Chapter 9
L ater that morning, Emily entered the wedding breakfast rooms with Adam’s kiss from the chapel still alive on her mouth and no idea at all how to wear her new title without feeling as though everyone must see that it sat strangely on her.
The rooms had been opened wide for the celebration, as sunlight fell across the floors and white tablecloths. The servants moved with trays of wine and cakes, and the sight of flowers standing everywhere in graceful abundance made the room feel even more lively than it already was.
As Emily walked, every guest she passed seemed prepared to welcome her into her new life with smiles, compliments, and a confidence she did not even possess.
Before she could properly gather herself, Harriet came running toward her with all the joy in her little body.
“You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen!”
Emily laughed despite everything. “And how many brides have you seen?”
Harriet considered the question seriously. “Two. But you are much prettier than the other one.”
“That is such a grave honor, dear.”
Harriet nodded, satisfied, and then immediately turned to the matter she considered pressing. Gilbert, who had been smuggled into the rooms by means Emily did not wish to investigate too closely, sat near a chair looking pleased with the world.
“Gilbert could do with better clothes,” Harriet remarked.
Emily looked down at the dog. “Dogs do not wear clothes, little one.”
Harriet lifted her chin. “Well, this dog will!”
The certainty of it, so bright and unreasonable, struck Emily with a tenderness almost painful in its force.
For one small, foolish moment, it felt as if she might truly belong here.
Not as a quelled scandal, not as a duchess put in place, but as someone welcomed by warm little hands and ridiculous plans for a dog’s wardrobe.
Then, the moment passed, because guests pressed in, congratulations followed, and Adam was nowhere near.
A lady she barely knew praised the elegance of the ceremony, and a gentleman bowed over her hand and spoke of how fortunate Huxley was to have a bride this beautiful.
“I would not be surprised if you have children soon. You already have the hips for it!” the gentleman had said.
It was so innocent that she almost couldn’t take offense.
Another woman complimented her veil. Emily answered with the right words in the right tone and felt her attention circling the room against her own will.
Adam stood on the other side of the room, deep in conversation with two older men, grave and composed and utterly unreachable.
He was doing everything expected of a duke on his wedding day: receiving guests, answering civilly, managing his house with calm authority.
Only a woman who had felt him lose control at the altar and behind a carriage would know how much that calm concealed.
But she knew. Oh, did she know.
An older man who had introduced himself as Lord Roger Holton, Adam’s uncle, appeared a short while later, proper as ever, his expression smooth enough. He had a short streak of grey in his hair and a sharp green gaze behind his monocle.
“You are such a lovely bride. I am certain you will make the house come to life.”
“Thank you, my lord. But frankly speaking, I doubt the house needs my help for that. It has two lovely children already.”
“Oh, well,” the older man said, his voice clear. “We shall see.”
Emily raised an eyebrow, confused by the statement, but managed to maintain her composure and thanked him anyway.
The man nodded and moved away. And yet his presence stayed behind like wind through an open door.
Harriet’s sweetness had made the house feel briefly warm, but somehow seeing Adam’s uncle made Emily remember that the house was built on structure at the end of the day, and she was expected, sooner or later, to align with that structure.
All the while, Adam kept his distance. He crossed the room when necessary, spoke to her when required, and touched her once in a while.
“You will be fine.”
However, every time his hand lingered a little on her, Emily felt the pattern of it as clearly as she had felt his mouth on hers that morning.
He wanted her. She knew it. And because he wanted her, he was avoiding her.
The contradiction, for some reason, gnawed at her. It almost made her question her assumption.
He does want me… right?
Marriage had not simplified anything. It had done the opposite. Now she belonged to him before God and the law, and still she could not tell whether that belonging would ever extend past public forms into anything human and warm.
She had just begun wondering whether she could slip for one minute into a quieter corner and breathe when Theodore’s voice cut across the room.
“Is there not going to be a dance?”
