Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Sophia had never been so nervous in her life.
She’d believed herself nervous before; at her first ball, before accepting Benedict’s proposal, and upon entering Rivermere after their engagement had become known. But those anxieties seemed like small, manageable creatures beside the terror inhabiting her on the morning of her wedding.
Her hands would not remain still. They trembled while Jenny fastened the pearl buttons at her back.
They trembled while Emma arranged the delicate lace at her sleeves.
They trembled even after Frances caught them both and held them firmly between her own.
She felt a slight relief that her mother had stepped out for a moment, to check whether everything was ready.
“You must stop,” Frances urged.
“I am attempting to.”
“You are doing it very badly.”
“Frances,” Emma murmured.
“I mean she must stop worrying, not trembling. The trembling is quite becoming. It makes her appear delicate.”
Sophia stared at her sister through the looking glass. “I do not wish to appear delicate.”
“Then look severe.”
“I do not know how.”
“Think of Benedict explaining dancing.”
Despite herself, Sophia gave a breath of laughter.
“There,” Frances said triumphantly. “Much better.”
The bedchamber smelled of orange blossom, warm wax, and the faint lavender water Jenny had pressed onto Sophia’s wrists. Morning light entered through the curtains in pale, quiet bands, touching the ivory satin of her gown and making the embroidered leaves along the hem shimmer whenever she moved.
The dress was not the same one Benedict had sent her, though Madame Delacroix had designed it with the same quiet elegance.
Nothing about it was excessive. There were no heavy jewels, no grand abundance of lace, no decorations intended to transform Sophia into a different woman.
She had chosen it herself. Benedict had paid for it without comment.
That, somehow, made it feel more intimate.
Emma adjusted the small pearls threaded through Sophia’s hair, her movements gentle and assured. “Everything will be well.”
“How can you know?”
“Because I was frightened, too.”
Sophia looked at her sister’s reflection. “You never appeared frightened.”
Emma smiled. “That does not mean I wasn’t.”
Frances moved to Sophia’s other side. “I was not frightened.”
“You argued with Andrew ten minutes before the ceremony,” Emma reminded her.
“He deserved it.”
“He told you that you looked beautiful.”
“He said I looked pretty. It was entirely inadequate for the occasion.”
Sophia’s lips trembled again. But still, the prospect of walking into a church filled with half the county did not seem any less alarming.
“What if I stumble?” she asked.
“Benedict will catch you,” Emma replied.
“What if I forget my vows?”
“The clergyman will prompt you.”
“What if I faint?”
Frances considered. “That would make the ceremony memorable.”
“Frances.”
“I am only saying there are worse things than being memorable.”
Sophia looked once more into the looking glass.
The woman reflected there appeared calm.
Her brown hair was arranged beneath a fine veil.
Her cheeks held more color than usual, and her hazel eyes looked unusually bright.
She scarcely resembled the young woman who once hid beside ballroom walls with a book in her reticule.
Yet beneath the satin and pearls, she remained entirely herself: quiet, uncertain, hopeful… terrified.
At that moment, a knock sounded.
Her father’s voice came softly through the door. “Sophia?”
The room went still. It was time.
The carriage ride passed too quickly, and the church appeared before Sophia had gathered even half the courage she intended to have. Bells rang above them, full and bright, scattering their sound across the countryside.
Outside, the air was cool, carrying the scent of damp grass and early roses. Inside, beeswax candles burned beneath the old stone arches. White flowers filled the windows and pew ends, their fragrance sweet enough to make Sophia’s head swim.
Her father offered his arm.
“You look lovely,” he said in a voice that sounded rougher than usual.
“Thank you, Father,” she offered a smile in return.
Then, the church doors opened. Sophia heard the rustle first. It was silk, whispers, and bodies turning.
Every face seemed to look toward her at once.
For one dreadful moment, the aisle appeared impossibly long.
The flowers seemed too bright, the candles too numerous, the people too near.
