Chapter 2 #2
The ice around her heart cracked. The numbness fled, leaving her with that feeling she had experienced before, the one where it felt as though that precious organ in her chest was being crushed.
A physical, damning pain. If she could have dug her fingers through her skin and ripped it out, she would have done.
Dead. The last member of her family, gone forever.
A ragged breath left her lips, and her face crumpled. She gave one hoarse sob and leaned in to the man, silently asking for comfort. All around them, chaos still reigned, but all she wanted was for someone to hold her, make her jagged, twisted world make sense once again.
But Alexander hesitated, the hand on her elbow moving to her shoulder to stop her from sinking into his arms. This time, there would be no embrace. Humiliation flashed through her, and she placed both hands over her face, tears wet against her fingers.
This was not the man she remembered, so cold and unwelcoming. What happened to the boy who had drawn her into his arms without a second’s thought?
“He was all I had left,” she sobbed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Baron Scunthorpe, she thought distantly.
Perhaps he would be prevailed upon to offer for her sooner rather than later—but without her father, she didn’t know if he could be persuaded to take that final step.
After all, her father was an influential man.
He held a position in the House of Lords and had a vast fortune to his name.
Would that fall to her? She suspected not; all she had to her name was her dowry.
In one moment, she had lost her home, her world, everything she had come to hold dear. Where would she go next? Who would take her in? As far as she knew, she had no immediate family. Her father had been the last person in the world to care for her...
Another shuddering sob racked its way through her.
“As for what will happen to you,” Alexander said gruffly, “I was with your father until the end, and his last words were to make provisions for you.”
His words barely penetrated. She attempted to listen, but nothing made any sense.
“You may not know this, but I am the Duke of Halston, and your father requested I marry you so you are provided for.”
Lydia lifted her head, blinking through the tears to bring his face back in focus.
He was looking at her with perfect seriousness, which suggested this was not some kind of cruel jest. But the things he was suggesting—marrying her when he barely knew her, all for the sake of providing for her now her father had died—seemed utterly ridiculous.
She sniffed, fishing for her handkerchief. “You wish to marry me?”
If anything, his eyes grew colder. “I feel a certain… responsibility toward you,” he clarified, which explained nothing.
Why would he have any responsibility toward her when he clearly didn’t even recognize her as the girl he had rescued all those years ago?
“The marriage will be a temporary arrangement, lasting a single year. After that, we shall annul it, but you will be forever after protected as my wife, and with a portion of my fortune placed on you. I will also gift you a property of mine.”
She mouthed a property, trying to wrap her head around what he was saying. “You wish to marry me for a year…?”
“Precisely.”
“And then… annul said marriage?”
He nodded curtly. “I believe that would be the best course of action.”
Lydia pressed her fingers against her lids, watching as light bloomed in red flowers, wishing she could just wake up and escape this awful nightmare.
Over the years, after she had last met Alexander, she had dreamed about him coming into her life and sweeping her off her feet.
But since then, nine years had passed. And, in her daydreams, she had imagined that he’d fallen madly in love with her.
Instead, she had this. A man who refused to hug her even at the worst moment of her life, and a father lying dead in the next room. Not even at her mother’s passing had she felt so alone. Abandoned in a world that seemed to be doing its best to impress upon her its cruelty...
“I made this arrangement with your father,” Alexander said now, still kneeling at her feet, though he seemed too large, too present, for the gesture to be a supplication. “Do you accept?”
“Do I accept… your hand in marriage?” she croaked.
“I can marry us this afternoon. Let the world think it happened just beforehand.”
Lydia hadn’t precisely dreamed of romance for a long time—she was currently being courted by a gentleman almost twice her age who had been married twice before.
But she had always hoped for something better than this.
A quick marriage for the pure purpose of security when all she wanted to do was collapse on the floor and grieve her father.
After coming to London, he had tried. She had known, even if he couldn’t always articulate it, that he loved her. Adored her. She meant more to him than anything else in the world.
And that, finally, was what pushed her into making her decision. If he had requested this, arranged it for her sake, she could not deny him. This was his final wish.
“I accept.”
The wedding passed in fragments. Cold stone beneath her feet. The rector’s impatient fingers drumming against his prayer book. Alexander’s profile, carved from ice, as he spoke vows that sounded like terms of business.
I, Alexander, take thee, Lydia...
The words meant nothing. Everything meant nothing. Her father was dead, and she was marrying a stranger who had once been kind to her, and now looked at her as though she were a burden he’d agreed to shoulder out of obligation.
He did not kiss her.
“There,” he muttered as they emerged into pale winter sunlight. “It’s done.”
Done. As though their marriage were a distasteful task to be checked off a list.
The funeral blurred past, black crepe and hollow condolences, and her father’s coffin disappearing into the earth. Then the will, read in clipped tones by a solicitor who kept glancing nervously at the duke. Everything entailed away. Everything gone.
And then the journey.
Two days in the carriage with a husband who barely acknowledged her existence. Two days of watching the landscape shift from London’s soot-stained buildings to rolling countryside, the silence between them so complete she could hear every creak of the springs, every breath he took.
