“Yes, Grandmother?” she said, as calmly as she could when her heart was attempting to leap from her chest.
“Your sister is vulgar in speech. The habit should have been beaten out of her in a sterner fashion. But that is by the by. It is true, I am going to give you all the instruction needed as a wife in regard to marital relations.”
“I am r-ready.”
“Good,” said Lady Kingsford briskly, although she looked ill at ease. “You’ll have separate bedchambers, of course. In future, Exton will inform you when he wishes to visit yours. Always admit him, unless you have your courses. The visits might be frequent to start, only natural when the conceiving of heirs is yet to be achieved. But once you have done your duty as a proper wife, he will graciously leave you be and indulge his manly appetites elsewhere.”
Lilian gulped. “Is it so very bad?”
The older woman’s lips pursed. “The first time will be extremely painful as he takes your maidenhead. But if you lie very still and quiet, it will soon be over with.”
“How, exactly, does he, er, take my maidenhead?” blurted Lilian, her cheeks so hot they probably could have boiled water.
“Gracious me. I thought I had cured you of such coarse inquisitiveness. Oh, do not look so woebegone. He will lift your nightgown to your waist, part your thighs and put his male part inside you, stir it about, and release his seed. Then he will bid you goodnight and leave.”
Lilian stared at the wooden floor. Really? That was the great secret that couldn’t be shared with unmarried women because it would corrupt their souls? It hardly seemed feasible that such information would tempt anyone to ruin, not when it all sounded so unpleasant. Perhaps the poets and writers who waxed lyrical about the joys of carnal love hadn’t actually experienced it.
“Does it hurt every time?” she said eventually, daring to raise her gaze to her grandmother’s once again.
Lady Kingsford sighed irritably and shifted in her chair. “After the first coupling, there will be discomfort rather than pain. As I said, if you are still and quiet, it will be over sooner.”
“So it is never, ah…” Lilian swallowed hard, the memory of Exton’s lips burning her hand still fresh in her mind. “Nice?”
“Perhaps. If you are a filthy whore.”
A shocked gasp escaped at the use of such a word, and her heart sank at the frigid fury on her grandmother’s face. Never had she looked so angry. “What?”
“Only whores enjoy the act. That is why courtesans and mistresses have few children. When they revel in depravity and find their own pleasure, it kills any baby being created. You would not want to murder your own son or daughter because you were selfish and immoral, would you?”
“No!” she said quickly, so horrified she rose to her feet and wrapped her arms about herself.
“Then heed my words. Women who lure men away from a righteous path never prosper. Why do you think your mother died? Because of her disgusting hot blood, and her bold, willful, inquisitive nature. Fortunately I saved you children from total corruption, although I still hold grave fears for you all. However, if you behave as a proper wife, a proper duchess, you will soon quicken with child and please His Grace. Do not embarrass yourself by behaving lewdly, asking silly questions, or speaking out of turn. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Then it is time for us to go to the chapel. You look agreeable. That gown is becomingly modest, and your hair is just so. A pity nothing can be done about your lips, from your mother’s side of course. Far too much pout. One wonders if she concealed a touch of foreign blood somewhere along her line, but my foolish son would have no other. Are you ready to be wed? To do right by your family?”
No. It’s too soon. And I fear I may have my mother’s hot blooded nature. What if I can’t suppress it?
“Yes,” Lilian whispered.
“Your father is waiting across the hall to walk you down the aisle.”
Minutes later, they were on their way.
Langton’s chapel, located within Lambeth Palace, was a truly spectacular building in London, with beautiful stained glass windows that fortunately allowed in a lot of light. In contrast, he loathed the black and white checkered marble floor, looking at it for any length of time would give anyone vertigo.
Grimacing, Gabriel looked around the chapel. There were only a few guests here, although as the Jordan-Ives family were still officially in mourning, hardly unexceptional. Actually, he was vastly relieved that he wouldn’t have a large audience for this ceremony. Marriage should be personal. Private. Not a damned bloody marching band parade like some peers expected. If they were so desperate to prove their status or wealth, there were plenty of better ways, like donating to charity. Not to mention that the fewer people who saw him struggling to stand or speak, the better.
“Good morning, Your Grace. All ready?”
He turned and smiled at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton. The slender and affable archbishop was the grandson of a duke himself, and Gabriel had found him to be intelligent, hospitable, and admirably resolute in his desire to assist the poor and needy, unlike many churchmen who came from wealth. No wonder the queen, and Prime Minister Liverpool, trusted him with important matters. “Archbishop. You look well. And yes, ready…as I’ll ever be.”
“Lady Lilian and his lordship will be here momentarily, I understand just a little last minute hem adjustment.”
More relief than he thought possible shot through him. “Good start. Bride actually here. And thank you for allowing…the vows to be read line by line.”
The archbishop nodded as he lovingly patted the large open Bible on the pulpit. “No trouble at all. In unique circumstances such as yours, a little flexibility is the least I can do. Now, I hate to be indelicate, but how is your foot faring?”
Gabriel gave the man a rueful smile. “Only for your ears…I’ll say rather tender. It doesn’t do so well…when the season is changing.”
