No marriage is happy ever after - On VERY temporary hold!

Goodbye, Lady Wightwick

After the last few necessities had been performed at the church, Louisa was led by Lord Hiddleston toward the vestibule. With his black hat perched on his head, he had offered Louisa his arm. Slightly flustered by this gesture she had taken it, but she was soon to discover that the man beside her could probably care less. He strode down the aisle towards the vestibule and Louisa had to do the best she could to keep up without loosing too much of her stately appearance. Her thin veil occasionally caught a drift of air caused by the hurried steps and would billow behind her head like a small cloud.

The pace made it difficult to see all the people who were gathered, even though she now had a profoundly better chance at watching them with her face turned towards them. If only her husband would not be in such a hurry. Her husband. It was still unsettling and not very pleasant to consider him as such. This grim man beside her who had not uttered a word since the ceremony had ended.

But suddenly she felt Lord Hiddleston tense and lower his pace ever so slightly. Louisa frowned but dared not ask him. She had decided that she would not be the one to break their mutual silence. She did not mind if he did not prefer to speak as she had come to realize that neither did she.

Still she let her gaze draw across the room to see what might have the brooding groom behave as he did.

There, behind the farthest pew, already trying to retract out a small service door in the side of the church, a figure was still within view, with the sun reflecting on a small amount of beautiful red hair. Louisa closed her eyes and felt agony and sympathy wash over her. She was not angry, nor did she feel that she would have any right to be, as she would gladly have let the red haired woman take her place beside Lord Hiddleston. Louisa felt nothing but compassion for the mortified Miss Gardner who must have found her way in to the church and hid during the ceremony.

She was just about to reach out her arm to the hiding figure, before she heard a grunt beside her and felt herself being practically dragged once again up the aisle. If Lord Hiddleston knew that his new wife had noticed his former lover, Louisa could not know, but she tore away her gaze from the door and placed once again a practised smile on her face as she looked towards the vestibule. She knew that outside would wait a gorgeous carriage prepared to drive the newly-weds to her father's home for the celebratory supper.

In the vestibule, Lord Hiddleston stopped shortly to give a few words to his first grooms-man before walking the rest of the way out to the carriage awaiting.

Louisa drew a deep breath while hurrying after the Earl. Now that she was completely and irrevocably tied to the man, the daze she had been in since leaving Midgrove Manor was lifting and leaving her far more level headed.

She appraised the man hurrying beside her. How could she not help but feel a pang of remorse towards him as well as the American woman fleeing the church? This man had wished for this union even less than Louisa herself had ever done.

A most unsettling thought occurred to Louisa. Was she not, in fact, the wedge driven in between the two lovers? Was she not, unwilling a participant as she was, the one person who would forever keep them apart?

As they left the vestibule and proceeded to the carriage waiting not five yards from the doors, Louisa prepared to be helped into the carriage, but Lord Hiddleston strode right by her and seated himself inside the carriage.

Louisa felt a blush creep across her face. One thing was to be dragged up the aisle like a rag doll, another one indeed was to be left like a gaping fool outside the carriage by the very person who, as her wedded husband, was by any degree of decency bound to at least ease her inside with his one hand, before he would enter himself.