Chapter Nine #2
As if they are always right here, available to us, if we want them—
I kiss him back.
I put my hands on his lapels and hold on, while he does things with his tongue that light me up, everywhere.
But we are in the presence of a holy man, in a sacred place. Taio pulls away. I try not to let my shockingly weak knees go out from beneath me as the ceremony concludes and we turn to walk back out into the sunshine.
“There,” he says when we stop just outside the chapel’s doors. “It’s done now.”
And again I see that hard gleam on his face, as if this is a victory, but I can’t make that make any sense.
“I don’t know why we needed a whole bridal display,” I say, frowning at him. “We could as easily have filed a few papers down at—”
But I lapse off into silence when he slides his hand over to hold my face.
He just…holds me.
And I can feel the metal of the ring he now wears, warming against my skin. I can feel the heat and strength of his hand. His gaze seems like it’s inside me.
I can feel myself struggle to get a breath in.
“It’s nice to meet you at last, wife,” he says, his voice gruff and the strangest look in his gaze. Possessive, yes. But also something like tender.
I want to say, you have known me forever, because it feels true. But I know it isn’t.
“Hello,” I say, because I can’t seem to help myself. I move my face to nestle my cheek in his palm. “Husband.”
And then, together, we walk back up to the house. He twines his fingers with mine, and I remember the first time he did this. I feel the wash of heat and longing.
Only now, I cannot seem to stop thinking, we are husband and wife .
And how a white dress and his hand on me makes me want, desperately, for that to mean something more than simply a legal arrangement for our child.
I swallow hard as we walk closer and closer to the house, such a sprawling collection of red-roofed wings and whitewashed newer builds that somehow work together. It should be a monstrosity but instead it becomes the whole of the horizon.
I decide I have never seen anything more beautiful, unless it is him.
The Marquess. My husband.
I can feel my heartbeat in the crease of my elbows, the back of my knees, and deep in the soft center of me.
“You are now a de Luz,” he tells me, and I can see that smile in his gaze. “Annagret Alden de Luz, Marchioness of Patrias.”
I wonder, then, if I am the only one who sees that smile. Every other part of his life is so serious, and I can feel something in me become immediately protective at that thought.
What I know is that I would fight to make sure that he keeps looking at me, just like this.
I do not intend to let him know that. I focus on what he said, and not on how the sound of that title seems to land on me, hard. “I don’t know what on earth makes you think I’ll be changing my name.”
“It is tradition, of course,” he tells me. “There is no such thing as the wife of de Luz who does not take on the mantle of the family name.” Again, that smile is in his dark eyes and I want to lose myself there. “Indeed, it is considered an honor in some circles.”
“I warned you,” I tell him, unable to keep myself from smiling, too. “I told you that I am American and would inevitably bring with me my own deep stain. Perhaps that is the retention of my actual name.”
“But my dear cosita ,” he says, and he is openly smiling now, and it makes everything inside me dance wildly, “you are the marchioness now. No matter what names you call yourself privately. And the Marchioness of Patrias cannot be anything but perfect. It is the law.”
He adjusts his hold on my hand. The hand where he slipped those rings earlier, and I can feel the weight of them on my fingers now, gleaming platinum reminders that this is real. That I married him.
That he gave me a title and expects me to use it.
I’m not sure I can process it.
And I suspect he knows it, because I can hear the low rumble of his laughter as he leads me into the private wing of the house.
Once again, he leads and I follow, wondering why it is that he is the only man alive who can compel me to do so.
He leads me back into that courtyard that I’ve never seen before today. There is a covered bit, wrapped round with flowering vines, and it all looks a bit wild. Beneath it, the staff has set up a table and two chairs, and I can see another meal laid out for us.
It looks like we’re about to have a wedding feast in a perfectly lush garden.
“My mother was supposedly a marvelous gardener,” I tell him as he takes me over to a chair and helps me into it, as if I am not fragile, but precious.
It makes me feel something like teary. “When I was little, sometimes my father told me stories about gardens she kept. I always hoped that I inherited her green thumb, but I’m not home enough to keep a plant alive.
