Chapter 16
Some families sent their wayward daughters to the countryside in Ireland or to castles in Scotland and never talked about them again, labeling them cautionary tales to all the other young ladies that came after, but not the Briarwoods.
The Briarwoods took such young ladies and lauded them like banners of courage.
And that was exactly what his family was doing for Alice.
The ball was massive.
They had not had a wedding breakfast. The marriage had taken place at St. Paul’s Cathedral and they had invited all of the ton. All of the ton had come.
Of course, many had threatened not to, because how could they possibly give credence to such a scandalous young woman? But they had come, nonetheless. They wanted to see her, the woman who had defied scandal. They wanted to see the wedding and decide if they should shun her or welcome her.
This was the sort of moment that would make or break her life in the ton’s eyes. The family already knew nothing could break Alice.
Deimos and she stood just outside the ballroom, standing in the moonlight, waiting to be announced before hundreds upon hundreds of people in the ton.
He held her hand. “Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “No one out there can make me afraid, because I’ve seen what real pain is now. I’ve seen what real suffering is. Real suffering is the children starving in the East End. Real suffering are those soldiers who have no one to turn to.”
She turned to him, her eyes shining with a wisdom that could only be got through pain.
“Lady Minerva wanted to shame me. That is the only tool that people in the ton have. But I cannot be shamed. How can I feel ashamed of myself when all I want is to help people? I feel sorry for Lady Minerva,” she declared defiantly.
“That’s my wife,” he said, his heart soaring with love. “That’s the woman I always knew was there.” He paused. “I love you, Alice. I’m so grateful you picked me, that you honored me with all of this.”
Her lips parted and she studied him. “It was always going to be you, Deimos. I just did not have the knowledge to see it. I love you too.”
Then they turned to the double doors, and as his grandmother had planned, the doors opened, they stepped through, and a footman bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Mr. and Mrs. Deimos Briarwood.”
The opulently dressed, powerful crowd turned. They din hushed. The music had already stopped. And the ton watched, captivated.
Deimos guided her, but they went side by side. Even so, all eyes were on her. For she was a goddess divine.
Gone were her pale simple frocks. Alice and his grandmother, with his mother’s help, had seen to that.
Her gown was made of crimson silk edged with gold. Rubies glinted at her throat, dripped form her ears, shone at her snowy gloved wrists, and winked in her coiled hair. How he adored her choices. She was no debutante now.
No, she was a woman of power and strength.
And when they strode into the room, she gazed about the ton as if she had always been meant to rule over them. As if she knew that she was above them.
This could go one of two ways, of course. They could hate her for it or they could love her for it.
When they stopped in the middle of the dance floor and she smiled, that smile of Alice’s that could turn an entire room on its head, he knew which way it was going to go.
A buzz of conversation began to build slowly, then more and more. Suddenly, couples joined them on the floor, a sign that not only would they not shun Alice, but they would also follow her lead.
She had won them over.
After all, she was simply another eccentric Briarwood. Another person to gossip about behind their fans, another person to secretly admire and wish they were like.
So when Deimos took his beloved wife in his arms and the waltz’s lilting tones began, they rocked back and forth and then began to sweep around the grand ballroom of Heron House.
He beamed at her and said, “You are a triumph.”
“I am a triumph because of you. None of this would be possible without you.”
“That’s not true,” he denied.
“Yes, it is,” she said firmly. “Because no one else would have led me to this moment, Deimos, except you. No one would have taken up my wish but you. No one could have done it so well.”
He didn’t argue, for he felt seen, admired, loved by his wife, and he was so very proud that he had not failed her in her great quest. A quest which had transformed him. A quest which had taught him more lessons than he ever thought to learn.
As they whipped about the floor, his wife gasped. “She came,” she said, her voice nearly cracking.
A muscle tightened in his jaw, and he felt a wave of illness at the sight of the woman. “It seems that she did.”
“Take me to her.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Deimos warned.
“Then why did your grandmother invite her?”
“I don’t know,” he answered her truthfully. “It’s our wedding celebration.”
“Yes. It is. And Lady Minerva needs to see that.”
“All right then,” he said. He started to laugh, despite his fears. “My God, woman, I worried that you would have regrets. But I see now that you have come to vanquish in this life.”
She beamed at him and waggled her brows. “Indeed, sir. Now, let us go forth and conquer.”
And as he led her over to Lady Minerva, the noblewoman’s face paled and her eyes widened.
When they stood before her, Alice said firmly but shockingly without malice, “Good evening, Lady Minerva.”
Lady Minerva’s hand tightened on her fan. “You were not supposed to triumph,” she said tightly.
“You thought you would,” Alice replied. “Your son thought I was beneath him, and apparently you do too. And you tried to destroy me because of your pain, and I can understand that. I’m sorry that your life is such a disappointment, but that is not my fault,” she said. “That is yours.”
Lady Minerva sucked in a gasp.
“And the only reason I have triumphed, Lady Minerva,” Alice continued, “is because I chose love. I chose a family that does not care what other people think. And that is all you care about. That was all your son cared about. And so, you will never be happy. I think it’s time that we all accepted what is our own doing. ”
Lady Minerva’s jaw dropped in shock.
Deimos couldn’t believe how his wife had come into her own strength, and yet he reveled in it.
“I forgive you,” Alice said, “for your pain. I forgive you because of your suffering. I forgive you because you thought you were helping your son, but I can tell you that all you did is hurt him.”
Lady Minerva face went white. She took a step forward as if she was going shriek, then she stilled as she realized the company was looking at her. She seemed to still care very deeply about what others thought of her. “You’re very different from all the rest,” she said flatly.
“Yes, I am,” Alice agreed. “Deimos could see it, and I’m grateful. And now I leave you, and I will never think of you or your son again. And I will be happy.”
Deimos, full of indescribable happiness himself, did not waste another moment. He took his wife back into his arms, led her back to the crowded dance floor, and whirled her around the room.
When the music had ceased, Deimos understood that all Alice’s strife, and the pain that they had endured, had all been leading to this moment.
A moment when he and his wife knew that no cruelty could touch them, no revenge could ever bring them down.
For they were ruled by love. As all Briarwoods were.