The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  “I’ll ride this part of the way with you,” he said, after he helped her up the step into the carriage.

  She was pleased by that, but also a little hurt that he hadn’t asked to ride with her; he’d only told her he was going to. Of course, she realized, he had every right to do whatever he wanted. Then she thought of all the other things he had a perfect right to do, and blushed. Good heavens, she thought a little muzzily, she really didn’t know him at all.

  She waited until he was seated beside her in the carriage before she decided to get better acquainted.

  “My name,” she said slowly and distinctly, “is Dulcie Dawn Blessing. It may have been Blessingham in the past, but Father said someone changed it. ‘Snipped off our little piggy tail,’ as he put it. Anyway,” she went on, trying to ignore Crispin’s wide, brilliantly blue, and fascinated stare, “I am twenty years old, and will be one and twenty in the summertime. July the first, actually. I’ve lived all my life in England. I can speak a little French, though. Very little,” she said sadly, “having never traveled much farther than Scotland. My father taught me French. Actually, one of his lady friends did. But I haven’t seen her in ages. Neither has he, but you mustn’t think he’s a bad man because he used to see her. He was very discreet. My mother has lived in Lincolnshire with her sister since I was eight, you see. That’s why I can’t sew very well, I imagine. But since Father and I were often on our own, I can cook, if I have to, and my cooking is quite good…if you’re very hungry,” she added, and tried not to giggle. What she’d said had sounded good in her mind, but silly when she’d said it aloud. Everything seemed very silly to her now.

  He smiled at her and said kindly, “The ale at the inn was fresh and good, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, no. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t drink ale. I had the cider instead. It was very good—fermented,” she told him.

  “Really?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  She continued to gaze at him expectantly.

  “My turn?” he asked. “All right,” he said, leaning back against the squabs and stretching out his legs. “My name is Crispin George Thomas Knightly, Viscount West. I’ve seven and twenty years to my credit—or discredit. I’ll have one more this autumn. October the eleventh. My parents are gone, several years now. No brothers or sisters surviving. Now, what else? Yes. Let’s see: I’ve been on the grand tour and visited France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and some of the Germanies. Egypt, and Greece, too, of course. I speak French, German, Spanish, and Italian. And I can read Latin. Why are you crying?”

  “You’re s-so accomplished,” she said, biting her lip as tears coursed down her face. “How you must detest being married to me!”

  He took out a handkerchief and touched it to her cheek, and she managed to stop crying as he blotted her tears. Then he offered her his handkerchief, but she only shook her head in horrified denial and sniveled, although more quietly. It seemed rude to use his handkerchief for her nose. He insisted, however, and she honked in it in as ladylike a manner as she could manage. But she glanced down and saw how fine it was, and began to cry again to think she’d used it at all. She told him why, and he started laughing, which made it worse. So he took her in his arms and held her and told her she should try to sleep. Which was absurd, she thought, considering it was only early afternoon.

  When she opened her eyes again it was dusk. Her cheek lay against a hard surface. She was about to raise her head when she felt the steady comforting beat beneath the woolen coat her head was resting on, and realized who she was with, and where she was. And that she was, incredibly enough, lying against the viscount’s warm and breathing chest. She lay still, enjoying the warmth, the comfort, the fresh clean scent of his linen, the spicy smell of his cologne, his soap, himself. It was a small, secret, stolen pleasure, and she reveled in it. It was almost like being home; it was almost like being loved.

  “We’re almost there,” he whispered against the top of her head, and she started, wondering how he’d known she was awake. “Your breathing,” he said in answer to her unspoken question, and she heard the smile in his voice, “it changed. You have the faintest suggestion of a snore.” He chuckled. “Like a mouse’s, no more than that, I promise you. It may just have been your drunken stupor.”

