Chapter 8
“Your hand is cold.”
Adelaide kept her gaze upon the altar.
“So is yours.”
The earl’s fingers tightened gently around hers. His best black coat had been brushed until it looked nearly new, though it hung more loosely than it once had, and every measured breath reminded her how much the illness had stolen from him.
“Then we are both behaving bravely.”
“Or pretending very well.”
A smile touched one corner of his mouth.
“That is often the same thing.”
The organ quieted.
Conversation dissolved into the soft rustle of silk and the scrape of boots against ancient floorboards as the congregation rose.
Beeswax candles burned steadily despite the draft creeping through the old stone church, and the fragrance of late roses lingered beneath the sharper scent of polished wood.
Her father drew one careful breath. “Ready?”
Adelaide tightened her hand around his arm. “No.”
He gave a quiet chuckle. “Good. I should worry if you were.”
The clergyman inclined his head.
Together they stepped into the aisle.
Faces turned toward them all at once, though Adelaide refused to count them.
She gathered the ivory silk of her skirts clear of her father’s boots as they walked, adjusting her pace almost imperceptibly to match his slower stride.
A month ago he would have crossed the church with long, easy steps.
Now each one seemed measured against the next.
She kept her eyes forward until she reached the middle of the aisle.
Eric already stood waiting.
Black suited him unfairly well. Morning light filtered through the stained glass behind him, catching unexpectedly in eyes that shifted somewhere between blue and green whenever they lifted to meet hers.
Their gazes found one another more than once before she reached the altar, never long enough for anyone else to remark upon it, but often enough that she stopped believing the glances accidental.
Closer now, other faces came into focus.
Loretta sat near the front in silver-gray satin, smiling as though they had spent years exchanging confidences instead of insults.
Beside her, Atlas inclined his head with effortless warmth.
Adelaide returned the courtesy because society required it, though she found herself studying him for a heartbeat longer than manners demanded. There was something immediately agreeable about him, the sort of gentleman who made strangers feel they had known him for years.
Eric was nothing like that.
There was no easy familiarity about him. His reserve stood between himself and the world as naturally as the black coat upon his shoulders, and yet she found herself trusting the quiet steadiness of it more than Atlas’s practiced charm.
The earl came to a stop before him.
For a brief moment neither gentleman spoke.
Then Eric stepped forward and offered his hand, not to Adelaide, but to her father.
“You have my word,” he said quietly.
The words were simple enough that those seated farther back would not have heard them. The earl did.
His face changed. Not greatly, but Adelaide felt his arm loosen beneath her hand before he placed her fingers into Eric’s.
“Then she is yours to cherish,” her father replied. “Never to diminish.”
Eric’s grip closed around hers with steady warmth. “I understand.”
Adelaide looked at him then, searching for courtesy and finding something more solemn. No smile softened his mouth. He gave no easy reassurance meant to satisfy the room. He only held her gaze, and for once she believed restraint rather than charm.
Her father stepped away.
The ceremony proceeded with an efficiency Adelaide almost resented. Questions were asked, answers were given. Eric’s voice remained low and even when he pledged himself to her without flourish or hesitation.
“I will.”
The certainty surprised her. If she had been asked a month ago whether she could place her future into the hands of a man she scarcely knew, she would have laughed outright—she had laughed outright.
Yet standing beside Eric no longer felt like standing next to a stranger. Somewhere between their scattered arguments and banter, he had quietly become someone she expected to keep his word.
When her own turn came, she heard the small rasp of her father’s breathing from the front pew and fixed her attention on the pale scar near Eric’s right thumb.
“I will,” she said.
The ring caught for a moment at her knuckle. Eric adjusted his hand and tried again, more carefully this time. His thumb passed across the side of her finger, a touch so slight it ought to have meant nothing.
It did not feel like nothing.
The clergyman pronounced them husband and wife.
A murmur moved through the church, followed by a flutter of handkerchiefs and several sighs Adelaide suspected had been rehearsed.
Eric offered his arm for the walk back down the aisle.
She placed her hand upon it, conscious of his strength beneath the dark cloth and of the fact that every person present now regarded them as a single social unit.
Halfway to the doors, the room tilted.
Only slightly.
