Read Online Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) by Penny Vincenzi - Free Book Online Page B

Izzie would at least wish her well.
    ‘I wish you very, very well, dear Celia,’ said Izzie. ‘I hope you are very happy. And I would have loved to be there, but I’m glad you understand. Perhaps I could come and see you some time soon and meet Lord Arden; I hear he’s very sweet.’
    This was a complete untruth, she had heard nothing particularly good about Lord Arden at all, even Henry Warwick declared him a silly old buffer, but she knew it would please Celia. She had gone thankfully to work that day, casting a nervous glance at her father’s study door; she came home to find him and Kit completely drunk, singing, for some reason neither of them could clearly understand, ‘Lili Marlene’.
    She phoned Kit’s driver, asked him to come and fetch him and managed somehow to get her father up to bed. He looked up at her from his pillows, clearly focussing with great difficulty.
    ‘Silly fucking bitch,’ he said almost cheerfully, then turned on his side and fell instantly asleep. But she woke in the night to hear him moving heavily around, and when she went downstairs early in the morning, he was sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands.
    ‘Don’t even begin to ask how I’m feeling,’ he said glaring at her, ‘it won’t make pretty hearing. Make me some tea, would you, and bring it to my study. I’ve got work to do. McCalls magazine want a short story within the week, bloody inconsiderate, but I said I’d do it, God knows why.’
    It was the last time he spoke to her for several days, apart from roaring orders from his study for more tea, toast, coffee, whisky; she could only offer silent thanks to the editor at McCalls and his lack of consideration.

CHAPTER 5
    ‘And now the kiss.’ The sombre, almost reverent voice broke into the moment; after the splendour, the ritual of the occasion, the simple fact of the husband bending to kiss his wife, was deeply moving.
    ‘She looks so young,’ whispered Venetia. ‘So terribly young.’
    ‘And he’s so handsome,’ hissed Jenna. ‘Like a prince in a story book.’
    The choir launched into another anthem; there was a stir in the Abbey. In the front pew a tiny figure, dressed in white silk, watched with wide-eyed awe.
    ‘He’s so sweet, the little prince,’ said Izzie, ‘so tiny.’
    ‘He’s very good,’ said Venetia briskly. ‘I can’t imagine any of mine sitting through that in silence at four years old.
    ‘Yes, well, he’s probably not been spoilt from conception,’ said Boy lightly. ‘More champagne, everyone?’
    ‘Please,’ said Geordie, waving his glass at him, ‘Oh, isn’t this music wonderful?’
    ‘It’s all wonderful,’ said Venetia. ‘What a day. And just think Adele is there, in the Abbey, it’s just unbelievable.’
    ‘So are Lord and Lady Arden,’ said Boy just slightly tartly. ‘Shall we see if we can spot them? Look, they’re passing the peers’ gallery now.’
    They looked at the small black-and-white screen, at the sea of faces.
    ‘There they are,’ said Jenna. ‘I saw them. Look, there, look.’
    ‘Jenna, you can’t possibly see anything,’ said Barty, laughing.
    ‘I can. And I did. I saw Aunt Celia, I—’
    ‘Yes all right. If you say so.’
    ‘I do say so.’
    ‘I saw her too,’ said a determined voice. It belonged to Lucy, the youngest Warwick, just six years old. ‘Didn’t I, Jenna?’
    ‘Yes, she did.’
    Jenna and Lucy had formed a strong bond; Lucy saw the eight-year-old Jenna as virtually an adult, a view which Jenna fervently encouraged.
    ‘Well that was marvellous. Really marvellous. You know, don’t you, that the Earl Marshal and the Archbishop of Canterbury both fought long and hard to keep the cameras out of the Abbey?’
    ‘Not really!’ said Barty.
    ‘Really. Apart from the fact it meant tradesmen would have to be in the Abbey—’
    ‘Tradesmen?’
    ‘Yes, cameramen and so on. Don’t look at me like that, Barty, it’s true. And also, of course, it meant people might