Chapter 1 #2
“Aurelia…” Her aunt's voice had gone to a register she did not use often, soft with worry. “What does it say, Aurelia?”
“Frederick,” she replied, stopping to suppress her rising nausea, “has gone to Gretna Green… with Lady Seraphina Whitmore.”
She had to say all of it at once. She would not have survived a break in the words.
The priest shifted, his presence coming over her like a shadow. Her aunt made a sound she had never heard her make before. Aunt Violet was not looking at Aurelia then with an expression of fury. She was looking at the Duke of Sandacre.
Aurelia wanted to look and find some reassurance in him, but she could not bear the sight of him – different, yes, but too close to Frederick still – and continued looking down at the sheet for want of something to do instead of screaming.
Inside the church, the murmuring had become something else entirely.
It was the low collective sound of the scandal sheet’s contents being repeated.
Someone said a name – it was her own, Aurelia realised after-the-fact – and it rippled through the room like a stone in water, outward in rings.
The news was travelling and would not stop.
Outside the church, it would already have begun, while she waited there stupidly in her bridal gown for a groom who never had any intention of arriving, who had run off with another woman.
She understood now that was why the servant had been sent. Frederick hadn’t wanted to inform her, he had wanted to give the appearance of having informed her, so that no one could say she had not been told, that she could not have known better than to go to St. George’s that morning.
The world spun. She thought at first that she had imagined the whitish light as it struck her face, some trick of her deceived and failing mind.
But it was not a trick. The church doors were open and light poured in.
And the noise – good God that noise of people and Mayfair town outside – was real too.
Figures were moving toward the exit, and if not moving then standing or sitting in the pews and talking.
Aurelia took a step back, feeling faint.
She did not speak, not even when she stumbled over the altar step and collided with the priest. Not when Violet grabbed her arm and shook her gently, saying her name over and over as if Aurelia were dying.
Not when she saw the handsome Duke of Sandacre stir from the corner of her eye and felt more than shame.
She thought absurdly of Frederick’s kind brown eyes as they looked through her like she was not real, and she almost laughed.
It would have been worse than crying, to laugh, so she did not do that either.
And then she thought of her parents, and for a moment she was glad they were dead so they did not have to witness her fall.
She was falling fast in esteem, in space. Falling, and could not stop falling.
It took only minutes for the disorder his brother had caused to find its full expression.
Miss Knowles hit the ground softly, the squat ungainly priest holding her beneath the shoulders, cradling her against him and saying a prayer as her aunt fanned her with the same scandal sheet that had caused her to faint.
Evander looked around as he rose, pushing past his cousins to exit the pews, increasingly irritated by their slowness and their hands pawing at him.
Guests stood in loose clusters, a plague on the church floor.
The organ made a brief attempt to resume before someone thought better of it, though maybe that had been an accident.
A woman near the back was being attended to with smelling salts, either from genuine distress or to distract from Miss Knowles’s fall – who could say?
Not Evander, no, not at all. He was still processing what had been read aloud by his younger brother’s bride, moving on instinct toward the woman who Freddy had cast aside like an ill-fitting coat.
Beneath his shock, something dark and familial stirred within him that he was not yet ready to consider. He wished he had stayed in the country. Not Kent, which Freddy preferred, but Norfolk. He wished he were not here.
A hand appeared at his elbow now that he had disentangled himself from his family. It was one of his female cousins, saying she would fetch a doctor for Miss Knowles post-haste, asking if she could take the carriage. Yes, he was saying in daze, and take Granny home too – she should not see this.
Then came a soft, “Your Grace,” cutting through the fog of his thoughts.
It was the worried voice of that maternal aunt and guardian, Mrs. Hartwell, glancing up at him as she fanned her niece. Time moved strangely. He could have sworn he had just been elsewhere. Now he was before them at the altar, choking on the smell of flowers and nervous sweat from the priest.
Evander crouched beside the bride. Miss Knowles was deathly pale.
Her eyes were half open, and they had rolled into the back of her head.
What a morbid but beautiful sight. She reminded him terribly of a painting he had acquired in Paris years ago and had planned to give to Seraphina’s parents after they were wed.
A small detail at present, he thought mirthlessly, staring down at the unconscious young woman while his own bride was halfway across the country.
The aunt was asking him what he intended to do, and Evander started. Did she mean about the failed wedding or about the niece lying on the ground? He shook his head and tapped Miss Knowles lightly on the face. She did not stir.
