Chapter 13
Thirteen
Some hours later
Zoe remembered the wedding ceremony vividly. Events thereafter were not so clear. A great many guests. Speeches and introductions. Food and more talk. A sea of people to wade through.
She hadn’t slept soundly the night before, and by the time it was all over, and she and he left Lexham House, weariness overcame her.
She fell asleep in the carriage during the short drive to Marchmont House and didn’t wake up until the vehicle stopped.
She’d started out on the seat opposite Marchmont, but when she woke she was sharing his side of the carriage. He had his arm around her.
When she looked up at him, he laughed. “Am I that boring?”
“Getting married is hard work,” she said.
“Your labors aren’t quite done,” he said. “Now you’ve got to meet the servants. Brace yourself. The good news is, it will soon be over.”
He was right. It didn’t take long.
They found all the staff awaiting them in the gleaming entrance hall. Harrison made a formal welcoming speech. The duke introduced his secretary, Osgood, and Harrison introduced the upper servants. And that was all.
The formalities completed, the duke took Zoe by the hand and whisked her up the carpeted stairs.
“That’s the lot,” he said. He looked down over the iron railing, where below, the numbers of servants dwindled.
They marched out of the entrance hall, a small army in strict order of rank.
“I didn’t realize there were so many. I don’t recall ever seeing them before in that way, all at once and in one place. ”
There were a great many, yet their numbers didn’t daunt Zoe. In Cairo she’d lived among hordes of slaves and servants, and before long she knew each and every one.
This day she studied the faces of Marchmont’s staff, because she meant to know all of them, too. She’d noticed that the footman who’d attended her the first time she’d been here was absent.
Not surprising. In Yusri Pasha’s palace, if the chief eunuch was reprimanded or embarrassed, he usually executed any witnesses to his discomfiture.
“It was gently hinted to me by certain of the ladies that my new bride might require time to rest and otherwise prepare herself for the wedding night,” Marchmont said.
“I shall need time to change my clothes, yes,” said Zoe. “I’m glad I chose to be married in this gown. It’s very beautiful. But to get it off will be the most tedious process. A thousand tapes to tie and pins to take out and buttons and hooks, and then all the things underneath.”
“Well, I would be happy to help, of course,” he said.
She could picture him undoing her, bit by bit, taking off her clothes, layer by layer, and she felt as though she walked next to a moving fire, so heated she became.
She looked up and found him looking down at her. Heat flickered in his green eyes.
“I should look forward to that, in fact,” he said. “But perhaps tonight is not the best time for complicated ceremonies.”
It most certainly wasn’t. With a few words and a look he’d made her unbearably impatient for this night’s bedding.
She was more impatient than most new brides since she had an excellent idea of what it would be like.
Tonight it would be far wiser to let Jarvis get her out of the wedding dress and into something much flimsier.
The less time Marchmont spent undressing his new bride, the more time he could spend making love to her.
“Yes, let us have complicated ceremonies another time,” she said.
They had reached the first floor. He led her down one side of the gallery landing to a corner where a pair of mahogany doors met.
“This will take you to the duchess’s apartments,” he said as he opened one of the doors. “You’ll find a connecting door between our bedrooms. I thought we might sup quietly together this night, in the great bedroom, rather than dine in state.”
She squeezed the hand clasping hers. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d like quiet. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like.”
“Not too quiet,” he said.
She looked up at him from under her lashes. “Not too quiet,” she said. “As you wish. I vaguely recollect promising to obey.”
“I supposed it would be the one item about which you’d have only the dimmest recollection.” He lifted her hand to his lips and lightly kissed her knuckles. “I shall look forward to seeing you again in a little while, Your Grace.”
Your Grace.
The two words hung in the air after the door closed behind her.
That was when it truly sank in: who she was and who she’d be from now on…and how far she’d come since the night she’d pounded on an unknown Englishman’s door in Cairo.
She’d found the courage to escape her old life.
She’d find the courage for whatever her new life turned out to be.
Later
Zoe’s quarters, she discovered, were about twice the size of her mother’s apartments.
Given this, she could hardly be surprised at the vastness of Marchmont’s bedroom. She was impressed nonetheless.
