Authors: Louisa Burton

Whispers of the Flesh (30 page)

BOOK: Whispers of the Flesh

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August of This Year

W
HERE THE HECK
is
he?” demanded Isabel, her veil wrapped around her left arm while the other cradled a trailing bouquet of Auvergnat wildflowers. “What time is it? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

Her father held his watch close to his face, squinting. The gatehouse, from which they were to enter the courtyard when the processional began, was unlit, and the last of the twilight was rapidly waning; night fell fast in Grotte Cachée Valley.

“Perhaps there was traffic,” Emmett said.

“
Traffic?
There’s no freakin’ traffic in Auvergne.” She heard the shrillness in her voice, but at this point, she was beyond trying to come off as the cool and collected bride. “Where could he be?”

Pulling a cell phone from inside his elegantly tailored tuxedo coat, Emmett said, “I’ll see if I can get a signal. These blasted mountains. Meanwhile, do calm down, my dear.
They’re
relaxed,” he said, nodding toward the courtyard, “and they’ve been waiting as long as you have.”

“Yeah, but it’s not their show.”

While her father punched out the number, Isabel went to lurk in the shadows of the gatehouse’s interior entrance, where she had a view of the castle courtyard. Even wrought up as she was, she had to smile at the effect of two dozen cherry trees twinkling with innumerable tiny white lights. It was breathtaking, a resplendent fairyland with the perfect background music—cool jazz, of course. Inigo, who had eagerly volunteered to be “Tunemeister,” stood at a rented professional DJ table spinning the LPs that she and Adrien had chosen for the prewedding cocktail party and the ceremony itself—mostly jazz, with some jazzy rock and reggae thrown in to mix things up a little. Two gorgeous young things were hanging all over the hunky satyr, whose interpretation of black tie included a vintage knee-length frock coat and top hat, both of which he’d owned for over a century.

At the far end of the courtyard, in front of the imposing entrance to the great hall—even now being readied for the dinner reception—stood an arch fashioned of thousands of white roses lit from within. Facing it were white-draped chairs arranged in rows beneath the trees, most of them occupied by guests who did appear, as her father had said, to be taking the delay in stride.

Not all chose to wait in their seats, though. Some strolled about the courtyard enjoying their drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and there were quite a few clustered around the arch. Among the latter was the youngish mayor of a nearby medieval village, a longtime friend of Adrien’s who’d been recruited to officiate. Elic, who was to serve as best man—and who looked even more godlike than usual all tuxed up—stood hand in hand with Lili, wearing a
lubushu
of gold-shot midnight blue silk and earrings that probably should have been sitting in a museum case somewhere. Even Darius was there, in his human form no less, standing somewhat apart from the rest to avoid being touched.

There were a handful of American friends and relatives, including Katie Hitchens, Isabel’s de facto sister and maid of honor, and her fiancé. The most striking among them, given her coppery hair and her height—unnecessarily boosted with a pair of crystal-studded Blahnik stilettos—was Isabel’s mother.

Madeleine Lamb Tilney took a sip of her martini—“ice-cold Cîesrroc in a pre-chilled glass with a drop of Lillet and four capers, please”—as she turned to look toward the gatehouse with a frown, proving that not all the guests were as blasé about the delay as Emmett would have it. She saw Isabel and made a
what’s-the-holdup
face.

Isabel gave an exasperated shrug.

Her expression morphing into one of maternal concern, Madeleine snatched another martini off the tray of a passing waiter—anybody’s guess who it had been intended for—and started up the courtyard’s central aisle toward the gatehouse. She paused for a moment at the aisle seat occupied by her husband, leaning over to whisper something to him as she gestured toward Isabel.