“Understood. I shall ensure my sermon errs on the side of brevity…ah, I see Kingsford. No fashionably late bride today, thankfully.”
Gabriel turned to watch Lilian walk toward him on her father’s arm. She looked beautiful if rather tense, dressed in a high-necked pale blue gown with a fine overlay of some sort of lace. After the little glimpse of passion he’d witnessed at their balcony meeting, he found it hard to believe the overly modest gowns were her choice, but they could be. He’d have to wait until the evening to discover what kind of figure lay hidden beneath.
When the pair stood next to him in front of the pulpit, Lord Kingsford formally placed Lilian’s hand in his, then moved to take a seat next to his mother.
This was it.
The archbishop welcomed them all and began his sermon on the sanctity of marriage. As his words filled the chapel, a tiny shimmy of movement made Gabriel glance down. Lilian, trembling. He gently rubbed his thumb over her too-cold knuckles, and she smiled shyly as she discreetly squeezed his hand in return. There. Again the hint that a quite different woman might exist under the awful gowns and rigid manners.
As promised, the sermon was blessedly short, and soon came time to recite the vows, although it passed in rather a blur as he concentrated fiercely on forming the words to speak.
“And you, Gabriel Arthur Jordan-Ives, Duke of Exton,” intoned the archbishop, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
His ‘I will’ sounded fine, but a thin layer of perspiration gathered at his neck at the recitation to come. And his bloody foot had begun to throb.
Manners-Sutton gave him a quick, encouraging smile and continued the ceremony until finally it came time for the exchange of rings. “Please repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed…”
Gabriel lifted Lilian
’s left hand and slid the plain gold band onto her third finger. “With this ring…I thee wed.”
“With my body I thee worship…”
Any second now he would be struck down by a heavenly bolt of lightning for the explicit thoughts now flooding his mind. Tonight. She would be all his, tonight. “With my body,” he said gruffly, and Lilian’s cheeks pinkened, “I thee worship.”
“And with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”
“And with all…my worldly goods…I thee…endow,” Gabriel finished awkwardly, wanting to curse his uncooperative mouth as his scar ached and pulled. He sounded like a drunken fool, and Lilian’s expression had turned quizzical.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Gabriel took a deep breath, but his heart started racing as the start of a vicious cramp seized up his maimed foot and the back of his calf. “In the name…of the Father…and of…the Son…and of the…Holy Ghost. Amen.”
After one final prayer and a blessing, Lilian was his wife. His duchess. Yet he couldn’t even enjoy the moment, as he battled to remain upright and not let his leg buckle under him as it occasionally did.
One step. Two. Nod. Smile. Shake hands. Don’t stumble. Don’t wince. Three steps. Four. Five. Don’t look at the damned floor, or you will fall over. Breathe through the pain. Breathe!
“Exton? Are you well?”
He stared down at Lilian, hoping he didn’t look as forbidding as he felt. If they could just move away from the witnesses, and the bloody lawyers seated at the back. Pain was bad enough, but pain in front of an audience, goddamned unbearable. It reminded him too much of those dark, dark days in France. “Quite well.”
Lilian bit her lip, and for a moment looked like she might argue, then she squared her shoulders and instead turned to receive kisses on the cheek from her sisters.
It took forever, but finally, finally, they were in his carriage and returning to the ducal townhouse for the reception. Again, he could practically feel her curiosity, but she didn’t say a word, instead rubbing her wedding band with her thumb. He wanted to reassure her, pat her hand, kiss her, something. But white-hot pain stabbed through his foot and up his leg continuously now, and it took all his will to remain seated and not slide down and curl into a ball on the floor of the carriage. He’d stood for far too long. Succumbed to vanity, instead of balancing on his cane, or requesting a chair. And now he not only paid the price, but behaved like a boor toward his new wife. Damnation. All he needed was a few bottles of brandy, then some of Hobbs’s foul-scented balm to rub into his foot and leg, and he would be fine. Well, if they ever got home. Every carriage, cart, and phaeton in London had appeared on the streets, and they were moving at a pace snails would be ashamed of.
“It was a, um, lovely ceremony, don’t you think?” said Lilian so tentatively, he wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. Why, for one bloody day, couldn’t his body behave? Just a little time where he wasn’t a shadow of his former self.
“Lovely,” he gritted out, as eye-watering agony clamped his foot in a vise-like grip.
“Archbishop Manners-Sutton is such a kind man.”
“He is.”
“Are…are you sure you are well?” Lilian sat forward, and before he could stop her, she touched his knee.
A part of him knew she meant the action with kindness, unthreatening and without intent to injure, but the clawing darkness descended, clouding his mind with memories, twisting together with the pain, and he roughly jerked away from her. “Yes. Don’t touch me.”
She shrank back, her cheeks scarlet, and Gabriel wanted to put his fist through a window. His body, he hated most days. But his mind was crueler, dictating rigid terms of engagement when it came to other people, even those he trusted implicitly. They must not stand too close, or touch any part of him other than his hands or arms, no matter how much he craved the warmth and comfort of a tender caress.
