Chapter 9
“The cravat is tight enough,” Ewan heard himself snap as his valet adjusted it. Over the top of the man’s head, he could see his face in the looking-glass. It was not a pretty sight.
Ewan was always serious, but today his expression was even more dour than usual, and there were shadows under his eyes. He also looked pale, unusual for him, as he spent so much time out in the sun.
But he had not slept well the night previously, which accounted for the wan expression and the dark circles.
His valet stepped back, his expression wary, and Ewan saw the flash of hurt in his eyes. Richard had been with Ewan for ten years now, and in those ten years, Ewan had barely spoken an unkind or impatient word to him.
But today, Ewan did not feel like himself. His stomach was in knots, his hands would not stop sweating, and he felt a rumbling anger in him like a distant volcano preparing to explode.
“You look very well, Your Grace,” Richard said, inclining his head. “I only want to make sure it does not come undone during the ceremony.”
“Thank you,” Ewan said gruffly. He turned away. “I think that will be all for now.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Richard bowed and crossed to the door, while Ewan stared out the window of his bedchamber, down toward the grounds below and to the mountains beyond. It was only after about half a minute that he realized he had not heard the door close behind the valet.
Ewan turned. Standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his eyebrow raised, was Alaric.
“Is that how you really speak to Richard after so many years of loyal service?” Alaric said, stepping into the room.
Ewan grunted and turned away. He did not need this right now. He had other things to focus on.
“You do look very well,” Alaric said, looking him up and down appraisingly. “Like a man about to be married.”
Ewan swallowed. The word married had made his mouth go suddenly dry, and instead of responding, he began to pace back and forth across the bedchamber. Alaric leaned against the four-poster bed, arms still folded.
“You are angry,” he said after a moment, his voice surprisingly soft.
For a moment, Ewan stopped pacing to glare at his friend.
“Of course I am angry,” he growled. “I am marrying a woman I hardly know because my brother ran off and abandoned his duty, then got himself—” he did not finish the sentence.
It was not Christopher’s fault that he had died. So why was he angry at him for it?
“Yes,” Alaric murmured. “The situation is less than ideal. And I understand your anger. It is not the life you planned for yourself. And your brother…” Alaric shook his head. “It is grotesquely unfair. For a boy in the prime of his youth to be taken like that…”
Ewan could not think about it. The thought was too terrible to consider, and he began to pace the room again.
“I do not know how I am supposed to do this,” he said as he walked back and forth across the polished parquet floorboards, which creaked under the weight of him. “This is so very Christopher, to put me in a difficult bind like this, to make my life hell—”
“It is not hell,” Alaric interrupted sharply, and Ewan stopped pacing to stare at his friend.
Alaric had not spoken to him so sternly in a very long time, if ever.
“You are gaining a wife,” Alaric reminded him.
“A wife that you believed would be a good influence on your brother, from a respectable family, a woman of good birth and sound character, from all I can see. It may not be an ideal situation, you may not know her well, but you can rest assured that she is far more nervous about this union than you are. She has much more to lose.”
Ewan blinked as Alaric’s words settled over him.
His friend made a good point. A woman always had more to lose in a marriage.
She gave up all her rights, her money, her freedom, in order to gain the protection of her husband.
And if her husband did not protect her, she had very little recourse for protecting herself.
“And this woman deserves a man who shows up,” Alaric continued. “Not just in body, but in his soul. You may not have chosen this initially, but you have chosen it now, which means you must show up for it with everything that you are.”
There was truth in this, and Ewan felt himself standing up straighter, his shoulders pressing back. He had no other choice. He had to do this. For his family. For his name. For his brother.
“You are very wise, my old friend,” he said, eyeing Alaric. “I now remember why I allow you so much presence in my life.”
“I am all charm and wisdom,” Alaric said, cracking a grin. “Now, let us get you downstairs. We have a wedding to get you to.”
The wedding was to take place inside the castle chapel.
As Ewan stood at the top of the altar, surrounded by the grand limestone walls, vaulted ceilings supported by flying buttresses, and stained glass windows that turned the white floors a blazing red and yellow, he could not help but feel the sanctity of the place pressing down on him, the holiness of it imbuing the moment with meaning.
The organ music swelled, and Ewan knew that was the cue. He turned to the door just as it opened, and Lady Cassandra entered on her father’s arm.
She looked… radiant. Stunning in a gown of pale silk that flowed around her, trailing behind on the flagstones. A long lace veil had been set in her hair and it drifted behind her like mist on a cold winter morning in the Highlands.
Her face was still but exquisite, her eyes darkened around the rims with kohl and her lips a soft, rosy pink. Ewan had never seen anyone so stunning in his life, and the moment he realized this, he felt his stomach curl with guilt.
You are not supposed to find her beautiful, he reminded himself sternly. She was Christopher’s bride.
But she was his now, and as she came toward him down the aisle, her eyes locked on his, he felt his heart begin to beat more rapidly. She was his, to care for and protect, in sickness and in health. He barely knew her, but the protectiveness that flooded him was immediate and instinctual.
They may not have chosen each other to begin with, but they had chosen each other now. And he had no choice except to rise to the occasion. To be the man she needed.
Not just in body, but in his soul, Alaric had said.
Well, he could not be the man she needed in body, but maybe he could be that man in his soul. If that would be enough for her.
Lady Cassandra and her father reached the end of the aisle, and Lord Pembury gave Ewan a long, appraising look before handing over his daughter’s arm.
Lord Pembury had not been happy to learn of the change in wedding plans. Yes, he had seemed hesitantly excited, when he had finally arrived at the castle, to learn that his daughter would become a duchess.