She wanted to speak. Wanted to ask him something—anything—that might crack the shell of ice surrounding him. But what could she say? Do you remember me? Do you remember that night?
The questions died on her tongue.
By the second evening, as dusk painted the sky in shades of violet and grey, they finally turned down a tree-lined drive. Through the window, she caught her first glimpse of Halston Manor. Stone ramparts softened by large windows, golden light spilling onto frost-covered grounds.
“We are here.”
Lydia jumped at the sound of Alexander’s voice. She turned to find him watching her, and something flickered in those winter-blue eyes. It vanished before she could name it.
The carriage came to a halt. Alexander descended without waiting for assistance and held out his hand.
She took it, feeling the warmth of his palm through her glove, and let herself hope—just for a heartbeat—that perhaps inside, things would be different.
Perhaps he would show her the chambers he’d mentioned, perhaps they would dine together, perhaps they could at least try to make this marriage something more than a legal formality over the coming year.
His fingers curled around hers as she stepped down.
“Welcome to Halston Manor,” he said quietly.
They entered an entrance hall glowing with candlelight. A tall, stern-faced butler materialized, bowing. “Your Grace. Your Grace.”
“Philips. Is everything prepared?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Alexander released her hand. “Good. Philips, this is Her Grace, the Duchess of Halston. See that she is made comfortable.”
Her Grace. The title sat strangely on Lydia’s shoulders. Too heavy, too grand for a girl who’d been orphaned and married in the span of a week.
“Of course, Your Grace. We have prepared the duchess’s chambers, and Mrs. Jones has arranged supper—”
“Excellent.” Alexander’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Show her to her rooms. I must speak with my steward before I leave.”
The words took a moment to penetrate.
“Leave?” Lydia’s voice came out smaller than she had intended.
He turned to her with that same distant politeness one might show an acquaintance at a ball. “I will be returning to London tonight,” he declared.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet. “Tonight? But we have only just—you said you needed to see to the addition of a wife. To ensure my comfort…?”
“And I have done so.” He nodded once. “The house is prepared. The servants have their instructions—”
“Their instructions?” She couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Y-you intend to leave me here? Alone?”
“You won’t be alone. You’ll have an entire household at your disposal.
” He gestured vaguely at Philips, at the housekeeper who’d appeared in the doorway.
“Mrs. Jones will see to your immediate needs. My steward will show you the properties I mentioned—you may choose whichever suits you best for after the annulment.”
After the annulment. The words struck like a slap.
“I-I don’t understand,” she managed weakly. Her hands had begun to shake. She clasped them together to hide it.
“I was clear about the terms, Lydia. One year. Then you’ll be free, with property and income of your own. It is more than most women in your position could hope for.”
“And in the meantime?” she muttered. “You’ll just—what? Abandon me in a strange house in the middle of nowhere?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw something crack in his composure. Guilt, perhaps.
Then it was gone.
“You will have everything you need. Philips has my direction in London if any urgent matter arises.” He turned to the butler. “Treat her with the respect due any real duchess. She is to want for nothing.”
“But, Your Grace—” Lydia tried as she stepped forward, reaching for his arm, but he had already moved out of reach.
“I am sorry,” he murmured quietly, almost too quietly to hear. “Truly. But this is how it must be.”
The front door slammed open, letting in a gust of winter air. The carriage waited in the drive, the horses stamping and huffing impatiently.
He was really leaving. Right now. This moment...
Humiliation burned through her grief. She was a duchess—a duchess—standing in her own entrance hall, being abandoned by her husband mere minutes after arriving.
The servants were watching. They would pity her.
Or worse, they would gossip about her. The poor duchess, married and cast aside in the same breath.
Lydia lifted her chin, forcing steel into her spine. She would not beg. “Of course. Do have a safe journey, Your Grace.”
If he heard the ice in her tone, he gave no sign. He simply bowed—that same formal, distant bow, and walked out into the night.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Jones began. “Shall I show you to your chambers? We’ve a lovely fire going, and I’ve had Cook prepare something light for supper.”
Lydia turned to find the housekeeper’s round face creased with motherly concern. Behind her, Philips stood rigid, his expression carefully neutral. A young maid hovered nearby, clutching a candle.
They were all watching her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jones. That would be lovely.”
Her voice didn’t shake. Her smile didn’t falter. She even managed to climb the stairs with her head high, following the housekeeper’s broad back down a long corridor lined with portraits of stern-faced Rayments who had probably never been abandoned by their spouses on their wedding week.
It was not until Mrs. Jones had shown her the bedchamber—pretty, comfortable, utterly impersonal—and finally left her alone, that Lydia allowed herself to sink onto the edge of the bed.
The room was too quiet. Too empty. Too strange.
Her father was dead. Her home was gone. And her husband, the boy who’d once held her so gently, who’d promised her everything would be well, had married her and abandoned her in the same breath...
She pressed both hands over her mouth to muffle the sob that tore from her throat. Outside the window came the distant whinny of horses, the rattle of a carriage disappearing down the drive.
And she was alone again.