How long had it been since a woman embraced him? Stroked his hair? Massaged his shoulders? He couldn’t even remember. His beloved mother had died years ago, soon after he’d joined the army. And now he had a wife, a woman who seemed compassionate and gentle, and he’d recoiled from her as though she revolted him. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. He wanted her more than anything in the world.
Instead, he would have brandy and balm.
Absolutely no substitute whatsoever.
Chapter 3
“I just asked again, ma’am. Mr. Hobbs says His Grace is indisposed.”
Looking up from her seat beside the lavish bedchamber’s fireplace, Lilian smiled at the upstairs maid as though the news couldn’t be more unexceptional for a wife on her wedding night. “Oh dear. I hope the kitchens have sent broth, and perhaps some barley water to ease him.”
“Oh no, they’ve just been sending brandy. Lots and lots of brandy.”
Humiliation stiffened her shoulders. It was difficult and lonely enough being a new bride in a new house with new servants, but now the only person she knew other than her own lady’s maid Dawn, had abandoned her for the company of brandy bottles? “I see.”
“Will there be anything else, madam? It is late.”
At the maid’s insolent tone, Lilian glanced up sharply. Even though she’d only been here several hours, one thing had become abundantly clear: the servants, rather than Exton, ruled the roost. From what she’d observed, they were lazy, free with gossip, rude, and utterly disloyal to their employer. How matters had been allowed to get so out of hand, she had no idea. Even if they were still attached to the previous duke—and she could understand that, feeling the same way herself—life could be cruel. Young, healthy men died unexpectedly. Cousins inherited. And they would all have to adjust. Well, if her new husband didn’t discard her before the ink dried on the marriage papers. “I beg your pardon?”
The maid blinked owl eyes. “Er…”
“Let me make myself plain,” said Lilian, leaning forward in her chair. “I expect the very best of those employed under this roof, and value loyalty and hard work. I will not tolerate disrespect. Or gossip regarding His Grace.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said eventually, her lips twisted in the tiniest of sneers, and her curtsy perfunctory at best.
“Dismissed.”
After the maid hurried from the room, Lilian wrapped her arms about herself. Here she was, a married woman in a house three times the size of her father’s, surrounded by luxury and countless servants, and she’d never felt more alone. It cut especially deep that just when she had resolved to put her past love behind her and try to make the best of this marriage, Exton would reject her. Obviously he regretted the marriage, for he had been acting strangely from the moment the archbishop declared them man and wife. Despite saying he felt perfectly well first in the carriage and then during the reception as her family ate rich fruit cake and drank fine wine, he’d looked increasingly forbidding and left the parlor on several occasions. Of course, when quizzical eyes turned her way, she had merely smiled and murmured ‘important ducal business’ as a proper, loyal duchess did.
Ding Dong. Ding Dong.
The soft chimes from the wooden clock sitting on the carved oak mantelpiece startled her from her reverie, and she winced. Midnight. If Exton wished to come and claim his husbandly rights, he surely would have made an appearance by now. Good heavens, he confused her. How could he have near-devoured her with his gaze at her father’s townhouse and kissed her hand with such heated promise, then angrily recoil from a light touch when they were alone in the carriage? She didn’t think she’d done anything terribly wrong, especially after he’d been so kind during the ceremony. That comforting touch, when she’d been reeling after the talk with her grandmother and nervous about the wedding. At that moment, she’d thought perhaps an excellent husbandly choice had been made, and they might eventually build a marriage of more than polite strangers, one of real affection and friendship. Yet since then, he’d turned away, avoided her at
the reception, and now didn’t want to bed her.
Lilian bit her lip and stared at the door connecting their chambers, willing it to open. Even the horrible, painful act of losing her virginity that Grandmother had described would be better than this clawing feeling of rejection. It wasn’t like she would sleep easily. The bedchamber was just so big, the furniture unfamiliar, and the sounds of the room all wrong. Unless everyone was lying to protect her sensibilities and Exton had departed to be with his mistress? Someone experienced and skilled, who knew how to bring a man great pleasure?
“No,” she said loudly, as though volume might make her believe it. Blast it, this was her wedding night. Time to find out where she stood.
Hurrying over to the connecting door, her nightgown and robe swirling around her ankles, Lilian halted, took a deep breath, and knocked. “Exton? May I come in?”
Unfortunately when the door partially opened, Hobbs stood there rather than her husband. “Good evening, Your Grace. I’m very sorry, but His Grace is indisposed. I hoped that message would have reached you.”
Annoyance flared at the memory. “It did. But as a concerned wife, I wish to see the indisposition for myself.”
Hobbs looked away, the portrait of guilt. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. He is, ah, sleeping.”
“On his wedding night?”
“Yes, madam,” he replied, his cheeks red, but remaining a boulder between her and Exton’s chamber.
“I believe you are lying to me. Did he…did he go to his mistress?”
“No! Ah, no, I swear.”
Lilian’s gaze narrowed. “Then why the secrecy? Why are you barring me from entering my husband’s bedchamber?”
“Because,” the valet’s shoulders slumped, “His Grace will be angry with me if you see him in his current state.”
Duke in Darkness (Wickedly Wed Book 1) Page 4