She felt each expectation fastening itself upon her.
Future Duchess of Rivermere.
Wife.
Guardian.
Mistress of a household larger than any she had ever managed.
Mother, perhaps, one day.
Every title waited beyond the threshold, and Sophia did not know whether she was large enough to carry any of them.
Then, she saw Benedict. He was standing before the altar in black and silver, tall, grave, and composed. His shoulders were square. His expression revealed nothing that the assembled guests could readily interpret.
He looked exactly as he always did, steady and certain. But when his eyes found hers, something changed. His gaze held her without hesitation. The severity left it first, then the distance. Beneath both, Sophia saw a warmth he rarely permitted the world to witness.
He did not look away. Neither did she.
The church receded. The whispers no longer mattered. The faces softened into indistinct shapes. Even the titles awaiting her no longer felt like burdens she had to lift alone. Benedict was there, and something inside her settled.
Her father guided her down the aisle, but Sophia’s attention remained fixed upon the man waiting at its end.
Amelia and Marjorie sat in the front pew, both dressed in pale blue.
Amelia watched with shining, solemn eyes.
Marjorie smiled so broadly that propriety had plainly been abandoned.
Nathaniel stood beside Benedict, and his expression was unusually gentle.
Yet Sophia saw only Benedict. As she drew nearer, she noticed that his calm was not perfect.
His right hand tightened once at his side.
His breathing shifted. His gaze briefly swept over her veil, her gown, the flowers in her hands, then returned to her face as though it had found the only place it wished to remain.
Her father placed her hand in his. Benedict’s fingers closed around hers. Warmth spread through her glove and traveled up her arm.
She took her place beside him. For a moment, neither the clergyman nor the congregation seemed to exist.
Benedict inclined his head toward her. “You look remarkably beautiful,” he whispered.
Heat rose into Sophia’s cheeks. “Remarkably?”
“I dislike exaggeration,” he replied, his thumb moving once against her fingers. “But in this instance, anything less would be inaccurate.”
Sophia’s nervousness did not disappear entirely. It became something else, something bright, trembling, and almost too tender to bear.
She tightened her hand around his. And when the clergyman began, Sophia was standing beside Benedict without looking away.
The ceremony passed in a blur.
Benedict had stood before tenants, magistrates, peers, and men whose fortunes depended on his decisions, never losing command of his thoughts.
He had received news of death without faltering, settled disputes while tempers raged around him, and carried two grieving children through the worst days of their lives, certain only that he had to remain steady because no one else could afford to be.
Yet the simple act of standing beside Sophia before an altar seemed to deprive him of every reliable faculty he possessed.
Morning light passed through colored glass and rested in quiet patches upon the floor. Somewhere behind him, a guest shifted in a pew. Silk rustled. The clergyman’s voice rose and fell with grave familiarity. Benedict heard scarcely half of what was said.
Sophia was standing beside him. That was the difficulty.
Her hand remained in his, small and warm beneath her glove.
The faint tremor in her fingers eased after he spoke to her, though he suspected his own composure suffered in the exchange.
Her veil softened the line of her profile, but it could not conceal the color in her cheeks or the brightness of her hazel eyes whenever she looked at him.
He had called her remarkably beautiful. It was an inadequate description.
He ought not to have been surprised. Benedict had seen Sophia in ball gowns, morning dresses, wind-tossed beneath an oak tree, and flushed with indignation during a dancing lesson she insisted she did not require.
He knew the gentle curve of her smile and the way intelligence sharpened her expression whenever she prepared to contradict him.
Yet today there was something different about the sight of her, and it could not be called a transformation.
He would not insult her by imagining silk and pearls had made her worthy of notice.
It was the knowledge that she had come to him, that, before God and every person of consequence to them, she was choosing to stand at his side.
Benedict fixed his gaze upon the clergyman and reminded himself why he had done this.
The girls.
