Bury the Ex, Wed the Heir novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Wedding to a Photograph

Linnet bows to the dead heir's portrait while Anselm and Philippa watch from the gate. Madam pays the Orsey loan out of her own purse in front of the guests, and that night Linnet hears a man cough in the east wing, with the hotel stranger's voice.

The wedding began at noon, and the groom was a photograph.

Silvan Ravenscroft's portrait stood on a carved stand in the great hall, wrapped in black ribbon.

He was handsome in the picture, dark-eyed and unsmiling, with a face that gave nothing away.

Linnet looked at it for a moment and thought the eyes looked tired.

Madam Ravenscroft stood beside the stand with a gold ring on a velvet cushion.

"Bow three times," she said quietly. "Then I will put it on for him."

Linnet bowed three times to the portrait while two hundred guests watched.

Someone behind her whispered, "That poor Orsey girl."

Someone else whispered, "She'll be a widow before the wine is poured."

Linnet held out her left hand without a tremor.

Madam slid the ring onto her finger, and her hands were cold and very steady.

"It is done," Madam said. "You are a Ravenscroft."

The doors at the back of the hall opened.

Anselm walked in with a young woman on his arm and his mother behind him.

The young woman was Philippa Lisle, Linnet's friend since school.

In her first life, Philippa had stood at her bedside, crying, a week before the end.

Linnet had thought those tears were real.

Philippa hurried forward, dark curls bouncing, and wrapped her arms around Linnet's neck.

"I came as soon as I heard," she said. "I couldn't let you do this alone."

She pressed a small thermos into Linnet's hands.

"Peppermint tea," she said. "Drink it. You'll feel better after last night."

Linnet nodded and thanked her.

She was too busy watching Anselm to wonder how Philippa knew about last night.

Anselm stopped three steps away and looked at the ring on her hand.

"Linnet," he said, and he sounded hurt. "I only wanted to help you. Please come home with us."

"No," Linnet said.

His mother stepped forward and held out an envelope to the room at large.

"Then I'm afraid there is a matter of business," she said. "Dray Bank has called the Orsey Looms loan. Four million, due at nine tomorrow morning."

The murmur through the hall grew louder.

Linnet knew this envelope.

In her first life it had arrived a week after the wedding that never happened.

Anselm had used it to make her cry on his shoulder, and she had signed her patents over to him to say thank you.

He was early this time. He wanted her scared before she could think.

"Linnet, I can fix this," Anselm said gently. "One word from you, and I'll talk to my father."

Behind him, near the door, her mother appeared.

Edith Orsey was still in her work coat, and she had run the whole way from the mill.

"Linnet!" she cried. "What did you do? What have you done to yourself?"

Linnet's chest hurt at the sight of her.

Her mother was alive, and her cheeks were pink, and she was shouting.

In the first life, that voice had gone quiet years before the end.

Linnet opened her mouth to answer, and Madam Ravenscroft spoke first.

"Four million," Madam said, and took the envelope out of Anselm's mother's hand.

She looked at it, folded it once, and handed it to the man at her shoulder.

"Pay it from the family office this afternoon," she said. "Tell Dray Bank to send the receipt to me personally."

She turned her gray eyes on Anselm.

"My family will remember who called a widow's mother's loan on her wedding day," she said.

Nobody in the hall spoke.

Anselm's mother went white.

Anselm's smile slid off his face, and for one second Linnet saw what lived behind it.

Then he put the smile back on and bowed to Madam, very correctly.

"Of course," he said. "A misunderstanding."

He took Philippa's arm and left, and his mother followed with her chin high.

Edith crossed the floor and grabbed Linnet's hands.

"You don't even know this family," she said, and her voice shook. "Why would you marry a grave?"

Linnet put her arms around her mother and held on.

"It's my choice, Mother," she said. "I promise I know what I'm doing."

"Do you?"

"This time I do," Linnet said.

Edith did not understand that, and she held her tighter anyway.

That night Linnet lay alone in a huge bed in the east wing, still in the ring.

The house was very quiet.

Her mother had gone home with a driver and a promise to call at eight.

Linnet's eyes were closing when she heard the sound.

It came from the end of the hall, through the wall behind the headboard.

It was a man's cough, low and dry, and then the scrape of a chair.

Then a low voice said, "Leave the lamp. I'll manage."

Linnet sat up in the dark.

She knew that voice.

She had heard it that morning in a hotel room, telling her to drink slowly.

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