Halfway through the vows, Will and Jane’s middle daughter, three-year-old Gwen, who’d taken a liking to Jim, decided to attach herself to his leg and remained there for the rest of the ceremony. And then the groom, who’d been so steady the entire time, stumbled over the last lines of the vows and had to ask the reverend to repeat them three times before he finally got them out. And if both the bride and groom cried a little—maybe more than a little—the guests all decided it would be better not to mention that small point. Especially since more than one of them were a bit misty themselves.
Everyone, including the new Earl and Countess of Harrington, agreed.
The wedding—and the marriage—was perfect.
Epilogue
In October, 1900, Wilcox & Sons, Publishers, New York City, printed the first edition of The Jewel of Balthelay: Inside the Mysterious, Rich, and Unknown World of the Prince of Balthelay, by Mahsi and Jonathan Duffy. It sold out in three weeks and went on to seven more printings.
Author’s Note
Edward Whymper was the first man to scale the slopes of Mount Chimborazo in 1879, a feat the author borrowed to attribute to Baron von Hussman.
The island nation of Balthelay and the towns of Shorehampton and Hollingport are fictional.
About the Author
A former science geek, SUSAN KAY LAW turned to romance writing as a career because it was the perfect excuse to avoid housework and continue spending all her time doing what she really loved: reading and daydreaming. Also because she was really bad at sitting in a swamp at 5 A.M. in forty-degree weather and tracking bird behavior.
Winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award and a Waldenbooks Bestseller Award, twice nominated for a Rita Award, she confesses that the biggest surprise of her career was when this smalltown Midwestern preacher’s kid was named to New Woman magazine’s list of “the steamiest writers of women’s fiction.” Her greatest joy, however, is spending her days thoroughly outnumbered by four of the best males on the planet—her husband and three sons. She currently lives in Minnesota, and plans to be a ski bum in her next life. You can visit her website at www.susankaylaw.com
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A WEDDING STORY. Copyright © 2003 by Susan Kay Law. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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