  She struggled to sit upright, and he released her instantly. She blinked and scrubbed her eyes with her fists. Then she sat bolt upright, and her hands flew to her hair as it tumbled about her shoulders. He’d taken the pins out while she’d slept. He held them out to her on his outstretched palm. She chose them one by one, thrusting them into her hair quickly so she wouldn’t have to keep noting how large and shapely a hand he had. Or how he kept staring at her tumbled hair.

  “Feeling better?” he asked when she was done.

  “Yes,” she said, and couldn’t say more, she was so flustered.

  “We won’t reach the hall until well after nightfall,” he said, sitting back and pretending not to watch her anymore.

  She’d been warm and curved and perfumed as she’d lain in his lap, and he’d refrained from touching her only because he was a gentleman and she was obviously sodden. And, he admitted, he didn’t know if he’d have been able to stop touching her once he started. Her silken hair, he’d discovered, was scented with vinegar and flowers. A most unlikely combination. It stirred him even as it amused him. Vinegar and flowers, he thought, bemused. Very like the girl herself.

  “You’ll like the hall,” he said, for something to take his mind off the pale oval of her face and those great amber eyes watching him in the dusky light. “It was built in Henry Tudor’s time and is old-fashioned, I suppose, but comfortable. And very beautiful. Or was. I need to do some work on it—buy back paintings, rugs, statuary. I couldn’t sell the flowers from the gardens when I needed money, thank God. Or the wallpaper. And I left beds in the bedrooms,” he said. He realized he was babbling, because he was trying so hard to forget that she was no longer drunk and that they were alone, and she was so warm and he was cold now without her.

  “It’s very beautiful,” he said, leaning close, breathing in her scent again, “Lovely,” he whispered as he drew her back into his arms. But this time, for his own comfort.

  Her mouth was newly awakened and tender beneath his. She was just as warm and curved as he’d remembered, but now her hands went to his shoulders as he pressed closer, and she held him tight. His tongue traced her lips as his hands traced her body, and he felt as well as heard her catch her breath at his touch.

  And then she was gone—halfway across the carriage from him and spitting like a cat.

  “Save your breath,” he said with bored amusement he didn’t feel. “I know, you’re not that kind of girl. Spare me, please. But I’ll remind you,” he said as he tapped his walking stick on the roof to signal the coach to stop, “that you are my wife, this is my carriage, that is my gown you’re wearing, and before you start raging at me, that was my kiss you were enjoying. Very much. I’ll ride the rest of the way,” he said as the coach stopped and the driver looked in to see what he wanted.

  Dulcie watched him as he swung out of the carriage, and then up on to his horse again, leaving them both to wonder what would happen when there was no horse nearby for him to leap on.

  CHAPTER 10

  This kissing business had to stop. Absolutely, Dulcie told herself fiercely as they rode through the night. Crispin stayed outside, though the night was pitch, lit only by lanterns on either side of the coach. He obviously didn’t want to come in, though it must have been like riding through ink out there. What must he think of her? If it was anything like what she thought of herself, she was in terrible trouble. She’d never had such a problem before. This was a fine time to start having it, she thought with a groan. Was she an utter fool as well as an unlucky one? She was at the man’s mercy, for heaven’s sake, a poor girl with only her virtue as her dowry.

  Well, not really, she reminded herself. She had her hidden coins and could leave if
things got really bad.

  Someday she hoped to really marry, and her husband would expect her to be pure. He had a right to expect that. He could toss her out if she was not. A ruined girl of her expectations was fit only for selling what she had rashly given away. Chastity was her only dowry. She’d heard that all her life, and had seen it to be true over the years as she’d been dragged across the kingdom with her father. The vulgar saying was that once a girl had experienced carnal love, she couldn’t do without. She’d never believed that. Until she met Crispin. And that was only kisses! she thought miserably.

  She wasn’t afraid of passion—only of tasting it before-time. She’d been raised properly, but she had lived among the lower classes, and among people who spoke frankly about life. So she knew a lot about what she’d never experienced. It struck her as an improbable act, with little reward for the women involved except for children or, in some cases, money. Men, however, thought it was wonderful, and she supposed, generously, that for them it was. For some women, too, she hoped, remembering ribald comments of older women she’d overheard.

