Chapter 7
“Your Grace? The vicar is waiting for us,” the urgent whisper said.
It was Miss Longrove. Of course, it was her. Her voice pricked through what felt like a heavy fog that came over him. It was too gentle and prim for the kind of storm that raged within him. Lord Marlow’s words echoed back to him. He did feel as if he were being dissected.
“Pardon?”
He turned toward his bride. She was lovely in white. Her smile was just right, and she knew when to speak and when to hold her silence. However, his eyes kept drifting back to the third pew.
Someone might say it was understandable. There was so much commotion in that section earlier, but there was a noticeable empty spot now between the Baron and Baroness of Marlow.
Why would she leave?
“Your Grace?”
The voice was small, but no less urgent. He blinked, his fingers playing with the seam of his trousers. He forced himself to look at his bride and the vicar, who did not expect the wedding of the Season to become such a spectacle.
His eyes still tried to see a glimpse of the lavender gown that made Cathy look breathtaking, but she had left in the blink of an eye. When the fleeing woman’s back could no longer be seen, something heavy weighed inside Tristan’s chest.
What am I doing?
“Your Grace?” the vicar prompted, his voice still holding on to that decorum of respect, although Tristan could hear a little bit of irritation. “Shall we proceed with the wedding?”
“Your Grace!” Lord Longrove yelled from the front row, undoubtedly wondering if the Duke would ever marry his daughter.
The Duke then opened his mouth, ready to say I do, the words that would forever bind him with the porcelain doll in front of him. Lord Marlow was right. He did not want to do this.
Tristan could not make himself say two simple words. His throat had gone dry. Moreover, the murmurs from the guests grew louder.
Tristan’s jaw clenched. He wanted to yell at everyone. He wanted all of them to hush. They did not have the right to speak ill of Cathy. She was the only one in the chapel who had tried to be true to herself. To not be a hypocrite. Well, her grandfather was the other one.
Finally, he saw it.
It was probably a sight he should have seen the night before.
He suspected that the flash of ginger fur skulking under the floral arrangements was none other than the famous Napoleon.
The cat moved like a soldier on a mission.
Tristan realized that it was truly Lord Marlow’s pet through and through.
Hopefully, it was not deaf like its owner.
The beast moved with the ease of a predator. Tristan almost chuckled aloud when he remembered the baron’s nickname for him. Tiger.
“Let us proceed, Your Grace. Repeat after me. I, Tristan, take thee, Anne,” the vicar urged, as if one were leading a child in learning his first set of prayers.
Napoleon was not too happy about the liturgy. The feisty feline jumped from one end to another, ending up on the table right behind the vicar. The landing was clumsy, causing his hind paw to hit the heavy brass candelabra.
For a moment, the candelabra seemed to float in the air, suspended by time. Everyone’s eyes left the bride and groom to watch the piece of brass make a rainbow shape over the vicar. Then, over Tristan and Anne.
Crash!
Even Tristan, who had been watching the candelabra with intense focus, was startled when the brass hit the stone floor.
There was not just a clatter but also an explosion.
The crash caused hot wax to splash onto the vicar’s robes and even onto Anne’s cream satin gown.
The bride shrieked from the shock. She jumped back and almost fell on her train.
“Fire! This beast will burn us all!” a dowager even older than Lady Marlow screamed.
“We are under attack! Hide!” commanded Lord Marlow. “Napoleon. You know how to save these people, do you not? What a magnificent scoundrel you are. Come here, you troublesome feline.”
“Sit down, Norman!” Lady Marlow yelled into her husband’s ear trumpet while also pulling him down by his coat tails. “You have started all of this! I told you to leave this infernal creature back home!”
While Lord Marlow was more concerned about Napoleon, and his wife was more concerned about him, the vicar was flapping his arms, trying to rid his vestments of wax.
The prayer book had fallen to the floor, while Anne gaped angrily at how chaotic the whole chapel had become.
While people were not exactly trying to escape, the events of the day were enough to make them scream and push everyone else around them.
The older guests were especially agitated.
One young woman even fainted as she made for the exit.
Tristan saw the situation for what it was.