The room did not fall silent. That would have been too theatrical. It did, however, sharpen around the question.
Emily felt the hairs on her arms and neck stand on end. She hadn’t thought about that.
“I am certain there should be at some point. Why?”Adam asked.
Theodore shuffled his feet. “Well, should you not dance with your bride?”
Adam turned his head toward him. “Should I?”
The dry line elicited a few smiles from those nearest enough to hear. Emily felt the answer like a pinprick all the same.
Theodore, in his plain, practical way, did not soften. “I think you need to. You can do that now, can you not?”
That drew a few more glances. Emily could have kissed the boy for his honesty and shaken him for his timing.
Adam looked at Theodore for a moment longer, then set down his glass and came toward her, every step tightening something in her.
He stopped before her and bowed just enough to satisfy the room. “Duchess?”
The title, spoken by him in that low voice, did nothing to steady her.
He held out his hand, and she put hers into it. Soon, and almost out of nowhere, the music kicked in, and the dance started.
The first contact was worse than the kissin a way, because it had to be endured in public and with composure.
His hand settled on her back, and her gloved fingers rested on his shoulder.
They began to move with the music, and every inch of required closeness seemed to pull the memory of every forbidden one in its wake.
This was far from the kind of hold a man who didn’t like her would have kept. She knew too much and had danced with a lot of indifferent men to mistake one for the other. His hand was controlled, his posture exact, his expression guarded.
She kept her eyes on him for one full turn of the room before looking away. Absurdly, she feared that if she watched him too closely, she might say something that would expose them both.
“You dance very well,” she managed to say at some point. The silence between them had grown so thick that she felt like she had to say something immediately.
“It is a useful skill.”
“Your compliments improve with marriage.”
That brought the smallest twitch to his mouth. Not a smile, but the ghost of one. The sight of it hit her with surprising force.
The dance carried them while the room blurred into color and candlelight. The guests watched with pleased approval. No one else could possibly know that Emily felt every movement more than she should.
Eventually, she exhaled and lowered her voice when she spoke again. “I am getting rather tired.”
“I hope you do not plan to sneak out to a club.”
“What?”
Adam shrugged. “Perhaps it is something you do when you get tired. I do not know.”
His tone was dry, but the history beneath his words struck her hot across the face.
Emily felt herself blush. “It was a one-time thing.”
“Well, good to know.”
For one dangerous instant, the air between them lightened.
The memory of that dreadful hat, his outrage, the kiss afterward—all of it seemed to hover in the space between them like a dangling carrot. Soon, the song drew to an end, and reality returned with it.
Emily heard herself ask, quieter now, “Should I… I mean, where am I meant to go afterward?”
His gaze met hers squarely. For one brief moment, she thought he might say something that would finally make sense of his hands, his mouth, his distance—all of it.
He did not.
“Do not worry, Duchess,” he said. “I have made certain that your quarters are as far away from mine as possible.”
The words landed with perfect politeness and devastating force as the dance ended.
He bent over her hand and kissed the back of it without breaking eye contact. Then, he stepped away and left her standing there, with the memory of his hold still warm on her body and his refusal cutting through it like cold steel.
Emily remained standing, almost in shock, as Adam disappeared into the crowd.
What in God’s name…?
After that, the day began to empty, and the guests thinned by degrees, drawing gloves back on, summoning carriages, and offering last congratulations that sounded no different from the first. The servants moved more quietly now, clearing glasses, gathering abandoned napkins, and putting rooms back to their normal order.
She stood among people taking permission to leave with the smile expected of a bride and felt, beneath each polite exchange, the loneliness of being left behind.
Her mother would return to Salbury House.
Dominic would go with her. Sybella, too.
Their rooms would still be theirs, their habits still familiar, their jokes still falling into place without effort.
Emily, meanwhile, had crossed into a house that ought to be hers now and still felt as though she had been set inside a fine frame and told to occupy it properly.
Adam was nowhere near her.