Free The Time Travelers, Volume 2 by Caroline B. Cooney

ringlets—were readied. They carried baskets of rose petals to strew so that Devonny would walk on flowers. The little girls were giggling and afraid and thrilled.
    Oh, Strat! Come save me! Oh, somebody! Please save me! Save Mama, save me from knowing what my own mother did, save me from this marriage, don’t let me know the truth about my parents, don’t let me find out what marriage is from this man who can’t even be bothered to invite anybody, please please save me.
    “Here we are!” beamed the rector’s wife. “Last in line!”
    I am last in line, thought Devonny. I am quite literally last in line. Everyone else comes ahead of me.
    Lord Hugh-David Winden loved clothing, and had chosen his as carefully as any woman in the church. Gordon and Miles stood with him, while the ushers (people Hiram Stratton knew; nobody who mattered) formed a long swallow-tailed row behind them.
    The flowers that filled the great sanctuary had been sped by train from the American South. How delightful to know that he, too, would be able to afford train-loads of hothouse flowers.
    He felt a surprising surge of emotion as the bridesmaids appeared. How slowly they approached, trumpet music their only escort. The girls were beautiful, even the plain ones.
    Devonny. A strange but beautiful name, just as American girls were strange but beautiful.
    Americans believed they could create themselves. Always the singing lesson, the dancing lesson, the drawing lesson. Always studying foreign languages and history. If you tried hard enough, said the American girl, you could achieve anything. It was a matter of will.
    Devonny had plenty of will.
    He was eager to see how Devonny managed hismother. Lord Winden’s mother was overwhelming, especially to Lord Winden. A wife like Devonny might actually be an ally; together, he and his new wife might … No. These things rarely happened. The marriages he knew were full of trauma. Men and wives led separate lives.
    He counted bridesmaids.
    To his amazement, Hugh-David could hardly wait to see his bride. What will the gown look like? he thought. Will she be the vision I’m expecting? Will she be hidden by a veil? Will she be weeping? Will she smile?
    Gordon whispered in his ear. “She’s so embarrassingly American, Hugh. You shall have to perform radical surgery on her.”
    Hugh-David allowed a slight smile to decorate his formal expression. Gordon had witnessed Devonny beating him at tennis, riding her bicycle with a split skirt, and even, when she fell off the bike, jumping up in disgust and shrieking a swear word. Gordon had been horrified and amused, muttering that Hugh-David would have to be very careful, lest the girl turn into her father: fat, stomping and vulgar. But Hugh-David had found her immensely attractive. Not ladylike. But attractive.
    He knew he had been a tiny bit mean to Devonny, but it was essential, with a headstrong young girl, to be sure she knew whose world she was entering. His.
    It was his hunt, his shoot, his yacht, his party, his estate.
    He would be kind to her during the voyage, but he would structure their lives so that she learned to obey.
    One bridesmaid to go.
    Then the flower girls.
    Then the bride. His bride. His new property.
    In the space where pink ruffled skirts and white baskets of flowers had been, Devonny began to see something very odd.
    An angel was joining them.
    Devonny could see the angel quite clearly, and just as the Bible said, the angel was a beautiful man.
    He did not have flesh, just form. She could make out his outlines, but not his body. He was kneeling, which seemed fine for an angel.
    Her father was not looking.
    Devonny whispered to the angel, “Am I to die? Is that to be my fate?”
    Now the angel did not look like an angel at all, but more like a devil, strangely familiar. Devonny narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on him.
    Her father said, “Come, Devonny.”
    She could not move. He put his large heavy hand on her waist, half circling it,