This marriage was for Amelia and Marjorie.
They needed Sophia’s warmth, her patience, her instinctive understanding of every sorrow they tried to conceal.
Rivermere had changed since she entered it.
Already, Amelia laughed more freely. Marjorie obeyed slightly more often, though Benedict acknowledged the improvement was too modest for celebration.
Sophia would make the house a home for them.
That was why he was marrying her. It was practical, necessary, and entirely for the best.
It had nothing to do with the way his attention found her the moment she entered any room.
It had nothing to do with the warmth that moved through him when she challenged his instructions with quiet, implacable reason.
It also had nothing to do with how often he remembered the feel of her waist beneath his hand or the soft floral scent that lingered after she stepped away.
Those matters were irrelevant. The girls required her. Benedict required only the certainty that they would be cared for and that they would grow beneath the influence of someone gentle where he was stern, someone warm where grief had made him cautious. He was doing this for them.
The clergyman addressed him. Benedict realized, one dreadful second too late, that an answer was expected.
“I will.” His voice emerged steady, though Nathaniel’s faint movement beside him suggested the pause had not gone unnoticed. Sophia’s fingers tightened around his. Benedict glanced down.
She looked as though she was attempting not to smile. He lifted one brow. Her smile appeared anyway. It was small, restrained, and wholly unsuitable to the solemnity of the moment.
Benedict felt the answering movement at the corner of his own mouth and looked forward again before Nathaniel could witness it. The vows continued.
When Sophia spoke, her voice was soft but clear. Benedict listened to every word. She did not hesitate.
That should have relieved him. Instead, the certainty in her voice struck somewhere dangerously near his heart. She promised herself to him with a courage he knew others might overlook because it did not announce itself loudly.
Benedict learned not to overlook it. He had seen Sophia climb toward danger without thinking of herself.
He had seen her stand before cruel smiles in crowded rooms and endure what louder spirits might have escaped by causing a scene.
He had seen her enter Rivermere with uncertainty and somehow make herself necessary to every person within it, including him.
No, the girls.
He returned firmly to that thought. Amelia and Marjorie sat in the front pew. Amelia’s eyes shone with tears she was too happy to hide. Marjorie looked ready to leap from her seat the instant the ceremony ceased to restrain her.
They were the reason. They had always been the reason.
The ring was placed in Benedict’s hand. For the first time that morning, his fingers were not entirely steady. The gold felt cool and impossibly small against his palm. Sophia removed her glove, and Benedict took her bare hand.
Her skin was warm. He slid the ring onto her finger slowly, aware of the delicate bones beneath his touch and the faint hitch in her breath. His thumb rested for one suspended moment against the inside of her wrist, where her pulse beat quickly beneath the skin.
His own answered it. He released her only because the ceremony required him to.
The clergyman spoke the final words. There was a gentle stirring through the church, a release of breaths and emotion, but Benedict remained still.
Sophia turned toward him.
His wife.
The word entered him with startling force.
She looked uncertain for only a moment, as though she too understood that the promises spoken in the last several minutes had altered something larger than names or legal arrangements.
Then her gaze softened, and he thought he could see trust shining there.
It was not complete trust. Sophia was too intelligent to grant anything so valuable without care. But there was enough of it to humble him, enough to frighten him.
Benedict intended to give her security, position, and a household in which she would never be overlooked. He meant to provide the girls with affection and Sophia with a place where her kindness had purpose. He had not considered what she might give him. He had not permitted himself to consider it.
Behind them, the organ began. Sound swelled into the ancient church, rich enough to tremble through stone and bone alike. The assembled guests rose. Sunlight caught the pearls in Sophia’s hair as she faced him, her new ring shining upon the hand he still held.
This is for the girls, Benedict told himself once more.
It had nothing to do with him, nothing at all. But before he’d realized what had happened, he was no longer looking at Miss Sophia Norton but at the Duchess of Rivermere.