It was larger than the large drawing room of Lexham House, and it was the antithesis of austere.
His Grace, she saw, liked his comfort. Furthermore, the leader of fashion was no slave to the latest fashions in décor.
His bedroom was a delightful hodgepodge of furnishings of various styles and times.
A great tester bed dominated one wall. Its canopy rose nearly to the ceiling.
From it hung curtains of gold and green velvet and silk.
Nightstands stood on either side, a set of steps on one side.
She took in chairs, tables, a bookcase, and a chest of drawers.
In one corner of the room stood a lacquered Chinese screen and nearby, a matching cabinet.
On the walls hung several beautiful paintings, including one of his parents.
Though she had no memory of them, the style of clothing and the physical resemblance told her who they were.
A thick, richly designed carpet covered most of the floor—and that was considerable acreage—while elaborate plasterwork adorned the ceiling.
This marble chimneypiece was even more impressive than the one in the entrance hall. Before the fireplace stood a table laid for two and a pair of well-padded armchairs.
Zoe stood in the center of the room, hands clasped under her chin while she turned, taking in her surroundings.
Jarvis had dressed her in the nightclothes Zoe had carefully chosen for her wedding night: a simple muslin nightdress under a muslin wrapper embroidered in green, pink, and gold silk thread.
Shortly after she entered, Dove appeared, with a small train of footmen behind him, bearing trays and a silver bucket.
Zoe watched them set out the supper—an array of dainty dishes, small sandwiches like those she’d served her sisters, and cheeses, fruits, and pastries.
Champagne cooled in the silver bucket, which was filled with ice.
She knew that Marchmont House had its own icehouse, as did other great houses.
Marchmont stood over the servants, giving orders, moving a dish a fraction of an inch this way and another that way. She watched him for a moment and remembered what Priscilla had told her: that Marchmont bothered about nothing and nobody.
But he’d bothered this time. He’d thought about this and planned it and decided what it ought to be.
For her.
She looked down at the great diamond on her hand, the wedding ring nestled alongside, and a lump formed in her throat.
Oh, heaven, he truly could be sweet, like the Lucien she’d known long ago. How was her heart to withstand such sweetness? And if he captured her heart, how would she bear it when he grew bored with her?
Never mind. She’d survive somehow. She always survived.
And that day was sometime in the future.
Now he wasn’t bored.
And for now, she knew how to make sure he stayed not bored.
At last everything seemed to be in order. Marchmont knew he couldn’t fault Cook, for the man had done exactly what he was told to do. If it all added up to too much or too little, the duke had no one to blame but himself.
He waved the parade of footmen out of the room and waited until they closed the door behind them. He poured the champagne, took up the glasses, and turned toward the center of the room, where he’d last seen Zoe, slowly going round and round, taking it all in.
He had no idea whether she approved or not. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. She had her own rooms, which she could furnish as she pleased.
Yet he couldn’t help wondering whether she found his bedroom old-fashioned and cluttered, with its odd assortment of furniture from various generations.
Some of the pieces came from other houses, and had belonged to the earliest holders of the title.
Other pieces had been his grandparents’ and parents’ purchases, and a few, his own.
She wasn’t there.
“Zoe?”
No answer.
He set the glasses down on the table. He looked toward the door that led to her bedroom. She couldn’t possibly have…
Then he heard it, a faint rustling from behind the Chinese screen.
He’d had one of the nightstands containing a chamber pot moved behind the screen.
She must have found it while he was busy with the footmen.
For his bachelorhood, it had stood in the open, near his bed.
But now he was married, and he knew that women tended to be more circumspect about such things than men.
He turned away and began to whistle.
He heard a giggle.
He turned toward the sound.
She stepped out from behind the screen.
She was wearing a smile. And the great diamond ring. And a great deal less clothing than she’d been wearing when she first entered his bedroom.
Then she’d worn a lace-trimmed nightdress under an embroidered, lace-trimmed wrapper of fine muslin.
Now she wore only the wrapper.
He couldn’t see through it. While fine, the muslin was not transparent, and she was not standing in front of the fire. Where she stood, firelight and candlelight and shadows danced on the pink and green and gold embroidery, making the garment a shimmering veil.