The Sisters #3
Family. Only family, and the closest of friends.
There had been no time for more—the banns had been read with almost indecent haste, and the ton would talk regardless of whether they were present to witness—but Florinda found she did not mind.
This was not a spectacle. This was a promise, made before the people who mattered most.
Margot sat in the second pew, Hope beside her with the fierce concentration of a child who had been promised she could throw rose petals if she behaved.
Drusilla sat with Marcus, her hand clasped in his, her face soft in a way Florinda rarely saw.
Ella and Edward occupied the pew across from them with the children—Charlotte vibrating with barely contained excitement, James clutching his beetle box, Charles still blessedly asleep.
And in the front pew, where she belonged, sat the Dowager Duchess of Carthedge.
Her spine was rigid. Her face was composed. Her grey eyes—so like Frederick's—swept over Florinda with the assessing gaze that had terrified her for two months of convalescence at Carthedge Hall.
Beside her sat a woman Florinda did not quite recognise—dark-haired and fine-boned, with the same grey eyes as the Dowager and the same set to her jaw.
She wore black. Deep mourning black. And behind her, in the next pew, sat four children of varying ages, all of them unnaturally still and well-behaved in the manner that suggested considerable threats had been employed.
Caroline, Florinda realised with a start. Frederick's sister. The one who had married a viscount and moved to the north. She had not been expected—had not, as far as Florinda knew, visited Carthedge Hall in years.
There were shadows beneath her eyes. Her mourning dress hung loose on her frame, as though she had lost weight recently. Questions formed in Florinda's mind—why is she here, why is she in black, what has happened—but there was no time to ask them.
Because at the altar, Frederick was waiting.
He stood with his back straight and his hands clasped before him, wearing a look of such profound terror that Florinda felt a laugh bubble up in her chest.
He looks like a man awaiting execution, she thought, and then: He looks like a man who cannot quite believe this is happening.
She understood. She could not quite believe it either.
"Ready?" Lord Raventhorn murmured beside her.
"No." She looked down at her feet, at the white silk slippers that smelled faintly of fish. The cool stone of the church floor beckoned beneath the worn carpet. "Wait."
"Wait?"
She bent—scandalously, probably, in her wedding gown before the assembled company—and slipped off her shoes. First one, then the other. She straightened, handed them to the startled footman by the door, and felt the cool stone of the church floor beneath her bare feet.
"Now I am ready," she said.
Lord Raventhorn made a sound that might have been a laugh. "You are your mother's daughter."
"Which mother?"
"Both of them. All of them. Every woman who ever loved you enough to let you be exactly who you are." He squeezed her arm. "Shall we?"
The music began—a simple melody, nothing elaborate—and they stepped forward.
Down the aisle, past the scattered rose petals that Hope had thrown with rather more enthusiasm than accuracy, past the pews of sisters and children and one intimidating dowager, toward the altar where Frederick stood waiting.
He was crying.
Frederick—the Duke of Carthedge, the man who had spent nine years burying his emotions beneath duty and honour and careful control—was standing at the altar with tears streaming down his face, making no effort whatsoever to hide them.
"Oh," Florinda breathed.
"He has been doing that since you appeared in the doorway," Lord Raventhorn murmured. "I believe he attempted to stop, but it did not take."
"He is counting."
"I beg your pardon?"
"His lips are moving. He is counting the threads in my hair." Florinda felt her own eyes begin to sting. "He always counts when he is overwhelmed."
They reached the altar. Lord Raventhorn pressed a kiss to her forehead, transferred her hand to Frederick's with a look that contained both blessing and warning, and stepped back to join Margot.
Frederick's fingers closed around hers. His eyes—grey and bright with tears—found hers and held.
"Fourteen," he said hoarsely.
"What?"
"Fourteen threads catching the light from the window. I counted." His voice cracked. "I tried to stop. I could not."
"I know." Florinda squeezed his hand. "I know. I do not mind."
"I am going to make a fool of myself with the vows."
"Probably."
"I wrote them down. In case I forgot. Which I shall, because I am looking at you and I have forgotten everything except—" He stopped, swallowed, visibly gathered himself.
"Except that I love you. I love you, and you are barefoot, and you have flowers in your hair, and I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you. "
"You could start," Florinda suggested, "by saying your vows."
"Right. Yes. The vows." Frederick turned to the vicar, who was waiting with the patient air of a man who had seen many unusual weddings and had learned not to comment. "I am ready. I think. Possibly."
"Take your time, Your Grace," the vicar said kindly.
Frederick took a breath. Opened his mouth.
And promptly forgot every word he had ever learned.