Whilst Marcus did, indeed, feel those things, the size of the sanctuary and the length of the aisle made him very certain of one thing. He needed to have a long conversation with his man of affairs. The man must be made to understand who his employer actually was. Abercrombie had been sent to London to fetch a special license from Doctors Commons and to put a small, dignified announcement in the Times. Emily, Duchess of Selridge chose to supersede those orders. This past week’s parade of London shopkeepers and whirlwind of activity were the result.
Never, however, in his wildest imaginings, did Marcus think it would end in this. Not a single pew in the church stood empty. For such a solemn occasion, the atmosphere resembled nothing so much as the most well-attended ball of the season. Not even the arrival of the Bishop of York at the altar muted the din.
Of course, Creighton and Tillie enjoyed every minute of his discomfort. Especially once they spotted Dylan Crosby, seated very near the front, behind Addy’s brothers. This was exactly what he’d hoped to avoid when he retreated to Yorkshire. He admitted it was a retreat and did not quibble over such a description in the least. When he’d believed himself safe, along came Adelaide Formsby-Smythe and this subsequent circus. At some point, he wanted to stop and examine his life. Somewhere, somehow, he must have done something horrible to be so cursed, when all he wanted was peace and quiet.
He’d chosen to marry Addy. His reasons were his business alone. He abhorred the crush of people who had invaded the church. He would despise more the larger crowd expected to attend the wedding breakfast. Even now, inside God’s house, they whispered behind their hands. His scars. His bad leg. Isn’t it a pity? He was such a fine looking young man. What a kind girl to marry such a broken cripple. What they said or thought was not the worst of it.
To be the duke was bad enough. The plan had never included a wife, a fragile young woman, whom he would wound again and again with his vicious tongue, in spite of his best intentions.
“Good God, Selridge.” Tillie, obviously, had no idea how a voice could carry in such a place. “Is that the Formsby-Smythe chit? I say. I don’t remember her being such a looker.”
Addy stood at the end of the aisle, on the arm of her father. She was breathtaking. With her simple green gown and flowers all around her, she was a wood nymph from some dreamy painting come to life. The wreath that crowned her honey-colored hair was of roses and some other fancy flower he could not name. In her hands, however, was a bouquet of Yorkshire wildflowers, a profusion of delicate blooms in all the colors heralding the coming of spring.
She looked so different and yet, the same. All the elegance of a duchess, combined with all the impishness of a young woman, danced across her face with the play of colors glinting off the sunlit stained-glass around them. He might know her a hundred years and never see all that she was. She smiled at him, her mysterious smile that hid more than it told, and his heart constricted in his chest.
Marcus heard the twitter of laughter at Tillie’s remark float up from the rows of heavy wood pews. He even managed to catch the bishop’s slight smile. He heard Creighton chastise Tillie for his lack of tact. It was an exercise in futility, if ever there was one. All of it passed by him like country scenes from the window of a carriage.
What he could not deny, what did not pass him by, was a wave of something so primitive it nearly knocked him to his knees. Possessiveness, as powerful as a French cavalry charge and just as deadly, took him completely by surprise. He looked at his friend. The man continued to ogle Addy as she made her slow progression down the aisle. Marcus saw red.
“Tildenbury, you have exactly one hair of an eye blink to cease leering at my wife.”
“As long as that?” Creighton asked. His grin was nothing short of devilish.
“After which,” Marcus continued. It was difficult to speak between clenched teeth, but not impossible. Especially when done so quietly as to be heard solely by those standing at the altar with him. “I shall snatch the lecherous eyes from your head and gift them to Creighton here, for his collection.”
“Good God.” Tillie’s voice pinched off with a squeak.
“I don’t have a collection, Selridge. Of anything. Let alone—”
“I’m starting one for you.”
The two young women who stood on the bishop’s right giggled. They stopped the instant Marcus turned his angry scowl on them. Who were they? When did they arrive? Two girls in fetching spring dresses, large nosegays in hand, managed to arrive at the altar right under his nose. He’d not noticed at all. He had lost his mind.
