was to be done with it.There were still arrangements to make. Piers had work that could not simply be abandoned. Annora wanted more time in London than he usually spent there. They had discussed it, disagreed, and settled on a plan they would try for a year; neither called it a final solution to the rest of their lives.On the wedding morning, Annora woke before Nelly came in. For several minutes, she lay listening to the house begin its work. She was frightened—not of an unwanted man or an approaching prison, but of how much happiness she now had to lose. Then she got up.At the church door, her father asked whether she was ready."Nearly," she said. "My glove is caught."He helped free it. Neither treated the delay as an omen.Piers waited inside, pale and smiling. When she reached him, his hand trembled as it closed around hers. Annora felt an answering tremor in her own, and was glad neither had managed to conceal it.That afternoon, they took the train to Lynmouth. Their luggage had been sent ahead. They sat opposite one another at first, amused by the familiar arrangement. Annora wore a traveling dress and a hat that had resisted every attempt to sit straight. Piers had forgotten to remove his carnation.She looked at it. "You might take that off. People will know.""I rather hope so."Outside, the platform began to move. Annora watched it slide away, remembering the sick plunge of the previous journey, the veil on the seat, the discovery of a man equally unable to be what everyone expected.Piers reached into his pocket and took out a coin."Have you been practicing?" she asked."Relentlessly."He displayed it, closed his hand, tapped the knuckles, and opened both palms. The coin landed on the floor.Annora bent forward at the same instant he did. Their foreheads met with a small, painful knock. For a moment, they remained perfectly still. Then she began to laugh.He sat back, rubbing his head, and watched his wife laugh until she could scarcely breathe.There would be mornings when neither of them found anything funny. There would be letters poorly worded, plans made carelessly, times when the effort of understanding another person felt less like romance than work. But she was here, with her crooked hat and her lovely, unguarded face, on a train she had chosen to take with him.Piers left the coin where it lay and moved to the seat beside her. This time, when Annora reached for his hand, neither of them was getting away.