The heat, the flowers, the sleepless night, perhaps the strange finality of the vows had gathered at once behind her ribs. Adelaide’s step faltered beneath the heavy fall of her gown.
Eric’s hand came to her waist before anyone else could notice. It was firm and hidden from most of the congregation by the sweep of her train.
She turned her face toward him.
His expression did not alter, but his hand remained where it was, holding her upright without drawing attention to the need.
They looked at one another for a long second while the organ swelled around them.
There was concern in his gaze, and something else neither of them had the language or the courage to offer in a church full of witnesses.
Adelaide drew a steadier breath, and Eric’s fingers tightened once, then eased.
Her father was here. Elise was here. Violet had not abandoned the preparations long enough to stand in the ceremony itself, but she had found her way to the church before the bells finished.
Whatever name Adelaide carried now, whatever house waited for her after the celebration, her family had not vanished merely because the law had altered her place in the world.
The wedding breakfast filled Eric’s London house with more noise than it seemed built to contain.
Servants moved between crowded rooms bearing champagne, cold meats, jellies, raised pies, and enough sugared fruit to alarm any sensible physician.
Adelaide received congratulations until names began slipping free of faces.
Mrs. Sullyard approached when escape had become impossible.
“My dear duchess,” she said, taking Adelaide’s hand as though they had spent years in mutual affection. “You look exquisite. My cousin has made a very fortunate choice.”
Adelaide held the smile expected of her. “How gracious of you.”
“I hope we shall be close now. Family ought to put aside the small foolishness of earlier seasons.”
Small foolishness. Two seasons of invitations withdrawn, rumors encouraged, and compliments delivered loudly enough to ensure an audience.
“How comforting,” Adelaide replied, “that you remember them so lightly.”
Mrs. Sullyard’s eyes sharpened, though her smile held. “Marriage changes one’s perspective.”
“So I am discovering.”
Eric’s cousin, Atlas Sullyard, arrived before the exchange could draw blood. He placed a hand at his wife’s elbow with practiced ease and greeted Adelaide warmly.
“You must forgive my wife, Your Grace. She becomes sentimental at weddings.”
“I do not,” Mrs. Sullyard said.
“Then today has performed a miracle.” His grin included them both before settling on Adelaide. “Welcome to the family. Eric has needed someone capable of contradicting him for years.”
“I have managed without assistance,” Eric said from behind Adelaide.
Atlas turned. “You have managed to become intolerably pleased with your own silence.”
“I was unaware silence could be smug.”
“Yours is.”
The ease between them was unmistakable, worn smooth by years. Eric’s reserve shifted around his cousin, not disappearing but loosening enough to reveal the younger man he might once have been. Adelaide watched the change with reluctant interest.
Atlas noticed. “Go on… Dance with your wife,” he said.
Eric’s brows drew together. “There is no dancing planned.”
“Then we shall behave scandalously and begin some.”
A small group nearby had already heard him. Someone laughed. A violinist in the corner looked toward the others, uncertain but willing.
“This is a breakfast,” Eric said.
“So eat afterward.”
Before either bride or groom could refuse, Atlas had cleared enough space near the windows to create a modest floor. Guests moved back with delighted curiosity. His wife’s expression tightened by an imperceptible degree.
Eric looked at Adelaide. “I believe we have been maneuvered.”
“It appears to be a family talent.”
“Will you do me the honor, Duchess?”
Half the room was watching. Refusal would become tomorrow’s entertainment. Adelaide placed her hand in his. “Since we are already the prime subject of this morning’s news.”
The musicians began a restrained country dance, though there were too few couples to give it proper form.
Eric guided her easily through the first turn.
He danced as he did most things, with control and no wasted movement, but there was a quiet attentiveness in the placement of his hand and the adjustment of his pace to accommodate the unfamiliar weight of her gown.
“You dislike dancing?” she asked when they passed near the windows.
“I dislike being observed. And you?”
“I have been smiled at by women who once pretended not to see me. I should like to leave before one of them embraces me.”
His mouth shifted. “At last, something upon which we agree.”
They turned again, closer this time because another couple had entered the space. Adelaide caught the clean scent of his linen beneath the faint trace of outdoor air still clinging to his coat. “How long must we remain?”
“An hour, perhaps two.”
“That is barbaric.”