Christian crossed the room in two strides and opened the door. He stuck his head out and shouted “Jackson!” to the empty corridor. He stood, watching her askance as if he didn’t quite trust she would stay on the other side of the room. In truth, it was himself he couldn’t trust; he didn’t think he would be able to restrain himself a second time from taking her.
When no response came to his summons, Christian went out into the hall. He was readying to call out again when a liveried footman appeared at the top of the stairs—a very large liveried footman who had become quite adept at handling occasions such as these. Lord knows he’d had plenty of experience.
“My apologies for not having come sooner, my lord. There was a situation belowstairs that required my attention.”
Christian frowned. “There is a situation here that requires your attention as well.”
The footman exhaled loudly. “Another one?”
Christian motioned toward his dressing room door. “Please escort the young lady back to the fete. And then make certain that all the doors on all the servants’ passageways are securely bolted.”
“Aye, my lord.” Jackson headed for the door. “Miss, if you’ll come with—”
But the footman turned back toward Christian with a look of confusion. “My lord?”
Christian made for the door, knowing even before he got there what he would find.
She had indeed gone, vanishing just as quickly as she had come, leaving Christian to stare at the vacant wall panel she’d fallen through moments earlier, far more befuddled than he cared to admit.
Lord Cholmeley dozed in the coach after they left the ball, leaving Grace to stare out the window at the rain-slick London streets and the hazy glow of the lamplights through the swirling fog. She was thankful for the solitude, for it allowed her to better come to terms with the unbelievable events of that evening.
She still wondered how she had made it out of that house after what had taken place in Lord Knighton’s dressing room. She had taken the back stairs, slipping through the wall panel when Lord Knighton had gone into the hall. This time, however, she had found the way straight to the parlor as if her feet had always known the path. There she found her uncle and quickly asked him to take her home, telling him she was unwell—“a female ailment,” she’d added. A well-worn excuse, she knew, but it was the only thing she could think of that wouldn’t have had him instantly interrogating her. Instead he flushed pink and quickly set off to summon the coach and retrieve their cloaks.
As they had come through the entrance hall on their way to leave, Grace had spotted Lady Eleanor standing on the opposite side of the ballroom. At the sight of her, Grace had been filled with a feeling of regret. Eleanor had been so kind, so encouraging, and Grace felt she owed her some sort of explanation. But at that moment, she hadn’t known if she would be able to frame a coherent sentence. Her heart had still been pounding from the thorough kissing Lord Knighton had given her.
All her life Grace had dreamed of her first kiss as something tender, soft, infinitely romantic. It would take place on a flowery river bank or on a ballroom terrace with the moonlight filtering down through the trees. The man who would deliver her this awe-inspiring tribute would be kind and handsome and filled with adoration for her. He would be the man of her dreams.
Lord Knighton was unquestionably handsome, but any further comparison to her dream after that was lost. When he had kissed her, her response had only been turbulent and she’d felt giddy, breathless, and utterly chaotic inside. Nothing about their meeting had been as Nonny had said it would be. There had been no enchantment, no gaiety, no blissful realization of having come face to face with her life’s intended mate. There had been only fire and suddenness and a total clashing of beings, and something else she didn’t quite understand— something that had shaken her to her very core.
The worst part of it was that she had utterly humiliated herself in front of the man she was to have called husband. She would never forget the darkness of his expression, the thinly veiled anger that had sparked in his eyes when he’d spoken to her, so very contrary to the light and softness she had always envisioned. He didn’t adore her. He didn’t even like her. And that was a far from propitious preamble to a marriage.
Grace waited until they had arrived back at the Cholmeley town house, retiring to the study for a claret, before she informed her uncle she could not possibly wed Lord Knighton.
Tedric responded with something a little less than familial understanding.
“The devil you won’t wed him,” he said as he poured himself a brandy. “I don’t care if you do scream all the way down the aisle. You are going to wed Lord Knighton.’
“Uncle, please, surely there must be some other way to—”
“It is too late, Grace. He has already assumed the debt.”
She stared at him. “What did you say?”
“The duke has paid my creditors in full. It was part of the agreement of the marriage. Westover wanted any outstanding annoyances seen to before news of the wedding came about. Twenty thousand pounds is a great deal of money, Grace. There will be ramifications if you refuse to marry Lord Knighton now. Legal ramifications. The Duke of Westover is not a man to be trifled with. He has already promised to bring a breach of promise suit against us both if you do not go through with the wedding.”
“I did not take his money!”
“True… but you did sign the marriage contract. It will look as if you agreed to wed Lord Knighton strictly to get rid of my debts and then broke the agreement. You would have a very difficult time explaining to a jury that you had a change of heart about wedding Lord Knighton without having even seen the man.”
But she had seen him, Grace thought to herself—quite a lot of him, in fact. An image of him standing over her in all his half-naked glory flashed through her mind before Tedric went on. “The duke will paint you an extortionist in a very public court proceeding. And he will win his judgment. In the end, the Cholmeley family will be ruined. Honor and respect hundreds of years in the making will be lost—the same honor and respect my mother spent her life trying to preserve.”
