Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“Lud,” Celestine clapped happily. “That gown is divine on you, Ariadne.”
As upset as Ariadne was at the situation, the gown that her mother had procured after two days from the engagement announcement— proof that she had planned this sham marriage months in advance— was indeed lovely.
It was ivory in color and had a lot of handmade lace sewn into the square neckline of the dress. Gathered under her bosom, the skirts frothed to the floor in waves of underskirts. While pulling on her long white gloves, Ariadne replied, “It really is.”
In the past two days, while journeying back to her home parish where the wedding was to be held, she had worried for almost a full day that her expectation of Leander was going to be right.
I am sure I will be the third wheel in my marriage. I will be the lady in name, but his mistress will be the true lady.
“Are you all right, Ariadne?” Marigold asked, her brows furrowed. She fixed her spectacles and added, “You look worried.”
It scared her that she had been tricked into marrying a man she did not know at all. By the time her wedding day arrived, she was a mess. It was all she could do to keep a smile on her face and not let anyone around her know what her thoughts were.
“It's…” Ariadne considered telling her sisters about her mother’s machinations, but decided against it. “…wedding jitters.”
“Completely understandable, given the circumstances.” Celestine nodded. “I have heard of a friend of a friend being ill days leading up to her wedding and fainted on her wedding day, moments after her vows.”
I’ll probably be ill too.
While fixing her gloves, she thought about the beastly duke and how his body had wrapped around her in that tiny broom closet. She shivered…then flushed hotly at the memory of the heat under her skin and the gooseflesh popping up on the back of her neck pressed against him.
The door to the vestibule opened, and Ophelia stood there, “Girls, please take your seats. The ceremony is about to start.”
A chorus of “Yes, Mother” followed before all three of them took a turn to hug Ariadne before filing out of the room.
Reaching for her veil, she pinned the flowing lace atop her head and fluffed the material around her face. Ophelia came closer.
“Give him a chance,” her mother said with genuine hope. “You might be happier for it.”
“When we were going to the ball, you warned all of us to stay away from the known rakes, yet you led me into the bed of the greatest one of them all,” Ariadne said flatly.
“Ariadne—”
“I understand your reasoning, Mother,” she said calmly. “I just think there could be a better way of getting to it.”
There was no sense delaying the inevitable any longer or standing here and letting herself fall to pieces. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Do not be a ninny.
“I think I’m ready,” she said.
“Your sisters are right,” her mother said, “You do look beautiful.
She grasped her bouquet of lilies and roses and headed out from the vestibule to the sanctuary.
She heard the soft melodies filtering from inside the church, her mind drifted, and she imagined how she might have felt if the circumstances were different.
How would she feel marrying the love of her life?
The cathedral was decorated with candles lit all around, little bouquets of lilies and roses, the intricately carved columns, the pews, and the altar behind the dean, which was covered with a fine white linen cloth.
For such a hasty wedding, the duke’s servants had transformed a humble village church into a very elegant space.
There were eight people in the church: her sisters and her uncle, Thaddeus.
As a proud Pink of Fashion, his jacket and waistcoat were of embroidered velvet, matching his immaculately wheat colored hair.
His Grace stood there, his tall, broad body dwarfing the small priest, his dark hair falling in a devilish way over his face, but for the other man, a handsome blonde, she had no idea who he was.
The priest was there—but not her future husband.
Her mother left her with the priest after squeezing her hands before going to sit by her brother-in-law. A door to the left opened, and she expected to see her new husband emerging—but it was the duke instead.
His frame was tall, broad on the shoulders, and his clothes were his black linen shirt that was freshly pressed, with a matching silk cravat. He had a dark tailored jacket with the buttons open to show off a blood red waistcoat.
His dark hair, worn longer than what was fashionable, was tousled but did not fall in a way to hide the scar on his face. With the way the light fell on his face, she saw a silvery scar that slanted through his left eye, giving him that much of a devilish glint.
“My brother is in the vestibule,” he said while taking his spot where the groom’s best man would stand, and when his eyes landed on her, her breath caught in her throat. “He will be out momentarily.”
