Chapter 1
One
“There’s time yet. You’ll see, Aurelia. Time and more time yet.”
Words mostly spoken in vain. There was no use denying it. The clock was nearing twelve. Before long the church bells would ring in the tower. The moment had been planned to the millisecond. Frederick and Aurelia, emerging from St. George’s with the chimes.
But Aurelia was still alone – still unwed.
And the hands on her aunt’s chatelaine watch were marching forward.
Aunt Violet snapped the watch shut and shoved it back into her pocket. The chiffon of her dress ruffled, and she gave a sigh that echoed in the cold and damp antechamber of the church. Aurelia gulped, her throat tight. Her aunt’s lips parted to say something, but someone spoke before she could.
“But where is he, do you think?”
The question slipped through the chapel doors, and the women turned.
The words barely registered as sounds to Aurelia, passing between the wedding guests and reaching her like a draught through an ill-fitted window.
Aurelia’s fingers tightened around the spring bouquet in hand.
She told herself it meant nothing. But Violet was silent, and this was not reassuring.
Frederick was late. And yes, Frederick was occasionally late.
It was one of the small things Aurelia had decided to find endearing about her prospective husband even when it irked her.
There were other things too. The way he left after meals to smoke the second dessert concluded.
The way he kissed her cheek, too wet and eagerly.
The way he looked through her rather than at her when she spoke, as though his mind was always working hard at something.
With practice, she had tricked herself into believing he was a thinker, a dreamer, a man who could not be held down by anyone or anything, not even by an appointment like his wedding day.
“We cannot stall any longer,” her aunt whispered, moving to adjust Aurelia's cream muslin sleeve. “Walk the aisle and wait for him at the end of it. Walk slowly when the doors open. Do not smile. Keep your head up, my girl.”
“I know all this. We’ve rehearsed this moment over and over.”
“And yet you’re not breathing. Oh, will you not soften your shoulders?”
Aurelia took a defeated breath, more-than used to taking commands from Violet, even when they were spoken in vain.
“Better?” Aurelia asked, relaxing the muscles in her back.
“Good enough for now.” Her aunt stepped back and assessed her. The colour in her cheeks betrayed her panic. “You look very well. He will be pleased…”
“When he arrives,” Aurelia finished for her.
Violet nodded weakly and pushed the door open to admit Aurelia.
The music faltered in response – a hesitation from the organist that only a musician like Aurelia would notice – and then resumed.
Aurelia faltered a moment too. The church felt small and dark.
The air was ripe with the dirty, organic smell of April flowers.
Her head swam in response. How many guests were there? Too many.
She could do nothing but begin walking. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the frantic movements of a moth as it fluttered toward the closed windows and beat against the glass.
A canvas of blurred faces stood between her and the insect.
She glanced away, training her eyes on the altar where the priest stood alone in his dark cassock, his embroidered supplice catching the muted light.
Aurelia suppressed a gasp as Violet fell into step beside her. She hadn’t heard the doors close. “When have the Battles ever made such errors?” Violet said mostly to herself, keeping her chin lifted. “Most curious. Was he never timely with you?”
“Perhaps there has been a delay with his carriage, traffic down the Strand,” Aurelia suggested. “Perhaps something happened on the way.”
Her aunt's tone suggested this was not a satisfactory explanation when she said, “He has had two months to arrange a carriage. That young gentleman has more vehicles than he knows what to do with. You saw his new phaeton when we joined him for luncheon yesterday.”
“Then perhaps he was overwhelmed for choice this morning and that is what has caused his delay.”
Her aunt gave her a long-suffering look. Aurelia ignored it. There was nothing to be done. Either Frederick would come soon or he would come later. Speculating aloud would only make things more embarrassing.
The tips of her gloved fingers had found each other again at the centre of her bouquet.
She released them and thought about the practical matter of her floral hair buckle.
Her aunt had pinned it slightly too far forward that morning, and it had been threatening to shift ever since.
She thought about everything except her betrothed’s disappearance and the impossible length of the aisle.
