Chapter 2 #2
And what of it, she told herself. Let him be cold.
Let him be cruel. A great house has a great many rooms. Perhaps she might keep to a quiet corner of it with her sister and trouble him not at all, might live beside him as strangers live in the same inn, and from that corner make whatever plans the future asked of her.
It was not much to hope for. But of one thing she had grown certain of in these last seven days; if she did not stand up before the vicar this morning and become Duchess of Rosewood, then Arabella’s whole young life would be handed over, unguarded, to a woman who reckoned a child of eight as one more mouth to be made useful, and that, she would not permit. Not while she had breath.
“Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
The words reached Diana from a very long way off.
Her father’s arm had brought her down that aisle and abandoned her at the altar with no more ceremony than a man surrendering a parcel at the posting inn, and now, there was only the clergyman’s patient face, and the murmur of a half-filled church at her back, and beside her, unmoving, the man they called the Beast of Rosewood.
Be brave, keep your wits, and hold to the plan.
A room for Arabella. That is all you need today.
She saw him for the first time from the head of the nave.
He stood waiting for her as though he had been carved and set there.
A full head taller than the clergyman beside him, built strong in a way no tailor’s wadding could counterfeit, and dressed in black from throat to boot.
He did not smile or glance at the congregation, or do any of the small restless human things a man does while he waits.
He watched her come, with a stillness that was worse than any glare.
Diana felt the cold crawl up the back of her neck, the sudden thinness of her breath, and then came the certainty that she was walking toward something she ought to be walking away from.
She felt an undignified fear, the sort she had not felt since she was a child in a dark corridor.
Her step faltered. Her father’s arm had borne her on.
And every dreadful thing the ton had ever whispered of the Duke of Rosewood had come back to her at once, all together, and she had thought, with a lurch of panic: They were right.
Every one of them was right, and I am about to promise this man my life.
“I will,” she said.
Her own voice astonished her. It came out steady, as though it belonged to some far calmer woman standing in her place.
The clergyman turned. “Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife—wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will.”
Two words in a voice made for the giving of orders and the certainty of their being obeyed. She had not heard him speak before this moment. She found she did not want to hear it again.
“Take her right hand in yours.”
He took her hand.
She braced for cold. She had expected his touch to match the rest of him, some marble thing with no heat in it at all.
It was not. His hand closed warm and sure over her chilled fingers, so warm that she nearly startled, and even through the thin kid leather of her glove she felt the whole living heat of him, and something turned over low in her chest. He stood near enough now that the warmth came off his body like the warmth off a banked fire; near enough that she caught the clean scent of him.
Her heart gave a hard, unruly thump. Her stomach went strangely light, as though she had missed a stair in the dark.
What is this? she thought, appalled. What in heaven is the matter with me?
She dared one glance up at his face.
He was not attending to the clergyman at all.
He was looking down at her without any expression.
His eyes were the coldest she had ever looked into, deep blue and empty.
There was no cruelty in them. Nor was there any warmth.
There was nothing, and that was the most frightening thing of it.
Cruelty she might have reasoned with. Cruelty at least wanted something.
So, this is the man, she thought, and her mouth had gone dry. This is what I am to pass the rest of my life beneath.
She snatched her gaze away and fixed it upon the middle button of his waistcoat and did not lift it again.
“With this ring I thee wed,” he said, “with my body I thee worship—”
The gold slid home over her finger.
“Those whom God hath joined together,” said the clergyman, “let no man put asunder.”
It was finished. She was his wife.
For a moment neither of them stirred. Then he bent his head close to her ear.
She flinched before she could stop herself.
“You may say your farewells now,” he said. “It will be some while before you see them again.”
She stepped back from him, and as soon as she stepped outside, Henrietta was upon her.
“Oh, Diana—” Her cousin caught her in an embrace so fierce it drove the breath out of her, heedless of the watching crowd, heedless of everything. Henrietta was weeping without shame. “My dearest, dearest girl.”
