Chapter One
She was no man’s wife. It was irrational for Peter to be so pleased. He knew next to nothing about this woman other than that she’d answered his sister’s advertisement for a pen pal in The Lady. For all he knew, Booklover was an eighty-year-old spinster with many, many cats.
Still, as sweat trickled down the back of his neck, Peter kept his hand in his coat pocket, his thumb running along the edge of her latest missive. The knowledge that Booklover was not otherwise attached was a relief on a day when relief was hard to find.
It was devilishly warm in the church, as though Westminster Abbey sat directly on the gates of hell.
Under any other circumstances, he would loosen the knot of his black cravat and drag in a breath, but the entire congregation had their eyes set on him, the Duke of Strafford, no doubt wondering what on earth he was doing there.
Margaret nudged him. “Smile, for heaven’s sake.”
Next to her, Winnie tut-tutted as she shuffled to the side, away from her sister. “Blasphemy in the house of our Lord, Meg. You might be struck down for that.”
Meg took a long breath in and out as she tried to ignore their youngest sister. “Just smile,” she muttered. “We promised we’d look friendly.”
Peter plastered a smile on his face and tried not to make eye contact with the curious busybodies who’d come to witness the maybe-marriage of Lady Cordelia Highwater to the Duke of Moorhouse. “I don’t understand why we have to be here.”
“Because Della asked us to be. Because you sent a letter to the editor of The Times announcing your betrothal to Lady Cordelia before you’d even asked for her hand, and now all of London thinks she threw you over like she did the Duke of Hornsmouth.
The least we can do is help salvage her reputation by showing that there is no bad blood between our families. ”
Peter shifted uncomfortably on the wooden pew.
That whole blasted scenario had been a mess.
It had seemed like the perfect solution—an unmarried duke’s daughter had come to Peter’s tiny town of Berwick just as Peter had decided it was time to wed.
He could have avoided the whole rigmarole of courting a bride through traditional means.
Every week, one peer or another would stop by the desk at which Peter reviewed the packets prepared by parliamentary advisors to confirm that Peter had, in fact, received his invitation to their wife’s ball, garden party, or dinner.
Lady Amos would be honored to host you. As would my daughter, of course.
Just as Peter had decided there was no other option but to join the whirl the following season, Lady Cordelia had arrived.
She was there. She was convenient. Her father had proposed the match a few years prior when she was far too young for Peter to accept, but now she was of age. What objection could she possibly have?
Quite a few, apparently.
When the betrothal announcement had been published—damn the footman who’d posted that letter—Peter had offered to do the right thing.
He had been willing to marry Lady Cordelia, despite the fact that just weeks prior, she had put him in a coma.
Very magnanimous on his part, he’d thought. Yet she had rejected him. Vehemently.
Now, just over a year later, the gossip that had eased was flaring back to life as the wedding spectators wondered why Lady Cordelia’s former betrothed was attending her wedding to another man.
“Hornsmouth isn’t here.”
“Then you are a better person than he is,” Meg said.
Lady Cordelia had left Hornsmouth at the altar only a week before she had knocked Peter unconscious. All of London had been in attendance, apparently, just as they were today.
In attendance and staring. It made his skin crawl. Good Lord, how he hated to be the center of attention.
“Jac is going to hate missing this,” Winnie said with a satisfied smirk.
“Edwina, there is no need to sound so pleased. Besides, there will be plenty more weddings this season, no doubt,” Meg replied.
Winnie sniffed. “Dukes’ weddings? Hardly.” She gave Peter a sly, sidelong glance. “Unless you’re planning on proposing again, brother? If so, please do actually ask her before you announce it.”
Peter gritted his teeth. His sisters would never let him forget that miscalculation.
Ever. They were like dogs with a bone, which was precisely why he did not plan to tell them that, yes, he would find a wife this season.
If he had to attend social engagements as Winnie debuted, then he might as well address the duchess problem at the same time. Efficient.
His thoughts turned toward the letter in his pocket. Was Booklover an eligible candidate? He wouldn’t know unless he could find out who she was, but the secrecy she and Jac had agreed to made that difficult.