“My son, I really don’t think it is a good idea to threaten a man in church, especially on your wedding day.” The admonishment was delivered in a stern tone, but lost all effect when the man who delivered it grinned like a bedlamite. Why did it make everyone so happy when he lost control?
“God will have to forgive me, Uncle Humpty. Surely even he would not countenance such a crude remark made about such a sweet lady.” He glared at Tillie, who took a step closer to Creighton.
“Uncle?”
“Humpty?”
Creighton and Tillie looked from Marcus to the bishop.
“M’mother’s brother,” Marcus explained, suddenly unable to look away from the vision Williford Formsby-Smythe escorted toward him. “Lord Humphrey Bathgate, Bishop of York. Julius couldn’t say Humphrey when he was little. Thus, Uncle Humpty.”
“Quite,” the jovial clergyman agreed. “And it isn’t God’s forgiveness I’m worried about, my boy. Your mother is giving us that look, has been since this young man… made his observation about your bride.” His uncle emphasized the last word. “She is not yet your wife, you know.”
Whilst Marcus stared at Addy in a mix of wonder and some other very primitive emotions he’d rather not think on, the other three men looked at the occupants of the Selridge family pew. Marcus did not need to look to know his mother was not pleased with the hushed argument she had just witnessed. That look was engraved on his memory, along with a terse “Julius and Marcus if you don’t stop that this instant…” It was always followed by dire threats until he and his brother ceased whatever mischief they were up to during church.
“I take your point, my lord bishop,” Creighton said. He elbowed Tillie in the side. “Tillie, stop looking at the girl. The duchess will have our hides if we disrupt this wedding.”
“Again,” the bishop added. Marcus glanced at his uncle long enough to see him shiver at the thought of a displeased Emily Winfield. He rolled his eyes before he thought about it. On his way back to gaze at Addy, with what he was sure was the look of a calf-eyed youth, Marcus caught his mother’s icy glare.
“I know she frightens me,” Tillie said, in what for him was a quiet tone. “Surely you aren’t afraid of your own sister, sir.”
“Terrified.” The bishop opened his prayer book and adjusted his stole. “Have been since I was a boy. I have it on the best authority, even the Almighty is hesitant to cross her. Oh dear.”
Creighton succumbed to a coughing fit, even as the duchess cleared her throat and sat up regally in her seat. Tillie blanched and began to study the carvings over the altar. The two ladies across from them assumed sweet expressions and demure poses. Marcus reached to adjust what had been a flawless and perfectly comfortable cravat when Jeffries tied it. He stayed his hand.
She winked at him.
The little minx, a moment ago the very picture of a serene bride, glanced at his mother, deduced what was afoot and winked at him. In the middle of their wedding, no less. Flanked by her parents, she arrived at the altar. The little sprite looked up at him and cocked her head. Marcus could not help it. He chuckled. Her response was an innocent blink of her eyes, followed by a cheeky grin.
Formsby-Smythe cleared his throat, to remind them of his presence. His wife simply sniffled and waved her horrendous handkerchief. Addy kissed her mother, and then turned and kissed her father dutifully on the cheek. The older man smiled at her, his face wistful. “Be happy,
pet,” he said.
“I am, Papa.” She addressed her father. She looked at Marcus. “Perfectly.”
Her words shot into him like tiny arrows. He knew not whether they wounded or healed. Her hand was placed in his and then her father took his place in the pew next to his sniffling wife. His uncle said something, but he saw only her delicate hand. When he looked up, he caught his mother’s expression out of the corner of his eye. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“What?” Marcus looked at his uncle. The man simply smiled at him. Addy squeezed his hand and nodded toward the high altar.
“Shall we begin?” the bishop finally asked. He turned and walked up the steps before he faced them again.
“You’ve landed me in trouble,” Marcus whispered as he helped Addy up the four steps. “Again.”
“I, Your Grace? I cannot imagine how.”
“You winked at me.”