  But she’d had little experience of men. Decent men did not get serious with wastrel’s daughters, and she’d had nothing to do with less than decent ones. With gentlemen, she’d had no experience at all. Her new husband had every advantage over her: money, title, position, and experience. And the opportunity to make love with whomever he chose, whenever the whim moved him. It seemed it moved him often.

  She was certain that he wasn’t the sort to try to overpower her. He hadn’t yet had to, she thought bitterly. What was the matter with her? He already thought her the lowest creature, however kind he was to her.

  She had to leave as soon as possible. She wished things could be different, but wishes were nothing, as she knew too well. She had to get through these next days or weeks with her dignity and her virtue, intact. It wasn’t his wiles, but his face, voice, and manner that were a threat.

  No more kisses! If she was as firm with herself as she intended to be with him, she thought she could get by. Until…until when? That question made her even more unhappy, and so she was melancholy when the carriage finally came to a halt. The clouds were breaking up in a freshening wind, and she saw Darnley Hall for the first time in a sudden flash of bright moonlight. She took in a breath, and wasn’t sure she ever let it out again.

  Crispin had said he had a house in the countryside. Dulcie had expected a rambling cottage, or maybe a fine house on a hill overlooking the village green. Not a castle—or something very much like one—all by itself in a park with gardens and drives. Myriad windows glittered with candlelight. A wide double door opened on a vast hall filled with servants, who had lined up before a great stairway to greet their lord and his new lady—a lady who was afraid to venture inside and who couldn’t catch her breath. A firm arm on her shoulders led her in, and she breathed, she supposed later, only because she’d no choice in that matter, either.

  She nodded to the servants’ curtsies and bows, and was glad to see her maid from London waiting for her in the bedroom to which Crispin led her. It was furnished in pink and gold, and in spite of what he’d said in the coach, she could find nothing lacking in it. She washed, put on a night shift, and tumbled into a feather bed made up with fresh sheets, and thought she was in heaven. After all those hours in the coach it was wonderful to stretch out on something that wasn’t moving. And despite her fears, she was left alone. But, tired as she was, she was a long time falling asleep, because her pillow wasn’t warm and breathing and was not scented with shaving soap and spice.

  *

  It was cruel to leave the girl alone, Crispin thought as he rode back from seeing one of his tenants. After all, she was a child of the city. What could she find to do with herself here? He had an estate to oversee, old acquaintances to drop in on. Then there was the village itself. He could always stop for a chat and a pint of ale—or cider, he thought, smiling at the memory of Dulcie’s inadvertent intoxication. Leaving her by herself might even be considered a form of punishment, since they’d only arrived at the hall the day before. He decided to take her into the village that very morning. He spurred his horse homeward. She’d be grateful, of course, but he was only being kind, as he would to any lonely, confused young person, he told himself sternly.

  It was hard to share a house with her, for she was impossible to ignore. It was a big house, but not so big that he didn’t know exactly where she was every minute. The scent of her always lingered in the room where she’d been, and he seemed to know just when to turn his head to catch a glimpse of her as she walked by. Finding her in a room he entered was like meeting a friend after a long absence. Her face lit up at the sight of him, and then, just as suddenly, dimmed as she struggled with her embarrassment. So he couldn’t ignore her, he told himself; it wasn’t right.

  He hadn’t lived with a woman for years. His mother had been gone for many years, and he’d had no sisters. He liked women, although he’d never liked any enough to marry, except Charlotte. She had been his goal in life. Yet, curiously, he found it hard to grieve about losing her while he was so occupied with his present problem. Thoughts of Dulcie seemed to overshadow everything else these days. That was only natural; this false wife of his was a problem to be solved—that and nothing more, he told himself sternly. And yet there was also this queer protectiveness he felt toward the girl…

  He remembered Wrede’s warnings and resolved to keep the thought of Charlotte bright in his memory. And he would have, if thoughts of Dulcie hadn’t kept intruding. It was really too bad that she was all alone in a strange place today, he reminded himself.

