Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TWO WEEKS LATER
“Your Grace, I understand that the day is drawing to a close, and most assuredly you will desire a hasty return home… But could we not tempt you to dine with us tonight? I know it should please Amelia greatly to have your company this evening. The house is never so happy as when you are here.”
Amelia almost choked on her water, carefully setting down her glass on Uncle Benjamin’s desk. She glanced up at the Duke, who leaned over the desk with a quill in hand, primed to sign the final draft of their marriage contract.
He smiled tepidly without providing Aunt Beatrice an answer, hastily scribbling his name on the document under candlelight. Beatrice lingered awkwardly by the door, and when Amelia saw her attempt to speak again, she shook her head to stop her.
“Beatrice, really,” Benjamin chided from his seat by the fire. “The solicitors have only just departed. He will not want to remain.”
“I was only asking. And you are more imposing than I, speaking for His Grace like that,” Beatrice protested. “The wedding is on the morrow.”
“A fact which has eluded none of us,” Benjamin riposted.
Her uncle looked weary. There had been talk of little else but the wedding in the last two weeks, and Uncle Benjamin had barely been home in that time. He had only just returned from London, where he had gone to collect their special license from the archbishop.
“To dine with you? No, I have another engagement tonight,” the Duke replied absently, putting the quill back in its holder. “But I would not refuse a drink—should Baron Spencer prove amenable to such a request.”
Beatrice’s face lit up in delight. “Certainly, he would! Anything for you. I shall organize the drawing room for you gentlemen at once.” She waited a moment, staring viciously at her husband. “Husband, if you would help me?”
Sighing, Benjamin rose from his seat and cast a sardonic look Amelia’s way. Left alone with the Duke, she reached nervously for her glass again.
“You could have refused, Your Grace,” she said, hearing him settle in Uncle Benjamin’s chair. “My aunt asks too much of you.”
“It is the least I can do, given how serviceable your uncle has been to us in recent times.”
“Serviceable?” Amelia laughed. “He shall not like that one bit, Your Grace.”
“Did I not tell you to call me Nicholas the last time I was here?”
Amelia’s lips lingered on the rim of her glass, and she peered up at her betrothed. “You did,” she admitted. “Forgive me.”
A moment passed in silence, until the Duke—Nicholas—spoke again. “Even your uncle’s solicitor laughed at the fourth clause.”
“I did not find it particularly funny.”
“It must be the first time in all of history such a thing was written in a marriage contract.” He leaned forward with a grin and turned back the pages of the document.
“Nicholas Whitmore, Duke of Avon, shall provide his wife, the right honorable Amelia Tate, ￡1000 yearly in the event of divorce or annulment.”
“Why does that amuse you? We agreed to as much aloud.”
“Verbatim, yes. But you realize that once the marriage is annulled, the stipulations within the contract become void. I shall be liable to no such thing.”
Amelia frowned, outplayed. “It is still good to have it in writing,” she argued, leaning over to slip the marriage contract away from him.
She eyed his signature beside her uncle’s and was overcome by a strange sensation.
“I do not think it dawned on me until this moment that we are truly to be wed.”
“Will you put down your glass? You are making me nervous.”
She rolled her eyes and did as she was told. “Worried I will ruin your precious contract?”
“After we have labored over it for hours? Why should I not be? But no, I jest… Cold feet? I think you are made of sterner stuff than that,” he said, his voice lilting in amusement. Everything seemed to amuse Nicholas to some degree.
“We agreed we had little choice but to marry. Why should I get cold feet?” She leaned back in her seat, thinking. “Though it would not be completely unreasonable to have doubts, would it? There are still many things I do not know about you. And many things you do not know about me.”
“A woman like you cannot have very many secrets.”
“Hm.” Amelia did not want to answer him either way.
“But if there is something bothering you…” Nicholas gestured for her to ask him. “By all means, tell away, while they prepare the drawing room.”
Amelia was not sure it was wise to know too much about him. They had spent many hours in each other’s company over the last two weeks, and she found him to be mostly agreeable.
Sometimes too agreeable.
But I have heard rumors about his past. The paramours he has taken and his rakish friends. They say his father was an honorable man. But Nicholas seems to be different. Would it be dangerous for me to learn more? If this marriage is for show alone, perhaps it is better to remain ignorant.
Her curiosity got the better of her.
“Alright. There is one thing.” She leaned forward suddenly.
“Why did you not go to London yourself to secure the license? I asked Uncle Benjamin, and he said he did not know—that you gave him some sort of writ with your signature instead. I expected you to travel with him. Would that not have been the proper thing to do, to meet the archbishop yourself?”
She felt more than she saw Nicholas tense on the other side of the desk. He tapped on the wooden armrests, and Amelia waited for his answer.
“I suppose you will learn the truth eventually. I may as well tell you now,” he murmured. “I am not welcome in London at present.”
“Not welcome by whom?”
“The courts.”
Amelia started. “What do you mean, the courts?”
Nicholas eyed her, but when it was clear she would not let the matter drop, he continued with an exasperated sigh. “The courts have ordered me to remain in Oxford for six months. I am not to set foot in London until that time has elapsed. The consequences would be most dire indeed.”
“What in heaven’s name did you do?” Amelia thought the worst and quickly bridled her thoughts. “A court order is a serious thing.”
He laughed. “I am fully aware. Before you jump to a most unfortunate conclusion, rest assured that the matter is mostly a misunderstanding.”
“That seems unlikely.”
A growl, then, so faint she almost missed it. The sound made her skin prickle.