He turned and looked in Isabel’s direction, giving her a reassuring thumbs-up, which she acknowledged with a blown kiss. Doug Tilney was one of those men you would never recognize from his youthful photographs, like those in his old modeling portfolio, which held a place of honor on the living room coffee table of their Trump Tower duplex. The bitchin’ bod that had once captivated the heart, or at least the hormones, of his socialite wife had been transmuted by steady exposure to Sardi’s, Le Cirque, and gravity into its fat-suit doppelgänger. Too many San Tropez suntans had wreaked their dermatological havoc, and the hair was history. Doug was a great guy, and he treated Madeleine like a queen—as if she would have it any other way—but his sexual appeal had long since gone from pretty-boy to power-as-an-aphrodisiac.

Heads turned as Madeleine continued up the aisle toward Isabel, the skirt of her Naoki Takizawa evening dress billowing with each long stride, her gait so fluid that neither martini was at risk of losing a drop. When forced to reveal her age, Madeleine routinely subtracted a decade. Nevertheless, people had been known to say, “You’re forty-six? You don’t look a day over forty,” to which she invariably replied, “Healthy living.” Karen Hitchens’s youthful appearance was from healthy living. Madeleine Tilney’s owed more to a healthy bank account, which paid for the personal trainers, the posh spas and salons, and the occasional judicious nip or tuck.

Not that Isabel begrudged her mother these indulgences. For every dollar she spent “in the shop,” as she put it, she spent hundreds, maybe thousands, on her charities. And, too, she’d been as good a mom as one could hope for. Aside from the occasional mother-daughter contretemps during her adolescence, usually over Madeleine’s
so embarrassing
Tarot cards and crystal balls, they had enjoyed a relationship that was the envy of Isabel’s friends.

That closeness was what had inspired Isabel to accept her mother’s offer of her own wedding gown, a 1972 empirewaisted Christos confection of satin, Belgian lace, and seed pearls with dramatic Camelot sleeves. The only alteration it had required was five inches off the hem.

Madeleine thrust the purloined martini at Isabel as she entered the gatehouse. “The standard dose for a jittery bride is one of these half an hour before the ceremony, and another for every half hour it’s delayed.”

“And what’s the standard dose for the bride’s fetus?” Isabel asked.

“Oh!” She almost did spill it then, yanking it back. “God, that’s right.”

“I’ll take it.” Emmett plucked the glass from his ex-wife’s hand as he flipped the phone shut, slipping it back into his jacket.

With Adrien’s help, Isabel had gotten to where she could make out the occasional aura, if the emotion or condition that generated it was strong enough. Her mother’s aura, especially visible in these dark surroundings, had been its usual sapphire when she joined them. Now, as she turned her attention to the husband she’d cut loose a little over two decades ago, it turned reddish with orange tips, like a low flame—a sure sign of intense attraction.

And why not? You didn’t have to have an Electra complex to see that Dad was looking pretty babe-a-licious of late. Following what the doctors called his
“rétablissement miraculeux”
two months ago, he’d resumed his former life as if he’d never been sidelined by a presumably terminal illness, up to and including his daily runs and workouts. The only change was his hair, which had turned a gleaming silver that, ironically enough, made him look even more aristocratically handsome than before.

Raising his glass, Emmett said, “To our beautiful daughter.”

Madeleine held his gaze as she touched her glass to his, her eyes awfully shiny all of a sudden. Isabel was pretty sure it was because of how “saintly” Emmett had been—that was how her mother had put it—when it all came out about her tricking him into marrying her to legitimize his best friend’s baby.

“He could have raked me over the coals,”
she’d told Isabel, “
and I would have deserved it, but he didn’t. He actually thanked me for what I did, because if I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had you.”
And then she had sobbed so long and so hard that her face was red and swollen for two days.

“So, did you get through to him?” Isabel asked her father.

“I did.
Bloody
good martini,” he said, taking another sip. For some reason, he had taken to swearing a bit more than before his illness, while Isabel had scrubbed her mouth pretty much squeaky clean.

“So, where is he?” Madeleine asked.

“Less than a minute away.”

“Oh, thank God,” Isabel said.