  This was a time to be gotten through with the least pain for all concerned. But there was no reason it couldn’t be a pleasant time, was there? That, he told himself, and only that, was the reason for the sudden surge of pleasure he felt as he hurried home to spend the day with Dulcie.

  * * *

  “I thought we’d ride into the village today,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t want anyone to see me,” she said.

  He looked at her; he hadn’t been able to stop doing that since he’d found her strolling in the garden. She wore a white gown sprinkled with violets, its belled skirt adorned with lavender panniers. A matching violet ribbon was threaded through her curls. She looked as fresh and lovely as the country morning, and he felt perversely proud of her.

  “I must show you to the people I know here, which is everyone, I suppose,” he said. “There’ll be rumors, otherwise. You’re my wife, for however long that may be. They’ll talk unless they see you. They’ll talk anyway, but don’t worry, people are much kinder here than in London.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” she lied, “because I never heard what they said in London, did I? And I guess that if you keep me here in the house until I can leave, I’ll never hear what people say here, either. You’re the only one who’ll know what they say.”

  If her chin got any higher, her little nose would be tilted at the sky, he thought with a pang of tenderness. “True,” he said. “So shall we go?”

  “Now?” she asked, her voice breaking in a squeak of surprise.

  “Why not? We’ve got a rare sunny morning. Do you ride?”

  She looked down at her shoes. Only ladies knew how to ride. She liked horses, but all she’d ever done with one was feed it a carrot. “No,” she murmured, shamefaced.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll take a light carriage. You’ll enjoy it, I think. The sun’s taking the chill off the morning, so you’ll only need a bonnet for your hair, and a light cloak. Can you leave now?”

  She nodded, so touched by the simple courtesy of his asking when he knew she didn’t have anything else to do, and by his caring about what she wore for her comfort, that she couldn’t speak. She hurried up to her room, caught up a cloak, plopped a bonnet on her head, and raced downstairs again before her maid could come running to help her. She ran light-footed to the door and out onto the grounds, smiling and as radia
nt as the sun above her.

  Until she saw who stood in back of the two-horse open carriage. He wore clean new livery and had a clean face, but his smirk was unmistakable. She stopped and looked up at Crispin in astonishment.

  “Do you know who that is?” she whispered fiercely.

  “The one and only Willie Grab,” Crispin answered with a grin.

  “But…if you know,” she said, confused, “what’s he doing here?”

  “The boy’s the right weight for the balance we need, and he does need to learn a trade. I hired him on in London, and he rode here with the servants; you just didn’t see him.”

  “Being a deadweight seems right enough for him,” she muttered. “He’s two-faced and crafty. I wouldn’t trust him. You brought him here? Bad enough he spies on us. Do you have to pay him to do it?”

  “He says he spies for me too now,” Crispin told her gently.

  “Oh, wonderful,” she said.

  She was about to say more on the subject, but she bit her lip. There was nothing for her to do but pick up her head, take Crispin’s hand, and enter the carriage.

  The ride sent her spirits soaring. Springtime made the roadside so beautiful that Dulcie couldn’t do anything but exclaim over it. Crispin knew the name of every flower and shrub on his estate. She learned that the banks of purple blossoms thick as cabbage heads that lined the drive were exotic imported rhododendrons, and the stretches of what looked like flames leaping near them were azaleas he’d also imported from the Continent.

  “Horticulture is a gentleman’s avocation now.” He smiled when her eyes widened at his knowledge. “It’s not enough to compete with horses and houses anymore. Capability Brown is in such demand for designing gentlemen’s gardens that he was too expensive for me when I began this, but now… Oh, I won’t become ‘a son of Flora,’ as so many budding horticulturalists are doing. Going to meetings to wage real wars of roses isn’t my style. But it’s interesting. The world’s opening; we have to move with it.”