Chapter Ten
The chapel, if it could be called a chapel, was barely large enough to house the bride and groom, let alone the guests. Though it lacked the air of debauchery that clung to the rest of the Lyon’s Den, nevertheless the furnishings still carried the aura of decadence.
Yet the vicar seemed perfectly at ease as he held aloft the order of service and uttered a prayer for the salvation of the human race and its furtherment brought about by the union of two pure, God-fearing members of his congregation.
God-fearing, perhaps, given how I might fare at the day of judgment. But pure?
Had she not been gripped by apprehension, Cordelia might have laughed.
Did the vicar know that the bride who stood before him in a simple gown of white muslin, trimmed with lace, was a whore who’d spread her legs for half the men drinking in the gaming room two stories below?
As for the groom…
Though Cordelia kept her gaze focused on the wall behind the vicar, on which hung a painting depicting a scene of angels watching over a child, her senses quivered with anticipation at the presence of the bridegroom standing beside her.
James…
The man who had declared with such conviction that his prior liaison meant nothing. That he saw her as nothing more than a whore whom he’d rather forget, someone he’d refuse to acknowledge if he saw her again.
How could she swear an oath of loyalty, obedience, and honesty if honoring that oath would make him hate her forever?
Had she any sense, she’d turn and flee—return to the only life she knew, where she could hide behind her mask forever, earn a living as Dahlia and live as Cordelia.
She closed her eyes, and her breath caught as the man next to her shifted so she could almost feel his body heat against her skin. The familiar scent of him—earthy, woody spices with delicate top notes of rose… She’d have known him anywhere. Yet he did not know her.
Which proved one thing…
James had never thought of her as anything more than a body to give him pleasure. He had never loved her, whereas she—
“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
She snapped her eyes open to see the vicar looking directly at her.
A light hand touched her elbow.
“Are you ready, sweet girl?” a voice whispered.
Cordelia turned to see Isidore’s kind eyes focused on her.
A warm brown, the color of rich chocolate, they spoke of a deep understanding of the world of men—the kind of understanding that only a whore could possess.
With no family save the long-dead man who’d sold her to a brothel for enough coins to keep him in liquor, Cordelia had found a mother in Isidore.
How she would miss her!
Cordelia blinked, and her vision blurred as salty tears stung her eyes. Isidore lifted her hand and brushed Cordelia’s cheek.
“Hush, sweet one,” she whispered. “He’s a good man…as well you know.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know who—”
The vicar cleared his throat. Cordelia nodded to Isidore, who stepped forward.
“I giveth this woman, reverend.”
She took Cordelia’s hand and placed it in the groom’s.
As soon as his fingers curled around hers, a shiver rippled along Cordelia’s spine at the jolt of need that had almost undone her when she’d taken his virginity. The familiar heat licked through her blood and she caught the shameful scent of her own desire.
Sweet heaven! Her body was betraying her as surely as if she’d declared before the witnesses that she was the whore who had taught him how to bed his future wife.
Heat radiated through her skin, and she resisted the urge to look at him lest she meet his gaze and reveal her true identity. But he squeezed her hand gently, as if coaxing a nervous filly into leaving the sanctuary of her stable to greet her master.
And he was her master. That night they’d lain together for the first time, James had claimed her heart. Tonight, he would claim her body and her fortune, and in the eyes of the law and the church, she would be his, bound to obey his every instruction.
He caressed her skin with the pad of his thumb, then gave her hand a gentle tug. Any other bride would not have understood the unspoken command, but over the course of his visits, Cordelia had learned—as every good whore learns—to read the gestures and mannerisms of a man.
Look at me.
Summoning courage, Cordelia inhaled, then turned to face the bridegroom.
Clear-blue eyes regarded her, uncertainty in their expression, and his forehead creased into a frown.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
He continued to caress the back of her hand, almost absent-mindedly. Her skin tightened with want and, unable to speak, she caught her breath and nodded.
“May I proceed?” the vicar said, an edge to his voice.
“Reverend,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said with a hard edge, and the vicar straightened his stance and continued with the ceremony.
The hand holding Cordelia’s tightened its grip as James recited his vows, uttering his full name.
James Timothy John Bedford.
He had never given her his full name. Perhaps it was a piece of himself that he had wanted to keep hidden from the whore who serviced him—to save for the woman he married.
But that name was now hers. As the vicar declared them man and wife, the bridegroom took her hand and slipped a gold band onto the third finger. The cold metal met resistance at the knuckle, then her finger yielded and the band settled in place.
“You may kiss the bride.”
The bridegroom took both Cordelia’s hands and drew her close, and she tilted her face up.
My first kiss.
It was something she had never given to a man, though many had tried to take it from her. The sharing of bodies was merely a physical transaction, but this…
Such an intimate act ought to be undertaken in private, without a roomful of onlookers.
Cordelia glanced toward Isidore and saw her own fears reflected in the older woman’s eyes.
Then Isidore glanced at the groom, curved her lips into a smile, and nodded.
James—now her husband—brought his face close, and a warmth threaded through Cordelia’s blood at the caress of his breath on her skin. She parted her lips to savor the moment.
Then he hesitated. His brow furrowed and he glanced about the chamber, as if searching for something.
Or someone.
“Are you awaiting the arrival of”—she hesitated—“a friend?”
He blinked, slowly, then shook his head. “I have no friends here, Cordelia.” Then he smiled as her heart broke for her former self. “May I call you Cordelia?”
“O-of course.”
He nodded, then lowered his lips to hers.
His lips were as soft and tender as she had imagined when she’d traced the outline of her own lips where he kissed her in her dreams, almost every night since they’d first shared a bed.
They tasted sweeter than she had anticipated—rich honey to match the color of his hair, with the warmth of the sun.
“James…”
The warmth radiated throughout her body, pooling in her center, and she curled her fingers around his arms, clinging to him, savoring the moment of intimacy of which she had never thought herself worthy.
Tears spilled onto her cheeks as he slipped his tongue between her lips, coaxing them to part for him, then he deepened the kiss, moving his tongue slickly along her own, then curling around it in a slow, sensual dance.
How had he learned to kiss like that—as if he worshipped her? Had he kissed another before her?
She tempered the spike of jealousy at his sharing such intimacies with other women. Then shame overcame her and she withdrew, shaking her head.
What right had she to envy the other women he’d kissed when she had parted her thighs for countless men, kneeled before them and debased herself for cash? What right had she to assume that he would ever want to be married to a woman such as her?
Hurt shone in his eyes at her rejection.
“F-forgive me,” she said. “I’m a little shy.”
The hurt turned into guilt.
“No, Cordelia,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips. “It’s I who should beg your forgiveness. A bride must be treated with tenderness.” He smiled, though sadness glimmered in his eyes. “An old friend told me that.”
“A-a friend?”
“Yes,” he whispered, kissing her hand again. Then he lowered it. “A very old friend. It was their parting gift.”
“Do you miss them?”
He paused, and she held her breath. Then he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I have you now, and am content knowing that I’ll never see…her again.”