Seated in the Trevor pew—with its high back, ornately carved door, and kneelers done up in petitpoint by Aurelia’s dynamic great-grandmother—were Lady Hubert and her son, looking for all the world as if they were attending the funeral of their nearest and dearest. Behind them were Squire Stanton, his good wife Margaret, and their stair-step children—Harry, the hope of the family and three of his four younger sisters and brothers. The squire and his wife might have been riding a tumbril to the guillotine for all the enjoyment they seemed to be deriving from the wedding of Miss Aurelia Trevor and Mr. Thomas Lanning. Young Harry’s mood seemed to swing wildly from belligerent indignation to brow-wiping relief. Miss Chloe Stanton, age eighteen, was not seated in the Stanton pew as she was to be the bride’s sole attendant. The three youngest Stantons, however, were so intrigued by the hostile undercurrents filling the modest church that they peeked, eyes dancing, across the aisle of the old stone church to see if the groom—a Cit, imagine that!—had any friends at all.
