Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
It is only a contract, she told herself, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
She heard the distant click of the Duke’s boots on the stone floor outside, approaching the altar.
A signature, a vow, and a roof over our heads. I can do this. For Celia, I will become a duchess.
Anne stood in front of the gilded mirror inside the antechamber. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed her ivory gloves up her forearms.
This would not be the wedding she had imagined as a girl.
There would be no scent of crushed lilies tickling her nose, no soft murmurs swirling in the air with choral music.
There would be no father to squeeze her hand and tell her she was his pride, no mother to adjust her skirts and dry her happy tears with an embroidered handkerchief.
Instead, there would only be a hollow ache, a silence where there should have been her parents’ cheers.
She felt the weight of the silver locket beneath her lace bodice and held it in her hand. It was a gift on her sixteenth birthday, now pressing against her skin as a reminder of everything she had lost.
She looked at her reflection and saw a stranger draped in white silk. With one last breath to steady herself, she picked up her simple baby’s breath bouquet. She opened the door, stepped out, and walked down the aisle to meet her groom.
The ceremony will be brief, she assured herself as she walked down the aisle. Over in no time at all.
The ceremony was held at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on a Thursday morning in the second week of June with a special license, a register, no Holland flowers, no three hundred candles.
Only the old rector, whose voice carried the worn steadiness of a man who had joined couples in joy and in desperation for forty years, and had long since stopped distinguishing between the two.
Uncle Benjamin and the Marquess of Woodworth stood as witnesses, the former beaming as though he had personally arranged the match, the latter wearing the dignified composure he reserved for occasions of consequence.
Felicity and Celia occupied the first pew with a maid stationed dutifully between them, though the precaution proved insufficient. The girls had already linked their gloved hands across the woman’s lap and were whispering with the grave intensity of co-conspirators surveying their finest work.
“We are gathered here today to join these two…” the rector droned on.
Anne tuned him out. She only came back to the present moment when it was time to exchange vows, as she knew this was important.
Anne spoke clearly and calmly as she repeated the vows. The Duke stood beside her and conducted the matter with the precision of a man who had decided upon a course and intended to see it through.
This was, she supposed, the most that could be said of either of them. He looked at her when the last I do was spoken.
She looked back.
And that is that.
The wedding breakfast was held at Dawnhurst House, which was William’s decision and one he was already regretting by the time the first carriage pulled up to the door.
He did not like having people at his house. He was reclusive by nature and tolerated them only if needed, which was a different thing altogether.
He had spent eleven years curating a household designed to accommodate his requirements, which included a great deal of space, a library that no one touched without invitation, and the consistent, predictable absence of other people’s opinions about his furniture.
Now, his mind was reeling from the thought of two new souls under his roof permanently.
They are but guests, he reminded himself as he heard Mrs. Alderton instructing the servants. They will leave. They always leave. The rest, I will figure out as we go. This is for Felicity.
He schooled his features into polite calm as he greeted Lord Kirklow.
“Welcome,” he said with a short bow.
“What a splendid house,” Lord Kirklow gushed, unable to hide the calculations behind his eyes. “I cannot wait to see your country estate, with it being so new and all. And we will be neighbors, how grand! I imagine we will… grow quite close.”
“Quite.” William could not muster more. He could feel the oil seeping from the man’s voice.
“Papa!” Felicity squealed, appearing at his elbow.
Her eyes were very bright, and she was wearing her best morning dress.
She had taken care to fold her hands in front of her, which, in his experience, indicated that she was suppressing a considerable amount of excitement.
“She’s coming down the stairs now! Isn’t she so beautiful, Papa? ”
“Yes,” William said dryly, which was fitting, given the state of his mouth. His tongue lost all moisture as he looked at his new wife, a vision in the daylight that filtered through the windows. “She lives here now.”
Felicity’s expression was that of a person who had been given everything she had wished for and was trying very hard not to do something undignified in response. She succeeded by approximately half.
“I know,” she breathed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Go and greet our guests, Felicity,” he said, not answering the question. “And do not run.”