He did not hesitate. While ushers tried to catch the cat and Lord Longrove called the congregation to order, the Duke leaped off the dais.
He did not even glance at Anne, but he could guess what she looked like, red with fury.
He also refused to linger on his shocked guests’ faces.
His guests? Well, most of them were Anne’s guests, but that was beside the point. He should not be running out of the chapel, but he did. His boots betrayed him by clacking against the marble floor.
“Your Grace!” Anne screamed. “Come back here! The vicar is almost ready again!”
“Tristan, what are you doing?” Brandon tried to stop him from leaving.
But the Duke was already almost out. He pushed the heavy doors and flung himself outside. He turned the corner, his heart hammering.
Where is she? She could not have gone very far.
Behind the chapel, he found her leaning against the vestry’s moss-covered stone wall. More likely, she did not even think much of how the damp growths would stain her lavender dress green.
Cathy’s head was bowed. Her shoulders were shaking. Was he about to see the strong Miss Priggish cry? His other thought was that she looked beautiful even as she stood against the dismal gray. She had also somehow shed some of the armor she had wielded over herself.
“Cathy.”
It was just Cathy, not Miss Quinten. Just Cathy. Her eyes stared back at him, and he was startled by how they shone with unshed tears. Even alone, she still found the self-control to keep the sobbing at bay. She was a woman who would never admit defeat, even to herself.
But she had not lost anything.
The people inside who did not get to know her had. This woman was deathly pale with only two splotches of red on her cheeks, but her eyes still flashed with a fight coming from deep within.
“Your Grace?” she gasped, an alarm blaring from her eyes. “What are you doing here? Why are you not in the chapel? Go back to your own wedding before someone sees us!”
“Napoleon has taken over my wedding. Oh, yes, I finally got to meet the notorious Napoleon,” Tristan replied, as a response to the question in Cathy’s eyes.
He took a step closer. It was tentative.
Cathy startled more easily than a cat. He also kept his voice low.
“Are you all right? You left in such haste that I—”
“Look at me, Your Grace,” she said, punctuated by a laugh that held no humor in it.
“I have been whispered about for challenging you to a competition. They called me unnatural for my height before I even sat down in that pew. My grandfather shouted about experiments and carrots during your vows, and I fled the chapel like a frightened child. I am Miss Priggish, daughter of a drunkard, and I have just handed every gossip in London exactly what they needed. But even if I had stayed, they would have found something else. They always do. I am afraid I am not all right.”
“Still, it was not your fault,” Tristan insisted, moving even closer. “You cannot be held responsible for your grandfather, or for the ton’s cruelty.”
“How can you say that?” she echoed, her eyes flashing.
He had sparked her ire. “You ran from that altar, and nobody will dare say a word against you for long. You are a duke. But a Quinten making a scene is ruined goods. You can do all of this without consequences, Your Grace, because the world is arranged in your favor and precisely against mine. I am the daughter of a drunkard. You should not be talking to me. Please go back to your perfect bride before it is too late. What I am going through has nothing to do with you.”
Cathy tried to push him. She even attempted to move past him.
However, Tristan was resolute. He reached out, his hand gently gripping her arm.
Heat radiated between them. It had not happened to him before, unless the woman was completely naked.
But here he was, marveling at the feel and heat of her skin just beneath a modest sleeve.
“I cannot go back there,” he confessed, gripping her more tightly, but careful not to hurt her. “I cannot say those vows. I do not want to marry Miss Longrove. It is now especially clear to me that I have spent the night thinking of the way you tasted. The way your lips felt on mine.”
“Do not say those things,” she protested shakily. “This is all very improper as it is. You are a duke. Do remember your duty.”
“Duty? To hell with it!” he growled. Then, he pulled her even closer to him, wondering how her words pushed him away, and yet her body obeyed. “Look into my eyes, Cathy. Do you see what I am thinking there? Do you think I care about what the others say about you? No.”
The last word came out low, but fervent. He realized he meant what he said, and he was, perhaps, nothing but a fool.
“You should!” she cried, pushing him, but the strength was not there, and her palms flattened over his chest. “I have enough issues to deal with without your strange... desire, Your Grace. Leave me be before I am completely ruined.”