So I still haven’t had the opportunity to dash my own hopes. ”
“Here we have many gardens you can play in, if you like,” Taio tells me. He sits in the other seat, more next to me than across from me. “Or you may simply admire the work of the gardens as they are. Whatever you prefer.”
And still, I feel that sensation like a sob deep inside of me. That ache that has plagued me for months now. That thing that some nights I wished I could dig out with my hands.
Today I have an inkling of what it is.
“Taio—” I begin.
But someone clears their throat. And whatever spell this is breaks. I can feel it fall apart around us, crumbling into ash.
Or maybe it’s simply that Taio’s demeanor changes at once.
“Mother,” he says in a formal voice I have never heard from him before as he gets to his feet.
I don’t know why it hasn’t hit me until this very moment that it’s strange I haven’t met his mother. And stranger still that she was not at the wedding ceremony.
I follow Taio’s gaze, and there she is. Francette du Luz, the previous Marchioness.
She looks exactly as she appeared in that portrait I saw in the gallery here, with discordant features that are somehow stunning, although she’s older now.
Her dark hair has become an elegant gray.
She is tall and the sort of slim that makes her seem even taller and more forbidding.
She is dressed to perfection in what I imagine she considers a casual outfit.
It is only that the trousers and jacket she wears are quite evidently from one of the most exclusive fashion houses in the world, the epitome of understated elegance.
She looks at her son. Then she looks at me, and I, who have stood tall in far more difficult moments than this one, feel the very strong urge to quiver in my seat. I repress it, but her eyes are a fierce and pitiless hazel, her lips do not even twitch in the corners, and I think she knows.
“Mother,” Taio says again. “It is my honor to present to you my wife, the new Marchioness of Patrias.”
I note he neatly sidesteps the issue of my name and have the unruly urge to laugh. Loudly.
I repress that, too.
Taio glances at me, then back to his mother. “Annagret, this is the dowager Marchioness, my mother, Francette Arceneaux de Luz.”
I decide that it is the better part of valor to repress the head bob that nearly takes me over.
“So it is true,” his mother says. She does not look at me. “You have gone and done it, and quickly, so that no objection could be raised.”
“What objection could there be?” Taio asks in reply, his tone cool. “I have made my decision.”
“And what a decision it is, to do this thing. I mean no offense to you, of course,” Francette says, looking at me.
It is at this moment that I understand that she is speaking English deliberately.
That she wants me to understand what she is saying, when surely she and Taio more regularly speak in Spanish or French.
“But surely you understand what my son does not—or cannot. You are American. My understanding is that you come from a family of no great name, have no education to speak of, and have thus far lived…” She pauses, delicately. “By your wits?”
“The interesting thing about living by one’s wits,” I say before I can stop myself, because I’m not sure if she’s insulting him or me but I don’t like it, “is that it becomes obvious when the people around one are unequipped.”
But I smile winningly, just in case she’s having a laugh. This is a strategy that has often worked with self-important clients who aren’t used to any pushback. It never occurs to them that they could be insulted, so they laugh and all is well.
I think I hear Taio sigh. His mother merely raises her perfect brows. There is no hint of anything like laughter.
“And you are, as expected, disrespectful on top of all the rest,” she says. “How delightful.”
This is giving the shades of Pemberley being polluted and so I stand, too, because I feel like a target just sitting there. “I apologize if I’m adding to the stain upon your family name,” I say, with great insincerity.
“Annagret,” Taio warns, but I keep my eyes on his mother.
“My name is unstained in every regard,” she replies crisply. “And can be traced back to the Norman Conquest. Or thereabouts.”
“A pity, then, that you can’t see your way clear to sorting out the matter of the current stain on Taio’s family’s name,” I say, hoping that I look as unimpressed with her lineage as I feel. When she could help her son, yet hasn’t, who cares about a bloodline? “I wonder why that is.”
His mother frowns as if she doesn’t understand. I can’t believe she doesn’t.
“This is an odd way to offer your congratulations, Mother,” Taio is saying. “But perhaps we can all get together for family discussions at another time.”
“The time for family discussions is past,” Francette says with a bleak wave of her hand. “Honestly, Taio. I expected better from you.”