“Hen. Listen to me, quickly.” Diana held her fast and spoke against her hair, too low for any other ear to hear.
“Betsy is watching over Arabella. She has my savings, and, by my word, she will keep the child safe. But watch her, Hen. Watch them both. If anything is amiss, anything at all, you must send to me at once.”
“I will. I swear it.” Henrietta drew back and gripped her by the arms, her face fierce and streaming.
“And now you will listen to me. If that man is cruel to you, if he lifts so much as his voice against you, you are to come to me, or send me a single word, and I will come for you, wherever you are, and I will find a way to have you free of him. Do you hear?”
Diana’s eyes stung. Of course Henrietta would say it; Henrietta had been saying it, in one shape or another, since they were girls of ten conspiring in the nursery.
Henrietta, who had lied to governesses for her, taken her punishments, stood between her and a hundred small cruelties across the whole long span of their lives. There was no truer creature living.
“I hear you,” she managed. “You dear, mad thing. I hear you.”
She turned then to her husband, and found him waiting with that same unhurried patience, and gathered what dignity she could about her like a cloak. “I am ready, Your Grace. We may go.”
His dark brows rose the smallest fraction. “Do you not mean to take your leave of your father?”
She followed his glance. Across the churchyard her father stood with Octavia on his arm, the pair of them making their leisurely way toward the carriages, toward her, to play out the tender farewell before the last of the departing guests.
“I have no family here, Your Grace,” she stated quite calmly. “I am your wife now. Am I not? Then I have no further need of them.”
She had made to step toward the carriage when a small cry stopped her where she stood.
“Diana—!”
Betsy was hastening across the grass with Arabella in her arms. Arabella, who was never to have come at all, who had somehow slipped her hold and now twisted free and ran.
Diana was on her knees in the churchyard dirt in an instant, her ruined ivory silk forgotten, gathering the sobbing child hard against her.
“Bella, hush now, my darling, I have you.” She pressed her lips to the small hot brow.
“But will I—” Arabella’s whole small body shuddered with it. “Will I ever see you again?”
She took her sister’s wet face in both hands, and wiped the tears away with her thumbs, and smiled at her as though her own heart was not breaking in two.
“Of course you will. Of course, of course you will, dearest; how should I ever do without you? Before the leaves are down. I promise it.”
Over the child’s head she saw Octavia drawing nearer, that soft false concern already arranging itself upon her lovely features. Diana’s arms tightened once, and let go.
“Betsy—” She rose, and set the child back into the maid’s keeping. “Take her inside. And do not bring her out again, whatever you are bid.”
“Yes, Miss—Your Grace.” And Betsy bore the weeping child away.
“I’ll go with them.” Henrietta was already moving, catching up her skirts, casting one last look over her shoulder. “I’ll not leave her side. Be brave, cousin.” She raised a hand, and was gone after them across the green.
Then there was only the carriage, and the Duke, and her father and Octavia bearing down upon her with their farewell all made ready on their lips.
Her father cleared his throat. “Diana. My dear child—”
She did not wait to hear the rest. She caught up her skirts in both hands and climbed up into the carriage herself, without the smallest regard for grace or for the footman’s astonished, outstretched hand, and settled upon the seat with her chin held high.
Behind her, she heard the Duke make a surprised breath of amusement.
He swung up after her and took the place at her side, and his gaze came to rest upon her with an interest she had not marked in it before. “Do you wish to speak with them?” He tipped his head toward the pair frozen upon the church steps.
“They are strangers to me, Your Grace.”
For a moment he only looked at her. Then he rapped once upon the roof. “Drive on.”
The carriage lurched forward. Through the window, Diana caught one last glimpse of Octavia’s lovely face, falling open, and heard the woman’s affronted little yelp as the wheels almost ran over her foot. The whole of her old life swung out of sight behind them.