“Did I?” She looked up at him with an angelic expression. He began to suspect it was a tactic he would become very familiar with over the next forty or fifty years. God help him.
“Let us pray,” the bishop began.
“Amen,” Marcus said immediately.
The service began with a simultaneous attack of throat clearing at the altar, from those in attendance on the bride and groom, the bride’s quiet laughter, the groom’s stern shush, the bishop in prayer, and two words from the groom’s mother.
“Good Lord.”
Chapter Thirteen
His hand trembled when he placed the ring on her finger. His voice did not. She would hear those vows in dreams, long after her hearing in the waking world had faded. Just as she would feel the touch of those strong scarred hands, made rough by horse and sword.
One summer, when they were children, Addy and her cousins had lain in the back of a hay wagon and watched the sky flicker by in snatches of color. It had been more than ten years, and yet, she could still feel the sun, see the flashes of blue and white clouds, pieces of green and brown from the trees under which they passed. The hay had smelled of summer and bounty. The draft horses’ steady clop and the workers’ drones of conversation lulled them like a mother’s hummed tune. It was one of life’s perfect memories. Not because she remembered every moment, but because she did not.
Her wedding was such a memory. Try as she might, she could not call to mind every minute of it. That had been her plan, when she woke up on her wedding day. The moment she was dressed in her wedding clothes and turned to look in the trifold pier glass, her plan fell by the wayside, a sheaf of hay snatched and scattered by the wind.
What she did remember flickered by like those clouds, on that long ago summer’s day. The touch of his hand. The strength of his voice. Eyes that gazed into hers with such purpose.
She had asked for wildflowers, and the head gardener of Winfield Abbey had cut them fresh from the moors and fields, less than an hour before she left for the church. Each time their fragrance stirred she was reminded of the fateful carriage ride and the wonder of her first kiss.
Marcus had squeezed her hand as she said her vows. She never knew her voice to be so soft. Was it because the words meant so much? It did not matter the rest of the church did not hear. He did. The squeeze of his hand said so.
And the smiles, so many smiles. His uncle beamed at them so proudly throughout the service. Marcus’s two friends grinned like cats over a bowl of cream, but she saw the sincerity behind those smirks. Her father’s proud face and her mother’s sad little smile, and even the winks and grins of her ramshackle brothers were tucked into those flashes of memory, like leaves on a breeze-kissed tree.
Dear Anne and Wilhemina looked so lovely in their pale lavender gowns. Their bright faces were the first thing she spied as she started down the aisle. They shared a secret smile, the one that bespoke giggles of glee when they were little. As young women, it was joy, barely contained joy, at her happiness.
She saw Marcus and everything else faded away. He was arguing with one of his friends, and then his eyes met hers. His gaze did not waver. It stayed. It printed itself on her memory, and should she not remember another thing about her wedding, she would remember it.
To the delight of everyone present, at the last amen, Marcus bent and touched his lips to hers. It was not a passionate kiss, nor a terribly long one. It was a vow, unspoken, and more powerful for its silence. Without a thought, she raised her hand to his scarred cheek in answer.
“And now you are mine,” he’d said. He covered her hand and then brought it to his lips.
She was so overcome by those words she failed to tell him the truth of the matter. She had always been his.
The aftermath of the wedding was made less memorable by the speed at which it passed. The race through a gauntlet of petals thrown by the younger guests ended as Marcus threw the end of her veil over her arm and lifted her into the carriage. The driver was obviously given instructions to return them to Winfield Abbey posthaste. The trip was not, needless to say, a leisurely ride in a hay wagon.
With all of the truly memorable moments of her wedding to choose from, Adelaide feared her pinching shoes might stay with her the longest. She was convinced if she wore them another hour, she’d be crippled for life. Too drastic? Perhaps, pigeon-toed for ten years was to be her fate. Where was a footwear stealing rabbit when one needed one?