“It is a shame that Jac is not here,” Meg said, taking less satisfaction in the fact than her sister had. “She is quite despairing.”
He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Jacqueline’s despair was of her own making. “Dr. Peabody is in high demand. This was the time he had available for her surgery. He was not going to rearrange his schedule so that she could witness gossip firsthand.”
Winnie hmphed, seemingly pleased that his comment might be construed as siding with her. That would come back to bite him in some form at some point. “So true, brother. But you really should smile, or people will think that you’re put out with me, and I am innocent.”
People. Blast. Just as he turned to observe the rubberneckers staring at him, there was a murmur and their attention shifted.
Thank heavens. His shoulders loosened as the Duke of Moorhouse strode down the aisle.
Lady Cordelia had already entered the church and was waiting in the doorway.
Even from this distance, he could see the grip her father had on his daughter’s arm.
“She’s beautiful,” Winnie whispered.
“Stunning,” Meg replied.
“That dress must have cost a fortune.”
“Such a shame that Rhett destroyed her first one. You’d want to wear a dress like that more than once.”
“Even if its first use was so ill-fated?”
Peter turned to his sisters and narrowed his eyes. If he could have drawn a finger across his throat without it ending up in the papers, he would have.
Regardless, his intent must have been clear, because the girls closed their mouths and turned their attention back to the bride, who was as white as the dress she wore.
She walked like an automaton that had cogs and levers and clockwork motors driving her forward.
Her eyes were set on the archbishop, and she gave no indication that she heard the murmurs of the crowd or felt their intense gaze.
Peter winced as she passed him, and he got a good look at the terror on her face.
He wasn’t particularly fond of the chit.
He thought her spoiled and self-involved and not at all deserving of the friendship his family bestowed on her.
But that didn’t negate the fact that she was young and petrified and clearly not happy with the marriage she was about to enter into.
Plenty of people marry when they don’t want to. It is a fact of life. Still, he would never let his sisters feel such dread.
Once Lady Cordelia reached her destination, she handed her bouquet to the tallest of the girls that had preceded her. Only then did her father release her, and Moorhouse grasped her hands in his.
Peter tugged at his cravat. This whole situation made his stomach turn. The sooner it was over, the better. Had they planned a full ceremony with all the pomp and grandeur? Or would they speed up the program, rushing to the I dos to minimize the chance of another escape?
He would never know. The moment her father had taken his seat, Cordelia yanked her hands from her betrothed’s, picked up her skirts, and fled back the way she had come.
“Oh my Lord.”
Peter wasn’t concerned with Winnie’s blasphemy, because it was drowned out by the crying and cursing and general shock of the rest of the congregation.
As Cordelia ran up the aisle, Peter caught sight of the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her father was on her heels. He’d have ahold of her before she escaped.
Winnie reached across Meg to grab Peter’s coat, clenching the wool in her fist. “Cordy,” she whispered.
Lady Cordelia passed them.
Grimacing at the likely consequences, Peter stuck a foot into the aisle, and her father fell with a sharp grunt.
“My good man,” Peter said, leaping from his seat and crouching beside his peer. “Are you all right?” Both of them were large, and the aisle was blocked. Neither Moorhouse nor any member of Cordelia’s family could navigate around them.
Peter looked over his shoulder as he stood to offer the duke his hand. Cordelia had paused for the briefest second to glance behind her. Catching Peter’s eye, she gave a small, thankful smile, and then disappeared.
Dear Booklover,
Being content with your cat for company is far preferable to an unwanted and unhappy marriage. I am relieved that you have that option when not everyone does.
—Captain of the Nautilus
“All I’m saying is that next time they should station someone at the door to the church.”
“Do you really think there is going to be a next time?” Eleanor Wright asked as she closed the brass latches of her typecase, running a hand over the walnut lid.
Around them, the printing press whirred and hummed in rhythmic motion as tomorrow’s paper finally went to print.
The presses had stopped the moment news broke of that afternoon’s scandal, and Eleanor had been called to the Times offices urgently so that she could typeset the latest column about the aristocracy behaving badly.