Chapter 9
“Oh dear, do try to smile a little bit more. It simply would not do for the bride to wear such a glum countenance. One would think you have been sentenced to the gallows instead of holy matrimony!”
Juliana pressed her lips into a grim smile that only made Grandmama throw her hands up in frustration.
The archbishop had droned on and on about the sanctity of marriage.
Her wedding attire had weighed so heavily on her that she felt as if she was about to keel over in the middle of the ceremony.
Worse, she could hardly think beyond the searing kiss that her new husband had laid on her the moment the archbishop declared, “You may kiss the bride!”
“I am of the firm belief that not all marriages are happy occasions, Grandmama,” she said firmly. “Some of them happen because we have very little choice in the matter.”
“Oh, pish posh!” her grandmama huffed. “What do you have to be so dissatisfied about? You have managed to become a duchess—a duchess, Juliana! Now, we can be freed of this rather embarrassing predicament, and—”
“The same predicament we landed in because of Kit and his profligacy?”
Her Grandmama colored a little at the vehemence in her words. Juliana had always managed to restrain herself, especially with her grandmama, but all good things—and her patience—were bound to come to an end.
“It was Kit who landed us in dire straits,” she reminded her grandmama. “And even then, he used me to go on these little ‘errands’ of his that have put my reputation and personal safety at risk. Now, he has sold me to the highest bidder as if I were nothing more than an object.”
“It is the role of a woman to endure—”
“Well, I am done enduring for Kit and this family,” Juliana snapped. “If he is so capable, then perhaps he might be able to take on some of the family burdens for once in his spoiled, entitled existence.”
“Brava, my dear! I expected nothing less from the new Duchess of Stonevale!”
Juliana turned around in shock, her cheeks heating up when she realized that she had not been so discreet in airing their family’s dirty linen in such a public place.
And to be heard by no one other than her new husband’s grandmother, at that. If only by some divine intervention, the ground would open up and swallow her whole. She would be very grateful for it.
Her Grace, Anabelle Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Stonevale, surveyed her with a gleam in her sharp green eyes and a small smile on her lips as she casually snapped her fan shut. When she turned her regal head toward Grandmama, her smile curled even deeper.
“I had thought that I would never see you again, Honoria, as busy as you are with the upbringing of your grandchildren.” The Dowager Duchess smiled mockingly.
“I must congratulate your efforts, though, for the most impeccable way in which you have brought up your grandson. Baron Hawthorne… is truly a paragon that all gentlemen can only aspire to emulate.”
If there was anything Grandmama could not abide by, it was any disparaging remark about Kit. Even the slightest whiff of criticism was enough to rile her up to take up the cudgels in his defense.
“Why, Your Grace,” Grandmama blustered, her voice dripping with contempt for the Dowager Duchess’s address. “My Kit might have his shortcomings, but at least he does not go around ruining young ladies simply for revenge!”
“Oh?” The Dowager Duchess quirked an eyebrow in a manner that was quite similar to her grandson. “So, you do admit that your grandson deserves some form of retribution!”
Grandmama’s countenance took on a shade Juliana had never seen before. Triumphant, the Dowager Duchess was only too eager to drive the dagger in and twist it.
“At least my Cassian is honorable enough to marry them, which is more than I can say for your deplorable grandson.” She shook her head with mock despondency. “Perhaps the Baron’s apple truly does not fall far from your tree.”
A sound of barely concealed indignation gurgled from Grandmama. “Your grandson?” she spat. “Your illustrious grandson who spends his time gallivanting about, rousing trouble in his wake?”
Lady Stonevale laughed coldly. “Because he has the funds to do so, my dear. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Lord Hawthorne, can it?”
As much as the truth stung, it was still, quite tragically, the truth.
Grandmama was going to lose this battle, and Juliana had no appetite to stay and watch the spectacle the two dowagers were making at the wedding breakfast.
“I am afraid that the venison does not quite sit well with me,” she mumbled, before making a hasty departure.
She doubted the two women heard her, though.
“A toast to our friend, and may he find the connubial bliss he has long been trying to evade!”
Cassian glowered at Benedict, who only shot him an impenitent grin over his raised glass. Damnation, he was going to need more than a glass—he was going to need the whole damned bottle just to get through breakfast.