And which you have spent your lifetime doing everything to destroy.
Grace looked to Nonny’s portrait above the hearth and she knew that her uncle was right, even though he said these things for his own advantage. Nonny would have fulfilled her duty no matter the cost, no matter the circumstances—she would have wed Mephisto himself if she’d had to.
And because she had raised her granddaughter to follow that same ethic, Grace knew she would have no choice but to do the same.
Chapter Six
Little Biddlington, Buckinghamshire, England
The vicar was grinning like a contented fiend—and well he should be. This was likely the most momentous event to have swept through his village since 1669, when one of Charles II’s many mistresses had gotten waylaid by an unprecedented blizzard, causing her and her considerable entourage of servants to bed down with the locals for three days and three nights.
Little Biddlington was about as sleepy a hamlet as could be found, made up of Tudor-style timbered houses with overhanging upper storeys that lay hidden from the main London road by a steeply sloping vale and a tangled wall of trees. The Duke of Westover couldn’t have chosen the location for the wedding of his heir with more care. Its inconspicuous locale had saved the village nearly two centuries earlier when invading Roundhead troops had been unable to find the place. A decade later, even the plague had missed it, though it struck every other village around them. Thus it would serve as the perfect setting for the wedding nobody knew was about to take place.
The church itself was quite ancient, various parts of it dating back to before the Norman conquest. Crosses cut into the stone doorway of the inner porch were said to have been made by the crusaders blunting their sword points as a dedication to peace on their return from the Holy Land. This, and the gravesite of Mary Pottinger, who had died aged one hundred
and seven in 1722, had been pointed out by the vicar, Mr. Weston, upon their arrival; they were, it would seem, the two most distinctive features of the village.
Within the space of the next few hours, though, Little Biddlington’s anonymity would be forgotten and Mr. Weston’s tiny place in history would be secure. He would no longer fall to obscurity—living, preaching, and then dying in this hidden place, unknown to the rest of the world. Instead he would be known to history as the man who had secretly wed the heir to the wealthiest peer in England. Perhaps they would erect a monument to record the occasion for posterity’s sake, right next to the headstone of one-hundred-and-seven-year-old Mary Pottinger. At the very least it would give Mr. Weston and his flock something to gossip about over tea for years to come.
And so the vicar grinned.
Christian, his grandfather the duke, his mother, and his sister had left London before dawn, traveling in an unmarked coach rented just for the occasion. If not for Eleanor’s lively chatter about the various landmarks they passed, there would not have been a word spoken at all.
Immediately upon their arrival in the village, the Westover footman had roused the vicar from sleep, presenting him the special license granted and signed by the archbishop himself. “It would be an honor to perform this service, Your Grace,” he proclaimed to the old duke from beneath his slouching night cap. He then performed his ablutions and donned his vestments with an alacrity that had surprised them all and stood now at the chancel, still grinning at his good fortune. The young lady—Christian’s intended wife—was to arrive with her uncle by a separate route. She had yet to make an appearance.
Christian stood at the end of the church’s narrow center aisle, awaiting his bride’s arrival. He glanced at the duke, who sat alone on the first bench with his hand fisted tightly around the ball of his cane. How triumphant he must feel, Christian thought, at having lived long enough to see this day, the day he’d waited so patiently for through most of Christian’s twenty-nine years. If he had ever wondered before why his grandfather hadn’t sought to claim his due part of their bargain earlier, it was patently apparent to him now. He need only look to the emptiness of the seat beside the old duke and consider the significance of the day. His father had died twenty years earlier on that same day. Christopher Wycliffe had been twenty-nine. It was only fitting that at the same age and date the duke had lost his only son, he should exact his terms of the bargain he’d made with his grandson. Eye for an eye… tooth for a tooth… life for a life…
Long-hidden memories of that horrible day began to come to light despite Christian’s resistance. Even now he could still see the throngs of mourners who had come all the way from London, huddling together beneath the dripping branches of the great Westover elms to pay their last respects. He would never forget the cold that had numbed him to his bones, the wet dripping from the trees, the thick misty fog that had shrouded the Wycliffe family cemetery. Nor would he ever escape the memory of the haunting toll of the church bell that had rung out the traditional nine times and then another nine-and-twenty for each year of Christopher Wycliffe’s short life.
An ague had taken him, the family had said, and everyone had believed them. No one could ever have suspected the truth as they looked at the newly titled nine-year-old marquess standing beside his grandfather the duke, shivering in the rain.
Christian looked away from his grandfather to where his mother and his sister sat on the bench across the aisle. Frances, Lady Knighton, had been the celebrated beauty of her time, inspiring volumes of poetry and setting a style that had been emulated throughout many a social season. Once a brilliant sable brown, her hair had since grayed and the pale skin of her face was not quite as smooth as it had once been. Still she continued to attract notice whenever she went out as a figure of elegance and grace and beauty.