When she arrived before the priest, he crinkled his face with a smile. It was the sort of expression a concerned adult gave a child. Aurelia bristled inwardly – she looked younger than twenty-two and hated it – and turned in a half-circle to face the church.
Despite herself, she settled her gaze on the front left pew where Frederick’s family sat.
They were decent people and withheld from whispering now that Aurelia was near.
The Duke of Sandacre, Frederick’s older brother, looked down into his lap.
She watched him, wondering what was passing through his mind.
The brothers could not have been more different.
Frederick was urban and charming. The Duke…
Well, Aurelia did not know enough about the Duke to really say what he was, only that he was not like Frederick at all.
He was wildly beautiful – wild like the Scottish moors where Aurelia’s family used to summer.
It pained her to look at him for too long, but she could not help herself, not even on the day of her wedding.
His dark wavy hair was perfectly arranged, the ends curling against his ivory cravat.
His thick brows flickered a moment, and then he looked up.
Aurelia couldn’t look away fast enough. Her stomach tightened as they locked eyes, toes curling in her shoes.
The Duke’s mouth twitched. He always looked so serious and distant.
They had barely spoken when they had met previously to arrange the wedding.
He had been quiet. Aurelia had been too nervous and impressed by him.
It had nothing to do with his wealth and title and everything to do with his strange spirit.
But if he meant to say anything now, he didn’t.
An elderly woman, Frederick’s grandmother, tapped on his arm, and he turned to her.
That same moment, a door opened somewhere. There were footsteps behind the altar. They came quickly and deliberately in the sudden silence of the church.
A young liveried man emerged to the right of the altar.
He must have come in from one of the back doors.
The church held its breath. It was not Frederick – not by a long shot.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he caught sight of the priest. Aurelia remembered him vaguely.
He had served them drinks once at Sandacre House.
A bead of sweat traced a path down the side of his face.
“Mrs. Hartwell?” he said to Aurelia’s aunt.
“What is the…? What is this?” Violet stepped forward, pointing at the Battle crest embroidered on his livery, then looked back at Aurelia with horror. “From Sandacre House.”
They both glanced at the Duke of Sandacre.
He had risen from the bench, hands tight around the wooden railing before him, seemingly as confused as they were.
Aurelia felt embarrassed, and was not sure why, like she was guilty of this somehow, and the Duke, her future brother-in-law, would be displeased.
“What has happened?” Violet asked the footman. “Where is Lord Canterbury?”
The servant pressed his lips together. He looked at Aurelia and did not answer the question. Instead he reached into his coat and produced a folded sheet of paper. He held it out to Aurelia like it was about to detonate.
Aurelia reached for the paper, expecting a handwritten note from Frederick explaining his delay.
But it could barely be counted as a note.
On the outside someone had scrawled, “Forgive me. Not there for your sake.” Unfolding it, she recognised the nature of the document.
She had seen its kind before. It was the sort of cheaply printed scandal sheet that circulated through London during the social season and somehow made its way into even the finest homes.
She had read them on occasion at her friend Lydia's insistence, despite thinking they were vulgar and cruel.
But she had never thought, never, that she would appear in them herself.
The printed words were not ambiguous in any direction.
They must still have been warm, fresh from the printer’s, when Frederick first handled them, because the edges were smudged.
“Lord F— B—, younger brother to the Duke of S—, has this morning departed London in the company of Lady S— W—, formerly betrothed to the aforementioned Duke, and long understood to be the intended of one Miss K—”
She stopped once she reached the bottom, beginning again from the top. The resulting statement did not change. Lord Canterbury Battle had left London that morning with Lady Seraphina Whitmore. They were travelling northward. The destination was not in question, and neither was their intention.
Her fingers trembled as she folded the paper back along the creases, bile rising in her throat and stinging the flesh there.
She swallowed, willing herself not to cry in front of all these people.
There were far more of Frederick’s relations there than hers.
Did they already know? Had they sensed something about this day that she hadn’t? Had the Duke?