Returned to London, they made calls. To Genevieve, to his parents. Their cheeks pressed together over one phone, and in the telling, the news became sleight.
“I’ve tricked him,” she said, “into marrying me.”
Jeremy caught on to the act, would say that he was not a credulous man and enumerate his cynicisms. He declared himself worldly to the work of black cats crossing ladders. He said the only certifiable things were bad British weather and scheming politicians, and no one believed him. They observed he was a dupe, but Alexandra’s dupe, and radiating good fortune.
In the days that followed, Alexandra involved him in choices that didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The costumes, the place. But one day Mrs. Allsworth was very small and hunched as she showed Alexandra a photograph of her own wedding day, her eyes big with need. She offered, then, an ivory silk dress. And though it would never fit, they pretended for a while, made the motions of tradition.