But he had also been wary, and Ewan could tell that he did not like how the situation had come about; that some part of him now found Ewan, and his brother, untrustworthy, as if he had been conned.
But since the con only benefited him, Lord Pembury had relented.
And now, Ewan took his daughter’s arm and settled her across from him at the altar.
As he did, he noticed that she was trembling.
He would not have thought, from the stoic expression on her face, that she was nervous, but as they turned to the vicar and he began to intone, Dearly Beloved… there was no doubt about it.
Lady Cassandra was nervous.
The vicar’s words filled the chapel, echoing off the stones and washing over the small assembly of people.
There were only a few guests at the wedding, just Annabelle, Lady Cassandra’s family, and a few local families, but if Ewan could feel their eyes on him, he knew that Lady Cassandra must be even more aware of how observed she was.
She was a stranger in a new place, and yet, she was going through with this, with so much bravery that only a small trembling of her hands gave away her nerves.
He could not help but admire that. She was courageous.
The vicar reached the vows portion of the ceremony, and Ewan repeated his back gravely. Then it was Lady Cassandra’s turn. She spoke clearly and without a waver in her voice, but when he took her hand to slip the ring on her finger, it was still shaking.
He pushed the gold band slowly up her finger, and as he did, his eyes locked onto her. Fear flickered deep in them, and, against procedure or propriety, he leaned in close to her, bringing his lips to her ear.
“Everything will be well,” he murmured, so quietly that only she could hear it. “I will take care of you, Lady Cassandra.”
Then he drew back. Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at him, her lips slightly parted. He smiled softly, and something else flickered in her eyes.
Was it hope?
It was gone too quickly for him to tell, but he felt a little hopeful himself as the vicar declared them husband and wife and their guests burst into applause.
Hopeful that even if it was not an expected match, that it might be one where there was mutual respect. Maybe even companionship.
Lady Cassandra was shaking a little less as they walked back down the aisle together, and when they were seated next to one another at the wedding breakfast ten minutes later, she was even smiling shyly. The hall was loud already as guests began to fill in.
There were all those who had come to the wedding, but also more families from the area, including his tenant farmers, who had been invited to join after. And it did not take long before the wine and ale were flowing, noise traveling up to the rafters and making the hall almost deafening.
Meanwhile, Ewan sat next to Lady Cassandra at the top table, the two of them close but not quite touching. He kept stealing glances at her out of the corner of his eye, but he was not entirely sure what to say. How did one speak to one’s new wife?
Lady Cassandra… That is no longer what she is called, he marveled. She is Her Grace, the Duchess of Calder.
“Were you pleased with the ceremony?” he asked at last, for he knew he had to say something.
Cassandra glanced at him in surprise. It was the first time they had spoken since he had told her everything would be well.
“I was,” she said. “The only real surprise was the man at the end of the aisle.”
“Yes,” he chuckled. “I suppose that it will take some getting used to, that you have married me and not my brother.”
“Not just that, but the change in my title,” she said. “I am a duchess now. When I came to Scotland, I was not expecting that.”
“You would have been someday, anyway. Before you, I did not have plans to remarry and father a son. The dukedom then would have passed to Christopher.”
“I did not know that,” she said, her eyebrows raising slightly. “I suppose your life has changed a great deal today as well.”
There was a long moment, during which she seemed to hesitate, on the verge of saying something.
Then she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear, “If I am being honest, I am nervous.” Her eyes dragged up to his. “I am nervous that I will mess it up. I do not know how to be the duchess.”
Ewan smiled slightly. “I do not know how to be the duke,” he said.
“If you ask most of my peers, they would tell you I am doing it all wrong, spending my days out mending fences and working fields instead of managing my farms from a polite distance. But I have found that the best way to get good at something is to do it yourself.”
She considered this. “I do like to rise to a challenge.”
He nodded. “I think you will learn the ropes very quickly. In fact, I would be willing to wager that you are the last person to mess it up.”
She had just opened her mouth to respond when they heard several people shouting in their directions, and he looked up to see several of the local farmers, tankards of ale in their hands, grinning at them.
“When is the bedding ceremony to begin, Your Grace?” one of them shouted.
“It is past time!” Another called.
“Time to get the new duchess to bed!”
Several others took up the hall, and then, to Ewan’s horror, a chant was struck up: “Take the Duchess to bed! Take the Duchess to bed!”
It was mostly the farmers who were chanting, but even a few of the more gentile guests, who were very drunk by now and red faced, also began to chant.
Ewan could not look at Cassandra. His face felt very hot and his stomach was in knots again. He did, however, catch a glimpse of Lady Pembury’s face. She looked horrified, and her husband was glowering.
Something in Ewan snapped. All of a sudden, all the heat drained from his face, and the same anger that he had felt earlier flared inside of him.
He stood up very suddenly. The hall fell silent as he glared around at all those who had been chanting. The look on his face left little room for interpretation: They were not to speak about his wife in this way.
“I beg your pardon,” he thundered, his voice echoing around the hall. “Her Grace and I will retire now.”
And, with all the dignity he could muster, he turned to his wife and offered her his arm. She stood shakily and took it, and then they left the hall together, the silence following them.
Together, they walked down the corridor back to the entrance hall, then up the stairs, and down another corridor to his bedchamber.
Her own bedchamber was next door.
His own hand shook as he reached out and pulled open the door, then stepped inside, bringing her with him.
The door closed behind them, and silence settled over them. They were finally alone together, as man and wife.