Slightly Married

by Mary Balogh

  Eve had been waiting with some impatience for her to reappear. She had no idea exactly when to expect Colonel Bedwyn and so had long ago finished dressing. She felt smart, if somewhat dowdy, in her best gray walking dress. Edith, who was skilled with her hands, had brushed her hair into neat coils at the back of her head and coaxed a few waves to feather down over her neck and temples. Her black gloves lay on a table by the door, ready to be donned when it was time to leave. So did her bonnet—the second-best one she had worn yesterday since there was no sign of the best one she was sure she had seen Edith bring out of the house in its hatbox and hand to the coachman. Edith herself was tearfully insistent that she had too brought it and it must have tumbled off the carriage into the ditch for the birds to peck at and the foxes to pull at and some beggar to wear. Perhaps it had somehow been taken to Aunt Mari's room by mistake, Eve had suggested as much to soothe Edith as to convince herself.

  “Ah,” she said with relief when she saw it upraised on her aunt's free hand, “there is my bonnet.”

  Then she took a closer look. It was the same one she had worn to the memorial service at Heybridge two days ago, but it had been transformed almost beyond recognition. Wide lavender silk ribbon, cleverly pleated, lined the underside of the brim and had been fashioned into a cluster of bows at one side. Narrower, matching ribbons fluttered from each side.

  “I had the ribbon in my box at home,” Aunt Mari explained, chuckling like an excited child, “waiting for a special occasion. I decided that this was it, my love—your wedding. Lavender is a color for mourning, but it is much more cheery than gray.”

  “But it is not really a wedding.” Eve crossed the room to take the bonnet from her aunt's hand.

  “What would you call it, then?” her aunt asked. “It is a ceremony that will bind you to Colonel Bedwyn for the rest of your life. It is a wedding, all right. If I knew you were doing it just for me, I would argue like the fury against it even now. But it's not just for me, so what can I say?”

  “Nothing.” Eve drew on the bonnet carefully so as not to disturb her curls. “It is primarily for me, Aunt Mari. I cannot bear the thought of losing Ringwood and my fortune.” She tried to keep her tone light, but not too light.

  “That will be the day,” Aunt Mari said tartly, “when you think only of yourself. You are the least selfish person I know, and you are doing this for everyone except yourself. But you may be rewarded yet. He is a good man, my love.” Despite fingers that were somewhat gnarled with rheumatism, she brushed aside Eve's hands and tied the ribbons to suit herself, slightly to one side of her great-niece's chin. “Even though he seemed dark and humorless the first time I met him, the colonel was very kind yesterday. If he had been traveling alone, I suppose he would have ridden at a steady trot and arrived here hours earlier than he did with us in tow. But he didn't try to rush me in and out of the carriage—did you notice?—and he made an effort to talk whenever we stopped, though I suppose he is much more comfortable talking about horses and guns with men and other soldiers than conversing with ladies. Not that I am a lady by his standards. He should have seen me a few years ago when I was coming up from a shift down the mine. But the colonel is a gentleman—a true gentleman.”

  “Of course he is,” Eve agreed. “Papa would approve—more than approve, in fact.”

  “I just wish you would not insist on ending your acquaintance with the colonel quite so soon,” Aunt Mari said, standing back to note the angle of the bow before making a few adjustments. “I wish the two of you would spend a little time together just to see if there might not be a spark of something lasting between you. It wouldn't hurt to try, would it, since you are to be married anyway. He is on leave for two months. He told me so when I asked yesterday.”

  “You must absolutely not wish us upon each other for longer than a day, Aunt Mari,” Eve said hastily. “It would be intolerable.”

  “But I so very much want you to be happy, my love,” her aunt said. “You give yourself generously to everyone except yourself. I know this is no grand love story. I would have to be a fool to imagine it is. But who is to say it couldn't become a love match? It isn't as if you love any other man, is it, despite all my efforts at matchmaking during the past year.”

  Eve smiled as she moved toward the looking glass above the mantel, her legs feeling almost too leaden to carry her there.