“They are bringing a doctor,” Evander said, checking his cousin had gone, and she had. Miss Knowles’s skin was cool and soft against his hand, and it sent a chill through him – not of fear, not exactly.
“Not about the doctor,” Mrs. Hartwell said, her eyes widening. “What about your brother? What about Lord Canterbury? And your betrothed, Lord Salsburgh’s girl…”
Evander sucked a breath through his teeth, steadying himself. “Now is hardly the time for that.”
“But the more time that is wasted…” She fanned herself. “They could be anywhere now, Your Grace.”
Someone cut them off with a hand on his shoulder. He recognised the voice. It was one of Freddy’s associates, John French, who was always coming to the house in summertime to play cricket.
“It seems,” John said, dropping his voice to the register of grave confidence, “there has been some complication with Frederick.”
Evander returned his gaze to Miss Knowles. “What a keen insight. Do you have anything useful to say, French?”
A pause, as the young man adjusted his approach. “Your brother,” he said more plainly, “has run away with your betrothed. Do you intend to pursue him? Shall I?”
Evander scowled and rose to his feet. He towered over John. He towered over most people. “What do you think? Find the footman who came here. Tell him to return to the house and send someone after my brother at once.”
The man hesitated, maybe knowing more than he was letting on. “If this is your desire…”
“It is not my desire, it is my order,” Evander replied, his voice rising.
The man receded, nodding. Evander scrubbed a hand over his face, thinking to no end. His mind flashed with the face of Seraphina. What the devil had she been thinking? What the devil had he done to deserve this?
He met the eye of Mrs. Hartwell. “Hand that here,” he said. She had picked up the scandal sheet and extended it to him, then returned to tending her niece.
Evander unfolded the paper and read. Somehow, while reading, the words did not seem so impossible to him after all.
Deep down he had always known something like this would happen.
Not this, not precisely this sequence of events.
Not Frederick's particular brand of mischief delivered at quite this moment.
But he had doubted something, a wrongness he had permitted himself to overlook.
He had seen them together, Freddy and Seraphina, especially in Norfolk.
He had told himself it was a friendship, a familiarity, the natural warmth of two people who had moved in the same circles for years and were going to be brother and sister soon enough.
That had been Evander’s mistake, and now Miss Knowles was paying for it, and so would his own family.
His thoughts moved without his full permission to the jilted bride, and then his eyes moved too.
She was awake now, covering her face with her hands.
He badly wanted to see her. The hands moved to rip something out of her hair.
A metal hair accessory. It clattered down the altar steps and a piece broke off.
He had last seen her at luncheon yesterday, straight-backed and composed at the pianoforte, hanging on Frederick’s every word when he interrupted her with a joke.
He thought she loved him and was glad for his brother, who he hoped loved her too.
Evander would never know love. He had made his peace with that.
There was no one in the world he preferred over his own company.
But not everyone was like him. Not Miss Knowles, though he hardly knew her.
But women needed to be wanted. Why should she have been any different?
The buckle landed at his feet. He picked up the pieces, the bulk of it and a small plated flower, and crouched before her again.
“Miss Knowles,” he said, repeating himself when she did not hear him, more concerned than he expected to be. “We must return you home, Miss Knowles.”
She seemed surprised to see him there. Her pale, heart-shaped face contorted with horror, then sadness.
He had never seen her look so alive. And despite the appalling, confusing events of that morning, despite the fact he had no right to feel this way, he could not help but admire the natural, terrible, unfiltered emotion she displayed. She was sublime.
“Why has this happened?” she murmured, coming apart slowly. Her aunt reached for her and she pushed her away, determined to straighten herself. A tear fell from her eye. The priest and Mrs. Hartwell stepped back.
The church was clearing out now. Evander wasn’t sure who had directed the guests to leave, but most of them were gone.
Handing Mrs. Hartwell the hair buckle, he reached out a hand for Miss Knowles to take. “Only the Lord knows. But there is no use staying here,” he said softly. “Come, stand up.”
She hesitated a moment, then allowed him to pull her upright.
She stumbled, still weak from her collapse, and fell against him.
He froze as she settled a hand on his chest to steady herself.
It was the matter of a few seconds, but they lasted for ever.
She was thin and cold, her chestnut brown hair frizzing around her face in ringlets.
His body tensed involuntarily, and he swore he felt her tense too.
The day would sort itself, like it always did. There were solicitors and licenses, the careful machinery of damage mitigation, and Evander knew how to operate it…
But he did not know how to help this woman who stood in his arms and sobbed. He did not know if he could.