An Insubstantial Pageant, page 21
‘As soon as you like,’ she said huskily. ‘But your brother talks of going home. It would please him, I think, if we could be married there?’
He stood up and pulled her to her feet. ‘Then let us please him, by all means,’ he said and for once there was no sarcasm in his voice.
A faint strip of light was showing in the east. It spread, glimmering across the mist along the Danube and catching the church spires and steeples ‒ and as the light warmed to a golden glow it sheened the roof tiles and sparkled on windows, and the mist dispelled until it became no more than a soft gossamer veil drawn across the sky.
Paul stooped down and picked a tiny purple flower jewelled by the morning mist. The first of the March violets. ‘To match your eyes,’ he said.
She took it and cradled it in her hands.
‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘that Napoleon intends to fight, and that I shall have to go away for a while?’
Lottie’s heart turned over. She had known it would have to come. Only not yet.
‘But we can go home and be married first?’ her voice was unconsciously pleading.
He took the flower and tucked it into her hair.
‘The devil himself couldn’t keep me from that particular date, lovely Lottie!’ he said softly. ‘And Napoleon Bonaparte certainly won’t!’
Also by Sheila Walsh
from Wyndham Books
The Golden Songbird
Madalena
The Sergeant Major’s Daughter
A Fine Silk Purse
The Pink Parasol
The Incomparable Miss Brady
The Rose Domino
A Highly Respectable Marriage
The Runaway Bride
Cousins of a Kind
Improper Acquaintances
Many more titles coming soon
Go to www.wyndhambooks.com/sheila-walsh
for more news and information
Sheila Walsh, An Insubstantial Pageant