She went, after bobbing a small curtsy. She did not quite run, which he counted as a success.
The drawing room was, despite his feelings on the matter, warmly arranged by Mrs. Alderton.
There were tasteful flowers on the mantelpiece, silver set out on the sideboard, the good china, and a breakfast spread that bore no expense.
A small concession from a staff who had noticed over the past fortnight that there was an emerging new normal for their master.
William knew that they knew something would change at Dawnhurst House.
Celia came downstairs after her sister at approximately the same velocity Felicity had managed in the entrance hall. Within four seconds, the girls had found each other and were sitting on a divan, engaged in a whispered conversation near the window.
William could not help but smile.
His attention was then drawn to Anne, who had entered just behind her sister. She was just as radiant as she had been earlier, still in her ivory gown. Her hair was still pinned with the small white flowers that had been woven into it that morning.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, composing herself. William, who was standing at the far end of the room, made a studied effort to look at the fireplace. Despite himself, he looked at her instead.
“Your bride is quite beautiful,” Rafe murmured, handing him a glass of brandy. “I wish you every happiness.”
“Thank you,” William said tightly, accepting the glass.
Celia, having finished her conversation with Felicity, pulled her over to where Anne stood, still at the door. The two girls seemed to regard her with the collective focus of a committee that had reached its verdict.
“Oh, Anne,” Celia said, with the gravity of a small person delivering a formal announcement. “You look absolutely beautiful.”
“Absolutely,” Felicity echoed, with equal sincerity.
“The most beautiful bride I have ever seen.” She paused, then added, as though the thought had only just occurred to her (though her expression suggested it had not), “What should I call you now, do you think? I believe it ought to be something different, given the occasion.”
Anne looked at her, her cheeks suffused with a tinge of surprise and happiness. She smiled. “Well, you might simply call me Anne… if you like.”
“And what of me?” Celia asked, too quickly.
There was a brief pause.
“I beg your pardon?” Felicity said.
“If Anne is to be your…” Celia began in the voice she used when she was being extremely reasonable and knew it. “Well, if she is your something, then I am your something too. I have given it some thought, and I believe the correct word is aunt.”
Felicity stared at her. Then she looked at Anne. Then she looked back at Celia with an expression that cycled through astonishment, delight, and something very soft.
“Aunt Celia,” she said slowly, as though testing out the words.
“Yes,” Celia agreed, with the satisfaction of a person who had named a thing correctly. “That would be more proper, would it not?”
“But you are ten.”
“Almost eleven,” Celia corrected.
“An aunt.” Felicity seemed to be doing some internal calculation of considerable weight. Then her face split into a smile of genuine happiness. “I think I should like that very much, actually. I have always wanted an aunt!”
“Good.” Celia nodded. “Then it is settled.”
Anne pressed her lips together with some effort. Behind her, Rafe made a small, appreciative sound, and William just sighed, refreshing his brandy.
Felicity, having concluded her business with Celia to her satisfaction, turned back to Anne with the bright intentionality of someone who had prepared for this moment.
“Oh Papa,” she said, raising her voice with the precision of a girl who knew exactly how to deploy it. “I was just telling Anne how very beautiful she looks today. Aunt Celia said so as well. In fact, didn’t you say so this morning?”
William wished he were elsewhere. He felt every head in the room turn toward him with the pleasant expectation of an audience that had been promised entertainment.
His daughter was looking at him with those wide blue eyes she deployed when she was determined to make something happen. She nudged him. It was a small nudge, but unambiguous in its intent.
He cleared his throat.
The girl is not wrong.
“You look…” he began, and stopped.
Several things crossed his face in rapid succession and were suppressed in the order they arrived. Anne was looking at him with those green eyes that did nothing to ease the tension, nor the heat in his chest that rose the longer he looked at her under his roof.
He shifted his gaze somewhere above her left shoulder. “The dress,” he said with great care, “is very fine.”
Rafe snorted and quickly hid it with a cough.
Anne’s lips quirked up. It was not quite a smile, but it was close.