“Speaking of connubial bliss,” Sebastian drawled. “I have scarcely seen you with your lovely bride since the archbishop gave you his blessings to kiss her.”
“Not that he needed the good archbishop’s permission, from what I saw,” Benedict guffawed.
“Shut up, Ben.”
Instead of shutting up, Ben simply grinned at him. “Somebody ought to find his new bride to release all this… tension.”
“Tension, your sorry grandmother’s bottom,” Cassian shot back through gritted teeth. “I married her because I had no other choice.”
“Well, that is technically bound to happen when you get caught practically devouring her and your hands all over her—”
Cassian shot his friend a glare. “Her brother was about to sell her off. I could not, in good conscience, simply stand by and watch.”
Sebastian let out a low whistle. “Damn. Just when you think he cannot sink any lower, Hawthorne just blasts your expectations out of the water.”
“Strange, though, that Stonevale should claim to a conscience,” Benedict snickered, clapping a hand on Cassian’s shoulder. “Never thought you had it in you to play hero to a damsel in distress, old chap—especially to Hawthorne’s sister.”
Cassian grimaced at his friend’s words. Indeed, the heavens must have the most deranged sense of humor to have contrived this spectacular scenario.
Not even two weeks ago, if someone had told him he would be marrying Hawthorne’s sister within the fortnight, he would have had the poor sod committed to Bedlam for such an atrocious tale.
But she—Juliana—was now his wife.
Perhaps he ought to hie himself off to Bedlam.
Sebastian simply sat back and pressed his fingertips together with a small smile. “From the looks of it, Stonevale does not seem so averse to marrying the lady, regardless of her familial ties.”
“Why, whatever do you mean by that?” Benedict grinned.
Cassian simply wished he could wipe the smug look off his friends’ faces. “Care to explain yourself, old friend?”
He barely managed to keep a cordial expression, but his tone held a note of warning. Sebastian merely raised an eyebrow in response.
“I have seen how you look at your new Duchess, Cassian,” he drawled. “And when the archbishop told you to kiss the bride, I was sure he did not mean for you to scandalize every dowager in attendance.”
“I did not scandalize every dowager in attendance,” Cassian refuted the absurd claim with a growl.
“Of course not,” Benedict quipped with a conciliatory smile. “Maybe only your grandmother.” He paused and added, “And Hawthorne’s. And perhaps their friends. Sebastian’s grandmother was clapping.”
Which meant at least half of the dowagers in the whole of London. Bloody hell.
He downed the rest of his celebratory drink—his so-called friends had insisted on just two glasses—when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juliana standing alone in the middle of the breakfast hall.
The sunlight filtered through the windows, turning her chocolate locks a deep, burnished gold.
When she turned slightly, and her dazed eyes met his, a bolt of searing lust shot straight into his loins, punching through what remained of his common sense and the thin haze of intoxication the bottle had provided him.
He set his glass down and stalked toward her, heedless of the knowing glances his friends threw at him. The woman was a fever in his blood, a slow-acting poison that decimated his sanity by the second.
And he still could not keep well away from her.
“What are you doing on your own like this?” he asked her softly.
She offered him a flustered smile. “My Grandmama found your grandmother, and they have been embroiled in a… riveting exchange since.”
Cassian stifled a low groan. Perhaps the only other person in this entire ballroom who held as much disdain for the cursed Hawthorne line was his own grandmother.
“Well then, you can tell her that we are leaving,” he told her succinctly.
He did not miss the panic that flared in her eyes. “R-right now?” she squeaked.
He should not have found it adorable, but he did, curse him.
“Yes,” he told her firmly. “Now.”
“B-but the guests—”
“My darling Duchess,” he smiled coldly at her.
“The entire ton is rife with gossip as to what precipitated our rather hasty nuptials and after that…” He let the words hang between them, enjoying how she seemed to teeter on the precipice of something, before he continued, “Let us say that our hasty departure would be well in line with everything thus far.”
Heat flared in her cheeks, a delectable shade of rose that nearly had him sinking his fingers into her perfectly coiffed locks to pull her close for another demonstration of just how badly his lust was consuming his every thought.
“Very well,” she said softly. “I shall inform Kit and Grandmama that we are to leave soon.”
“You do that, Duchess.”
He was loath to release her, but he was even more unwilling to remain under the same roof as her despicable sibling.