They stood in the receiving line for what seemed like days. Her jaw ached from smiling and she feared she’d never persuade her lips to close back over her teeth. She glanced at her husband, what a nice word, but found no help from that quarter. He was deep in conversation with Lady Gertrude Haverly. Poor man.
The wedding breakfast was such a crush. Surely, no one would notice, if she slipped off her shoes for a moment. The dress was long enough to cover her feet. Bess had removed her veil and floral wreath at the door, to keep them safe and out of her way. Her parents had left the receiving line to mingle with the guests. How ridiculous. She was a duchess now. If she wanted to remove her shoes, she would.
Adelaide had no sooner stepped out of those ivory-colored satin instruments of torture, when she was snatched unceremoniously by the arm and dragged into an alcove off the crowded main drawing room. After the momentary shock of the cold marble floor at the drawing room entrance, her stocking-clad feet were now buried in the scratchy comfort of the Persian carpets which covered the ancient stone floors of the former abbey. Before she could open her mouth, or try to see exactly where her shoes were, she was face to face with Dylan Crosby. Dylan Crosby?
What on earth is he doing here?
“So, you had no intention of inviting your oldest and dearest friend to your wedding, Your Grace?” It was only when his question made its way through her confusion she realized she’d said that last bit out loud. “I fear I shall never recover.”
Adelaide punched his arm and tried to peer around him in search of her shoes. When she finally looked at him again, she found it difficult to discern exactly what his true feelings were. A first for her. No time to worry about it now. Marcus would soon come in search of her. At least she hoped he would. She decided to practice her new “duchess’s” smile on her childhood friend.
“I intended to write to you, Dylan,” she said. “Truly, I did. You hate things like this. I was certain you would rather not attend, so I told Mama not to invite you.”
“Cut line, Addy,” Dylan snapped. So much for the smile she’d spent all week practicing in the mirror. “When were you going to tell me? When you grew so large with his child you couldn’t mount a horse at midnight to rob your neighbors?”
“Dylan, that’s horrid.” She clapped her hand over his mouth. “And for God’s sake, keep your voice down. That horrible man is here, you know.”
He pushed her hand away. “What horrible man?” She knew the instant he realized of whom she spoke. “The magistrate?”
“Stubble it.”
Dylan pushed her deeper into the alcove and leaned over her. “He’s here? At your wedding? G
ood God, Addy, are you mad?”
“I didn’t invite him, you dolt. He is Marcus’s nearest neighbor in Yorkshire. The duchess invited him.”
“Christ.”
“He came through the receiving line, Dylan. He spoke with me. He doesn’t know anything,” she assured him.
“Neither does your husband either, does he, Your Grace?” She wondered exactly what Dylan objected to the most—the lack of a wedding invitation, the presence of the man they had robbed of his son’s dogs less than a fortnight ago, or her marriage to Marcus.
“You were already engaged that night, weren’t you? You were engaged to a bloody duke, and you still went on our little expedition without telling us we were traveling with a future duchess, didn’t you?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She pushed past him and leaned around the corner to ascertain the position of her husband, there was that lovely word again, and her shoes. “If I had, you would have gone all mishish on me. Those dogs couldn’t wait for you to get over your scruples about my new title.”
She turned back around to fold her arms across her chest and study him intently. “That is what you are concerned about, isn’t it? Why, you’re acting like such a child?”
“Childish.” He mimicked her pose and shook his head. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“What on earth are you talking about, Dylan?” She truly needed to find her shoes and get Dylan out of sight, before Marcus showed up and began to ask difficult questions, as only he could.
“You’re a duchess, Addy. A duchess.” His attempt to lower his voice was met with only a modicum of success. “Duchesses do not steal their neighbor’s dogs in the company of a scurrilous rake and a broken-down Irish horse thief.”
“Sully is not broken-down. I thought you said people like Marcus could do whatever they liked.” He had not said Marcus, specifically, but anyone above a viscount was supposedly above reproach. Which was why Dylan’s brother, the Earl of Wessex, was still a much sought-after bachelor, in spite of the fact he was a notorious eccentric.
Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1) Page 15