“It concerned a duel,” he said. “A man sought to duel me, and I refused. He claimed that my refusal was a greater slight on his honor than the grounds which had called for the duel in the first place. I would not budge, and neither would he. I brought the matter to the courts, and they ordered my immediate departure from London for our safeties both.”
Nicholas did not seem like the sort of gentleman who would refuse a duel, even if he was far from honorable. There must have been more to the story than he was saying.
“Who was this man?” Amelia asked.
At this, Nicholas rose to a stand.
“All you need to know is that he was exceedingly old and that the stress of a duel alone would have killed him. I would not have his blood on my hands—not least of all because I did not want to be accused of murder. And it would have resulted in his murder. Of that much I am certain. For fact, I believe that to have been his plan.”
“You think he wanted to die just to punish you?” Amelia rose too, a dark feeling swirling in her stomach. “What could you possibly have done that was so terrible as to warrant that?”
“There was a… woman involved.” He said nothing more than that but looked at her challengingly. “How does that make you feel?”
Amelia was not sure. The feeling was foreign and new. Something like jealousy, though she would never have admitted as much out loud. She had no right to feel any way about Nicholas’s past. Their marriage was a sham. He had no real affection for her. And she could have none for him.
“That is not a question I can answer without knowing more,” she murmured, even though the mere thought of Nicholas with another woman made her feel frightened and curious all at once. “Was she a cousin? A friend? A…”
Nicholas gave her a side smile. “A lover?”
The air shifted between them. Amelia glanced nervously at the door.
“Can you not bring yourself to say the word?” he asked.
He walked around the desk and stood before her.
He had removed his coat earlier, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms roped with lean muscle and dusted with dark hair.
His hands found the armrests of her chair and settled there, looming over her.
Amelia felt the need to squirm, heat building between her legs.
What was this feeling? Why did he alone stir it within her?
“You have suggested as much. All your mentions of my past scandals…” His smile was disarming and only intensified the strange pressure building within her. “And yet you will not utter the word lover before me. Though, perhaps it is the moment of privacy which has discouraged you.”
He laughed softly.
“A pity for you, dear. We will likely encounter many more moments of interrogation and privacy in our short-lived marriage…”
Amelia pressed her legs together and closed her eyes. He had leaned in so close, she could feel his breath ghosting against the skin of her face.
Was this her punishment for questioning him? It felt like it.
She gathered what remained of her courage and met his eyes. She drank in those pools of warm brown, wondering who else had met them so closely—so hungrily.
“I am being unfair to you now…” he whispered into her ear. “But do not ask questions you do not want the answers to, dear Amelia. We will not survive this charade of a marriage otherwise.”
Next morning, Amelia stood in the vestibule of the Church St. Mary the Virgin, staring at her reflection in the holy water of a nearby stoup.
A pale and frightened face rippled back at her. She could barely recognize herself. Beatrice and Mary-Ann had slaved over her appearance all morning, gently guided by the lady’s maid Nicholas had hired for his bride.
She drew in a fortifying breath, cut short as the grand doors opened behind her and Uncle Benjamin marched inside. The shoulders of his jacket were spotted with rain. His face, unreadable.
“I have just spoken with the vicar. Everything is in order. His Grace the duke awaits you indoors,” he declared. “We may proceed inside when you are ready.”
“Have many people come?”
“Not a great crowd. It seems the Duke’s wishes for an intimate ceremony were respected.” He paused, stepping toward her. His nose was red from the cold outdoors. Amelia would miss seeing his kind face every day—the unwavering, comforting presence of her uncle. “Are you thinking of Frederick?”
“I was thinking of you,” she confessed, looking down at her ivory gown. “But now that you have mentioned Freddy… I fear he will be so cross with me once he returns to England and learns of what has transpired.”
“We have written him. There was nothing more that could be done. I know he always opposed you having your own life, Amelia, but your brother must cease one day treating you like a child.” He laughed gently.
“As I have had to do most recently. I never imagined this life for you, my darling girl. But I have hope in my heart that it will be a worthwhile change.”
Amelia smiled, comforted somewhat by his words—even if they were spoken in a lie. “I had no idea you had developed such fondness for His Grace.”
“Fondness? Good Lord above, I would not call it fondness! But any gentleman who should find a woman in distress and remain to save her at a great cost to himself cannot be so wretched as they have accused him to be. I remember his father still. He was a decent man. Perhaps there is more of his sire in the current Duke of Avon than we have been led to believe.”
Amelia hoped he was right. But everything Nicholas made her feel seemed far from decent.
“But you should not listen to me. Nor to your aunt, starry-eyed as she is by the young and handsome Duke. If you are having doubts,” her uncle assured soberly, “I will drive you from this church immediately.”
“To flee at this point seems ill-advised.” She forced a smile. “No matter what happens, uncle… I am so grateful for you.”
“Oh…” Benjamin’s face softened. “What I would not do for you…” Her uncle took her hand and squeezed it. “My dearest Amelia. I only wish your father… Well, you know what I wish.”
She squeezed his hand back, allowing herself only a moment to think about her late parents. She wondered if her mother had felt so much trepidation marrying her father. Whether they knew the doomed situation they were walking into as they were wed.
Would she know? It seemed unlikely.
A moment later, Benjamin opened the doors, and the nave appeared before them. The space was dark but cast in the golden light of candles. Dark wooden pews lined the aisle toward the altar, where the vicar stood.
She recognized familiar faces. Her family, her friend, a few notable Oxonians.
And at the very end of the nave stood Nicholas.