Emmett said, “Not only was there that six-hour flight delay, but the alternator on the rental car gave out around the same time as their phone reception. They just turned onto the drive, though, and he got dressed in the car on the way, so there shouldn’t be any further delays once he gets here. Maddie, if you could ask everyone to take their places . . . Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind telling Inigo that I’ll be cueing the processional in about five minutes . . . It’s a hand signal. He knows what to look for.”

Smiling, Madeleine said, “Still a pain-in-the-ass control freak, I see.”

“Yes,” he said.

Madeleine hesitated a moment, and then she put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek and whispered something in his ear that made him smile. “Me, too,” he said quietly, stroking her hair as she drew away.

“Here,” said Madeleine, handing her drink to Emmett so that she could fluff Isabel’s veil and position her bouquet. “I love you,” she murmured as she kissed her daughter’s forehead, a damp rustiness in her voice.

Madeleine turned to leave, spun back around to snatch her martini out of Emmett’s hand, then glided back down the aisle to the rose arch, where she proceeded to relay Emmett’s instructions.

Gravel crunched as a black Peugeot pulled up in front of the gatehouse. Hitch scrambled out of the backseat straightening his tux and saying “Sorry! God, what a day we’ve had. I’m so sorry to have made everybody wait. Sorry! Sorry!”

Emmett said, “All will be forgiven if you let me do something about that bow tie of yours. Looks
almost
as pathetic as my own first attempt at tying one. It was the same day I learned to tie my shoes, but I had more luck with them.”

“First things first,” Hitch said as he wrapped his arms around Isabel and gave her a good, long hug. “Listen, honey, I hope it didn’t come off as presumptuous, me suggesting music for the processional. If you decided to go with something else, I really don’t—”

“No, your idea rocks. It’s perfect.”

Karen and Jason offered hurried greetings while Emmett brought Hitch’s bow tie up to his exacting standards, and then mother and son made their way to their seats.

The music, Miles Davis’s “Stella by Starlight,” faded into silence. There were some low murmurs from the guests, then nothing. It was that air of hushed expectation that did it. Suddenly, the magnitude of what she was about to do came washing over Isabel in a vertiginous wave.

Her father stroked her cheek, a gesture that, however small, would have stunned her a few months ago. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

His touch had grounded her. She smiled. “I’m fine.”

She turned toward the courtyard, her gaze homing in on the members of the wedding party standing in their assigned places beneath and to either side of the rose arch: Katie, who despite being maid of honor, had chosen to wait by the arch rather than walk down the aisle solo, the mayor, Elic . . .

And Adrien. He looked almost impossibly handsome in his evening clothes, poised and grown-up as always, but there was something about him, a hint of nervous excitement.

She fixed her gaze, concentrating the way he’d taught her, and presently his aura came into view, almost as if she’d turned up the dimmer switch. The “root” of the glow, as Isabel thought of it, was his usual blue-green, but for the most part, it was pink, the kind of pink that signified one thing: LOVE.

Isabel caught Adrien’s eye as she caught his, his gaze shifting from above her as if he’d been checking out her aura, too. If he had, she knew it would have been just as pink as his.

Holding his gaze, she bit her lip and widened her eyes.
Do you believe we’re doing this?

His smile was warm, reassuring. He nodded, as if he’d actually heard her unspoken question.

Who knows? Maybe he had.

Her father raised his hand, his signal to fire up the processional. Inigo lowered the needle on the album he’d cued up. He must have cranked up the volume, because when Jimmy Cliff started singing, “You Can Get It if You Really Want,” they probably heard it all the way in Clermont-Ferrand.

Her dad took one arm.

Hitch took the other.

Showtime.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louisa Burton, a lifelong devotee of Victorian erotica, mythology, and history, lives in upstate New York. Visit her website,
www.louisaburton.com
.

A
LSO BY
L
OUISA
B
URTON

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If you loved

Whispers of the Flesh,

Don’t miss the next
novel in the Hidden Grotto series,

In the Garden
of Sin

by Louisa Burton