Chapter 20: The Wedding That Isn't

"No," I said.

Crispin's face did not change, and that was how I knew he had expected it.

"Eleven o'clock, then," he said, pleasantly, and put on his gloves.

He walked out through the west doors, under the green light, with his back straight.

At six a detective superintendent, called by the editor's lawyer, took the man with the broken jaw away in the back of an unmarked car.

I didn't go home to change.

At eleven I walked up the steps of the church in Chelsea in an army-green coat and a pair of walking boots.

My father walked beside me, with his hat in his hand.

Two hundred guests turned in the pews as we came in.

The florist had filled the nave with white roses, and the string quartet were tuning their instruments with their eyes on the ceiling.

High in the gallery, Honoria's photographer had set up his cameras on the roof beams.

Two rows from the back sat the stout editor with his glasses on, and beside him a woman with a notebook and a man holding a camera low on his knee.

The brisk solicitor in the green coat stood in the north aisle.

Beside the pillar at the back, in his dark coat, stood Clement.

He didn't hide.

He met my eyes across the whole length of the church and gave me a nod, and I took a breath.

Crispin waited at the altar in a morning suit, with a white rose in his lapel.

Honoria sat in the front pew in dove grey.

Beside her in pale blue, with her hair pinned up and her lipstick fresh, sat Daphne.