Since the death of her husband, though, most of her time was spent hidden away from society, reading her Bible or passing her days in silent prayer. The past twenty years had done little to remove the taint of sadness from her eyes and Christian often thought that that day had not only seen his father killed, but his mother’s spirit destroyed as well. For months afterward they’d worried she might do herself a harm. The only thing that had kept her from it, Christian knew, had been the child she’d carried within her—her daughter, his sister, Eleanor.
From the moment she was born, Eleanor was everything that was gentle and good in the world. Christian had watched her grow, blossoming from a silly little tomboy with ragged-hemmed skirts and dirt beneath her fingernails to the refined, accomplished young woman she now was. He had seen her through scraped shins, quinsy, and a rivalry with the neighboring earl’s daughter, Lady Amanda Barrington, that had ended with one unruly tangle in the midst of a trout pond. And he would see her safely wed, he said to himself, not in an arranged match like his, but with a man she both loved and respected, one who would love and respect her in kind.
It was for those two women and none other that Christian would see this day through; he would do anything—even marry a stranger—to protect them.
Eleanor, ever the optimist, had tried to ease what she perceived to be Christian’s premarital apprehension at their arrival in the village early that morning.
“She will be lovely,” she’d said, straightening his neckcloth and brushing a hand over his coat. “You will see.”
Christian had simply nodded, but inwardly he had wondered what it would matter whether his bride was or wasn’t lovely. He would still have to wed her. He’d signed his name to the contracts. Even now he couldn’t believe he’d done it, agreeing to wed a woman he had yet to set eyes upon. But he had seen her name indelibly written on the contracts. Lady Grace Ledys. A relation of some sort of the Marquess of Cholmeley, for he’d also seen that name listed as the girl’s guardian. A lovely name, yes—but who was she? And what sort of girl would agree to wed a man she, too, had never seen?
There came a stirring at the back of the church then. The time had come for him to face his bride. Christian turned. Now to be done with it.
A slight figure gowned in pale blue stood at the end of the aisle on the arm of an older man, no doubt Lord Cholmeley. The light shone in brightly behind her and Christian wasn’t able to clearly see her. As she started walking toward him he thought for a moment he recognized something familiar about her. But that was impossible, he told himself. They’d never met.
He watched her approach. Golden hair shimmered beneath a charming halo of flowers in the morning sunlight that was beaming down through the ancient church’s stained-glass windows. Christian didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until she walked out of the light and he finally saw her. His breath left him in a rush as he took in her delicate features, pale complexion, and her eyes—the same eyes that had peered up at him from the floor of his dressing room the night of his sister’s come-out ball.
Before Christian could wonder what to think, she was standing beside him and the vicar began the service. While Mr. Weston spoke, enunciating as if an entire congregation filled the church, Christian looked again to his bride. Her eyes were fixed on the vicar, and she was listening attentively to his words. Christian noticed her hands shaking slightly beneath the posy of flowers she held. She must have sensed Christian watching her, for she looked at him warily before returning her attention to the vicar.
What the devil had she been doing that night, creeping about through the servants’ passages? His initial confusion at the sight of her began quickly to tighten into distrust. Had she been spying on him? What else could have been her purpose? He rather doubted she had been seeking to acquaint herself with the layout of the house.
When the vicar asked if the couple had come both willingly and without reservation, Christian hesitated only a second before giving his assent. On through the liturgy he barely heard the vicar’s words, but managed to respond when prompted. He slid the ring—a Westover heirloom sapphire surrounded by diamonds that had been both his mother’s and
his grandmother’s before her—onto the lady’s slender finger. In the space of a moment they were suddenly and permanently joined. It didn’t seem possible that it could be over so quickly.
After the ceremony closed, the duke stood from his bench, thanked the vicar, and rewarded him with a pouch of coins before turning to leave. His duty was done, his utmost wish fulfilled.
Christian and Grace each quickly signed their names to the parish register, exchanging thanks and farewells with the vicar. Christian then looked to his bride, this stranger—his wife—and offered her his arm. “Madam?”
Outside, beside the gravestone of one-hundred-and-seven-year-old Mary Pottinger, Eleanor and his mother were smiling. When Christian and Grace emerged from the church, Eleanor came forward, embracing her brother with a kiss on his cheek.
“Congratulations, Christian. I am so happy for you. You see, I told you she would be lovely.”
He scarcely managed a nod before she then turned to Lady Grace, welcoming her to the family with a kiss and an embrace. “You are a beautiful bride, Grace. And it is just as I said to you. We are now sisters.”
Christian stared at Eleanor. She already knew his wife? Why the devil hadn’t she told him? Was everyone in on this deception?
Lady Frances came forward and took her son’s hands. Her voice was soft with emotion. “Thank you, Christian. I know how difficult this day must be for you. I want you to know you are more than any mother could ever hope for in her son.”
For a moment, he swore he caught a glimpse of the woman she had once been before the emptiness came to darken her eyes once again. “If there is any good to what I am, Mother, it is only due to you.”
Lady Frances looked quickly away from him to where Eleanor and Grace stood. “She seems a lovely girl, Christian. I know it seems impossible, given the circumstances, but I hope you will find happiness together.”
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