She tried to watch the duke covertly under the veil, but every time her eyes landed on him, and his eyes landed on hers, her heart flew to her throat while she remembered the heat of his mouth on her ear.
As the moments ticked away and the silence began to scrape at her skin, she could not help but feel dread. Was Leander inside getting drunk? Was that the only way he could marry her? Her eyes shot to the door every minute, and with it not opening, she began to worry.
“Do not worry, my lady,” the vicar murmured without looking up. “Some grooms take a moment.”
Soon whispers filled the air, and her knees began to get weak with mortification.
Lord, could this please be over?
Cedric had never imagined that he would be standing in a marriage ceremony ever again. The only positive thing about this was that he was not the groom. However, the lateness of said groom perturbed him.
His eyes landed on Lady Ariadne, and he felt his chest tighten with every inch she sank into herself. She was utterly beautiful in her dress, and, with the sunlight that fell through the lone stained-glass window above the pulpit, seemed to have a halo around her head.
Under that hand-spun silk, her lashes swept over her high cheekbones in a soft, full face. Her plush cupid-bow lips looked bitten, maybe by design, but he wagered it was the stress of the day.
Her gown fit her body perfectly, highlighting her generous breasts, soft, rounded shoulders, and was all curves and softness—a young woman full of life.
Cedric had seen much beauty in his life, danced with many a Diamonds-of-the-first-water, broke bread with devastating widows, and even flirted with uncommonly beautiful debutants; Helena had been such a one. Only after their marriage had he found out the true woman behind the rouged lips.
Ariadne did not seem to be one of those women who wore masks to hide their personality. With her guileless smile, he felt she held true, genuine kindness; she held a kind of inner light—one that couldn’t have been any more different from the darkness that he carried within him.
She kept shooting apprehensive looks to the door behind him, and with the time ticking away—at least fifteen minutes by his estimate—he decided to do something about it.
“One moment,” he dipped his head in a short bow then spun on his heel and strode to the vestibule. “Leander, what the devil is taking you so—”
He pushed the door in…and found windowpanes flapping with the wind and the room empty.
A curse left his mouth as he spun on his heel and ran out of the church to spin around to where the vestibule Leander had been waiting in. He found the carriage wheel tracks impressed into the mud that led off to the road behind the church.
“Son of a bastard,” Cedric swore.
“Greymont?” Silas called out as he trotted to his side. “What is—” his keen eyes took in the scene, and Cedric knew his friend would see what had happened. “Good god. Is he gone?”
“Yes,” Cedric swore again. “This was my fault. I should have known the untrustworthy cur would have done something like this. I should have been watching him like a hawk instead of trusting his word.”
Shaking his head, Silas said, “You cannot blame yourself for this. It just goes to show you how much of a coward he is.”
“When I find him, I am going to wring his neck,” Cedric swore as they headed back to church.
He entered to see Ariadne seated at a front pew with her mother rubbing her hand, comfortingly, before giving him a pleading look. One of her sisters, the one with the spectacles, looked ripped in two; she must have put two and two together instantly.
He turned away to go to the priest, who looked solemn. “Your Grace?”
“The groom is gone,” he said plainly.
To his credit, the priest replied, “Should I cancel the proceedings, Your Grace?”
Turning, his eyes landed on Ariadne, and something carved through his chest with a ragged edge. She didn't deserve any of this; being forced to marry a rakehell and, on the day of the wedding, be jilted at the altar. Pity cracked his galvanized chest open, and his heart bled for her.
“Sir?” The priest asked
I am in need of a wife, if only to stave off the incessant offers for marriage from ladies and their marriage-minded mamas…and if she stays out of the way…
Ignoring him, Cedric went to Ariadne, and she looked up at him with luminous blue eyes, misted with unshed tears. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” he replied frankly.
She pulled her bottom lip in, and her chest shuddered with a held-in cry.
Forget getting caught with a rake in bed; when word got around that her prospective husband had jilted her at the altar, she would be ripped apart by all the harpies in the ton.
Matrons would use her name as a cautionary tale to young ladies.
Did he want to see her be ruined by his careless brother? After all, he could annul this marriage soon and save her name.
