Chapter 8 #2
“It is our wedding breakfast.”
“Then surely we possess authority over the duration.”
“We possess the illusion of authority. Atlas appears to be managing the rest.”
Across the room, his cousin raised a glass toward them with satisfaction. Adelaide laughed before she could help it. Eric looked down at her, surprised, then smiled in answer. Not the guarded curve he offered in public. This one came slowly and remained.
For several steps, neither of them spoke.
The danger of him revealed itself not in his title, nor in the hand that had steadied her in the church, but in how natural that silence became. She had entered the arrangement prepared to defend every part of herself.
Eric had already shown signs of listening when he might have commanded, of protecting without making a spectacle of it, and now he smiled at her as though they had discovered a private joke in the middle of their own wedding.
Fortunately, his smile did not last long enough for her to dwell upon it, but she had admittedly already begun to wish for the next one.
When the dance ended, she withdrew her hand before his fingers had quite released it. “My father will be tired,” she said. “I ought to see whether he requires anything.”
Eric glanced toward the front room, where the earl sat with Elise tucked close beside his chair.
“Of course.”
Adelaide inclined her head and made her way through the guests.
Conversation rose and fell around her as servants slipped between clusters of ladies and gentlemen with fresh glasses of champagne.
By the time she reached the quieter room beyond the drawing room, the noise of the celebration had softened to a pleasant murmur.
Her father looked up immediately, a smile settling across his face. Elise sat faithfully beside him with one small hand tucked beneath his where it rested upon the arm of the chair.
“How are you feeling, Papa?” Adelaide asked, bending to kiss his cheek.
“Quite content,” he replied. “My nurse has proven exceptionally diligent today.”
Adelaide lowered herself until she was eye level with Elise.
“Has she?”
The little girl nodded vigorously.
“I made sure he drank all his broth.”
“Did she indeed?” the earl said. “I found resistance entirely impossible.”
Adelaide laughed.
“Then she’s earning her wages already.”
Elise beamed.
“She is very strict,” the earl confided.
“As she should be.”
He reached for Adelaide’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “And are you happy, my dear?”
She looked at him for a moment before answering. “I am.”
The words surprised her by how easily they came.
“I am quite happy today.”
Satisfaction softened his features.
“Then I have everything I wished for.”
Adelaide remained beside him until another coughing fit threatened, gently persuading him to retire to one of the upstairs chambers where he might rest away from the noise. Once she was certain he had settled comfortably, she returned downstairs.
The musicians had begun another set, though the dancing had thinned now that breakfast had given way to conversation.
Eric accepted the interruption with little more than a glance. “I’ve scarcely spoken to her all day.”
“A dreadful oversight in a husband.”
Atlas smiled toward Adelaide. “I hope my cousin has not appeared too forbidding. He’s had years to perfect the habit.”
“I’ve managed to survive him so far.”
“I had every confidence you would.”
There was something disarming about Atlas. He spoke easily, laughed readily, and seemed to know precisely how much attention to claim before stepping aside again. Adelaide understood why Eric trusted him. She found herself wanting to do the same, which was reason enough to be cautious.
Atlas lifted his glass slightly. “To unexpected happiness.”
Eric inclined his head. “To duty well fulfilled.”
“My dear fellow,” Atlas said with a quiet laugh, “must everything sound like a line from an estate ledger?”
“It generally has the advantage of accuracy.”
“It lacks imagination.”
“And yours contains enough for both of us.”
Atlas grinned. “I wondered whether marriage might improve your humor.”
Eric looked faintly resigned. “I suspect it has only improved yours.”
Their exchange carried the ease of men who had spent most of their lives together. Adelaide watched it quietly, noticing how Eric answered Atlas more readily than anyone else in the room. The reserve never disappeared entirely, but it loosened enough to suggest the man he might once have been.
Atlas turned back toward her. “I confess, Your Grace, I never imagined my cousin would be standing where he did this morning.”
“No?” Adelaide said carefully.
“No,” Atlas said thoughtfully. “None of us did.”
His smile remained in place, though something quieter settled beneath it. “After everything that happened with his sister and parents… Well, I think we all believed the tragedy had settled his future for him.”
Adelaide glanced toward Eric and noticed that his expression had stilled.
Atlas continued before either of them replied. “Still, life has a curious habit of ignoring the promises we make in grief.”
He sipped his champagne. “I daresay you’ll find Wolverton rather peaceful once the wedding callers finally surrender. Loretta and I won’t trouble you immediately, of course.”
“You needn’t inconvenience yourselves,” Eric said.
“Nonsense. Family ought to see family.”
Atlas’s tone remained perfectly light. “I thought perhaps we’d visit shortly after your honeymoon. It will give you both time to settle before I begin imposing myself upon the household again.”
He looked toward Adelaide with the pleasant confidence of a man discussing nothing more significant than the weather. “After all, Wolverton will one day become my responsibility.”
Adelaide smiled politely, but did not respond.
“Though I imagine Eric has explained everything,” he continued not impolitely.
She looked between the two men. “Everything?”
Atlas’s brows lifted, almost imperceptibly. “The inheritance…” A beat passed. “The old promise.”
Eric’s jaw tightened, and Atlas gave a small, apologetic laugh. “Forgive me. I simply assumed the matter had already been discussed.”
He turned his attention back to his cousin. “You always were better at avoiding uncomfortable conversations than having them.”
The room carried on around them, oblivious. Glasses touched in quiet toasts. Someone laughed near the windows. A footman passed with a silver tray of cakes.
Adelaide waited, and Eric said nothing. Atlas’s smile never faltered, yet something about it no longer reached his eyes.
“Well,” he said smoothly, raising his glass once more, “there will be plenty of time before I inherit the dukedom. Though I do hope, Eric, you’ve had the kindness to tell your new wife about your other lifelong promise to not have children. ”
The words settled over the three of them with such deceptive gentleness that no one standing a few feet away would have noticed anything at all. But Adelaide did, of course.
She could not have said why, but beneath the congratulations and familiar teasing, she heard something else. It felt less like a joke… and more like a reminder.