Chapter 12
Lily stood between her father and the earl. She felt at her lowest ebb and, in her opinion, looked it too.
The unexceptional setting of the Great Hall at Keeling Court did not lend itself to celebrations. The shabby furnishings, badly whitewashed surfaces, and single faded mural spoke of a more prosperous past, and that, more than anything, emphasized its raggedness.
The resplendent bishop officiating looked absurdly out of place, as did the splendid figure of the Earl of Ravensworth. Attired in sartorial black and silver, he looked like some legend from Olympus come to grace the present.
Lily’s best gown looked only a few notches up from her borrowed washerwoman’s clothes.
She’d never had much of a selection, being used to dressing in Bee’s cast-offs most of her life.
Lady Elizabeth did not indulge either of her daughters, but Lily usually got the dregs of a very poor barrel.
She had long ago stopped dreaming of shimmering silks and gossamer veils like those the courtly ladies of Camelot wore.
She felt drab and insignificant in her surcoat of pale wool, the green faded from use.
Under this, she wore a yellow linen kirtle.
Once there had been flag lilies embroidered around the neck and hem, but now, as it had been Lily who had done the work, most of the threads had come away, leaving little tufts of blue and yellow.
As if that wasn’t enough reason for her misery, the earl had forced her to dress in her finery under his scowling supervision lest she abscond again.
His presence scandalized the maids and outraged her mother.
He had responded by annihilating Lady Elizabeth’s objection and pointing out her abject failure as the guardian of Lily’s chastity. No one had attempted to dislodge him.
His Arrogance, as Lily called him, had just enough daring to make the accusations without even a nod to the obvious irony. Pitiful.
Needless to say, her mother had stormed out of the chamber and refused to say another word to her daughter, or, for that matter, to her new and powerful son-in-law.
Few people had bothered to return for the celebrations.
Many had departed yesterday in a huff after the daughter of the house so thoroughly disgraced herself by not bothering to show up and disrespecting both family and guests.
So, with only a few exceptions, most of the attendees came from the Keeling household and the earl’s retainers.
One crown representative unexpectedly showed up; Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick stood as Henry’s representative.
Her father had turned pale with shock at seeing his arrival in the early dawn alongside the prospective groom. Lady Elizabeth had been forced to rearrange her petulant face.
The whole thing was a farce.
Bee had not managed to come at all. The only pair of understanding eyes Lily took refuge in were those of her Aunt Celestria, one of her mother’s sisters. Everyone else looked at her with vaguely concealed contempt.
Lily wanted desperately to explain things to her father and apologize for the disastrous mess she had made of it, but her brother did not think it a good idea.
Their father, Lambert had been at pains to tell her, was bitterly disappointed at her capitulation.
She had dishonored the sacrifices of at least four generations of Keelings, according to him. Now she must live with that.
Lily felt utterly lost. She tried to concentrate on Bishop Renard, who droned on, but all she could think of was that with each word, he detached her from the only home she had ever known.
Worst of all, the good bishop gave little comfort in describing the kind of future she might expect.
He emphasized that a wife’s duty came down to one thing alone: obeying her lord husband in all things.
Edward’s men, under the captaincy of Sir Lanval, had waylaid the bishop in the next-door parish of Sagers, two miles down the road. They’d brought him back to Keeling Court, winded and inflamed with fury.
He did not take kindly—he was quick to tell them—to insults from a simpleton, and a female one at that. Nevertheless, he hastily discarded his so-called dignity for the far more satisfying reward of a fat purse for his troubles.
Even so, the good bishop got the last laugh, for he emphasized every detail of Lily’s threadbare dowry, much to her mortification.
Indeed, had King Henry not gifted her with the rich fiefdom of Korrington, Lily learned that she would have come to her marriage with a cow, two hogs, and a barn.
What she received from her father better suited a herder than a baron’s daughter.
By contrast, the staggering array of lands and goods, the jointure and gifts, settled upon her by the earl was as unexpected as it was unprecedented. It so dwarfed her family’s contribution that she cringed with every monotonous line.
Finally, though, the contracts were read and the proper signatures displayed for all to see.
Now came the exchange of shoes, an ancient tradition prevalent in the Cheshire region. The interaction signified each spouse’s understanding of the other’s role. The wife’s tacit promise of obedience, the husband’s acknowledgment of womanhood—or at least his interpretation of what that entailed.
Lily winced as her father bent and, as if he were her maid, slipped her small foot into the polished magnificence of Ravensworth’s boot.
The differences were comical, but for Lily, too bitter a symbol, and she did not smile.
She knew she was binding herself to her family’s enemy.
How was she supposed to find a way to walk in her husband’s shoes with devotion when she simply did not know how?
Her father’s enemy. She had no right to capitulate to him, and yet it was her duty to do so. It seemed cruel that she had no guidance, no one to tell her what to do. How could she endure what was to come?
She did not understand the Black Raven at all; his demands and exactitudes frightened her.
His thunder unsettled her. And the things he did to her—they were surely wicked.
How could she resist such temptations? Such pleasure.
Such rapture. Surely, she would lose herself.
Her, Lily, she would vanish under the tide of Edward, Earl of Ravensworth.
She could not explain the feeling of being held in his arms, urging her to surrender.
She would be constantly warring against herself.
Do I deserve this? she asked herself.
Mentally, she listed the many things she’d done wrong in her life. There were many, but she had tried to make atonement for them. Obviously, she decided after counting all the things she could remember, she must have done far more wicked things, else why should she have to face such punishment?
Her head was cloudy with lack of sleep, her heart full of shattered dreams.
Edward Rowley, 5th Earl of Ravensworth, wasn’t the gentle knight she desired. Nothing at all like the chivalrous gallants she and Bee discussed endlessly in their childhood days.
She watched as Ravensworth poked his stockinged toe into one of her dancing slippers. He waved it in the air for all to see, eliciting the requisite bantering and lewd jokes. The shoe was of blue silk with tiny violet flowers and tinkling golden bells sewn into the fabric.
Her kind Aunt Celestria, along with the household ladies, had contrived the task, adapting a pair of Lily’s old dancing slippers. Her mother had not troubled herself to attend to such details.
Bishop Renard stepped forward and had them face each other. Then taking a silver cord from his acolyte, bound their hands together, the large one of the earl’s atop her far smaller one.
“By the binding of hands do you plight your troth.
As flesh to flesh, so shall your words join hearts.
Let none here forget what is pledged this day, for such vows once spoken are bound for all time.
Now, before God and those who bear witness, speak together your bond: “Thus, I take thee to be mine own, and by this vow hold fast our bond till marriage seal it whole.”
They spoke one after the other, and a chorus of voices consented to stand witness.
The bishop placed a hand on their bowed heads and gave the benediction. Finally, it was over.
Lily lifted her head only to find Bishop Renard’s merciless gaze confronting her. He knows, she thought as panic grabbed her by the throat. He knows the shameful things I have allowed. She felt one breath away from fainting.
The earl turned to her as if he sensed her trouble, but she could not look at him. She felt him bring her closer to his side and place his warm hand against the small of her back. At the same time, he clasped her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.
Lily, in her distress, did not have the strength to let him go.