“But—” Leaning closer, her cupped her chin in the palm of his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. “Now, will you allow me to rescue you from this situation?” He ran his thumb over her jawline, causing heat to fill her cheeks.
She swallowed. “What do you mean, Your Grace?”
“There is only one way to ensure that your family is not completely destroyed.” He paused. “Marry me, Lady Ariadne.”
A faint stir rippled through the pews behind them—a rustle, a sharp intake of breath, someone’s muffled exclamation cut short.
“Cedric Graymont, Duke of Holloway,” the vicar said at last, “will you have this woman to be your wedded wife?” His eyes met Ariadne through the veil; her gaze had lost the lost and defeated look from moments ago.
“I will,” I said. The vicar turned to her. “Will you have this man to be your wedded husband?”
There was a pause, and her tone wobbled, “I will,” she said.
After the priest pounced on them, man and wife, Cedric had given the priest a tight shake of the head before he asked them to kiss. Ariadne was grateful for it because she was not sure she could survive his lips on hers.
Not for my first kiss.
“By all that is vested in me, I pronounced you man and wife,” the priest said. “It is my honor to present Mr. and Mrs. Greymont, Duke and Duchess of Holloway.”
“Gadzooks,” Isolde murmured as she helped Ariadne disrobe in the same vestibule that she had dressed in. “He married you! He really married you.”
“It was for pity,” Ariadne replied numbly, as she donned her flounced deep green gown; she loved it because it complemented her dark curls and skin, but at the moment, with all the shock jolting through her system, she couldn’t muster the admiration from before.
She took care not to jostle the delicate ruby ring on her finger.
She was a duchess.
The Duchess of Holloway.
It felt… just as hollow as the title.
“When he had offered to marry you, I thought Mama was going to faint,” Marigold gaped. “You came to marry the duke’s brother, but providence gave you the duke instead. It sounds like something I would read about in a story from the Miranda Press.”
While fixing a pin in her hair, Ariadne shook her head, “I do not want you to take too much stock in this.”
“What do you mean?” Celestine asked.
“I—” her words were cut off when her mother pushed the door in. She was standing there with Thaddeus, and Ariadne stilled at the sight of him. She had not expected to see him there, knowing what she knew of what he was doing to her family.
“Girls, please give us a moment,” Ophelia declared.
Once again, her sisters took turns hugging her before they left the room, and Ophelia hugged her tightly. “How are you feeling, dear?”
Flicking a look at her uncle, she said. “I…shocked. I suppose it's the best way to describe it.”
“I was surprised too,” Ophelia said, “But His Grace seems to be a good man.”
Except for the part about his dead wife, for which no one seems to know the truth. Have I jumped from the pan into the fire?
“Well done, dear girl,” Thaddues said while slowly clapping. “I had no doubt you, of all your sisters, would find a way to elevate your family, especially with our economic decline.”
A decline you brought about.
She reached for her matching coat. “I did not do it on purpose.”
“Did you not?” he asked, his brows lifting.
“You could have fooled me with the way he was looking at you, even before your intended had run away. Your future husband is one of the wealthiest men in England. Your mother will never have to fear the debt collector, nor will I have to dare debtors’ jail ever again. ”
Her soul went cold.
“Uncle, it’s not right of you to take advantage of him in such a way. I have no sway with him at all, and I am sure this marriage will be dissolved after the news dies down.”
Her uncle didn’t seem to hear her, “Yes, yes, such tender fears. I am sure your new husband will be generous to our family. There is no doubt that he will take your sisters in, brush them off, and ensure that they, too, have excellent marriages.”
Her mouth dropped at such a blatant avaricious statement. The duke was not a money bag; they could not use him for his funds—but then, that is what her mother wanted, wasn’t it?
It’s not the same. Your mother needed to save your family, and your uncle wants to find someone to exploit.
Someone knocked on the door, and all three of them turned to it as the duke stepped in. His sharp eyes swept over them, “I hate to disturb you, but we need to leave now if we have any hope of getting to the post inn in time.”
Post inn?
She turned to her mother. “I must go.”
Nodding, Ophelia replied. “Write to us when you’re settled in.”
To her uncle, she leveled him with a hard stare, “I hope Papa’s house is still standing when I visit.”