  “Oh, my!” she said. The newly trimmed bonnet seemed to add both flesh and color to her face. It made her look younger. After a whole year she had almost forgotten what it was like to wear colors. Her eyes looked larger, more blue than gray, more luminous. “You are so clever with your hands, Aunt Mari. Thank you, dear.” She turned to hug her aunt, who looked inordinately pleased with herself.

  She was a bride, Eve thought. These were her bride clothes and soon she would be on her way to her wedding. The thought caused a definite physical sensation, as if the bottom had fallen out of her stomach. She was about to marry a stranger for purely mercenary reasons and with no intention of keeping most of the marriage vows she would speak. She was going to marry a man who was not John. Until this moment she had been able to tell herself that somehow she would find a way out, that some miracle would surely happen to prevent this thing from happening. But she knew now at last that nothing was going to stop it.

  Unless he failed to put in an appearance . . .

  At that very moment there was a brisk knock on the sitting room door. Both Eve and her aunt turned to look at it as Edith came scurrying out of Eve's bedchamber, darted them a look of sheer fright, and opened the door.

  Colonel Lord Aidan Bedwyn stepped into the room, diminishing it in size as he did so. He looked large and powerful and very masculine even though he was not dressed in his uniform, as Eve had expected he would be. He bowed to both ladies and bade them a good morning.

  Eve curtsied. And then a strange, horrifying, totally unexpected thing happened before he could speak again. Looking at his elegant, immaculately clad person and thinking of him as her bridegroom, she felt a rush of pure physical awareness stab downward through her breasts and abdomen and along her inner thighs. She had never considered him a handsome man. But it would be naive anyway to believe that she was reacting just to his looks. It was his undeniable masculinity that was affecting her. This was their wedding day. Under other circumstances tonight would be their wedding night.

  She tried desperately to bring an image of John to her mind, and then hastily pushed it away again even before it could form. It was too late for that. Soon—very soon—it would be disloyal even to think of him. For a moment she stared at the colonel in blind panic.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, his eyes lingering on Eve's bonnet for a moment before moving to Aunt Mari.

  Eve nodded and reached for her gloves.

  “Perhaps you would fetch my hat from my room, Edith,” Aunt Mari said, but she walked after the girl to stand in the doorway and point to the one she wanted.

  Eve and the colonel, left virtually alone, locked glances. It was an extremely uncomfortable moment.

  “I have the license,” he said, speaking briskly, without any discernible emotion, “and I have made the arrangements. We are to be at the church in half an hour.”

  “Are you quite sure?” she asked softly.

  “I never do anything I am not sure about, Miss Morris,” he said. “And you are quite sure too, are you not? Remember the lame ducks.”

  With any other man she might have suspected an attempt at a joke. But there was no gleam of humor in his eyes or about his mouth. Aunt Mari came back across the room then, her hat in place on her head, and the tension lifted somewhat.

  “Let us go.” The colonel opened the door.

  PURCHASING A SPECIAL LICENSE HAD BEEN astonishingly easy, Aidan had discovered. Of course, it had probably helped that he had worn his uniform—the old, comfortable uniform, not the dress one—and all of London was deliriously, exuberantly in love with its military officers, even those, he suspected, who ha
d never set so much as a single toe beyond the safe shores of England. The staff at the Clarendon, which had treated him with respectful courtesy last evening, had bowed and scraped and fawned over him this morning while other guests had stared admiringly and nodded approvingly and one of their number, a gentleman he had never before in his life clapped eyes upon, had insisted upon shaking his hand and congratulating him as if he were personally responsible for effecting the abdication of the Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.

  It was that very reaction that had persuaded him to change back into civilian clothes for his wedding, though he had fully intended to wear his dress uniform. He did not want to be noticed. More important, he hoped not to be recognized. This was something he wanted to accomplish swiftly and secretly. It would be altogether better for all concerned if Bewcastle never knew about his marriage. He hoped, more than anything, that he would not run into Bewcastle or any other member of his family today.

  The license was in Aidan's pocket, and his bride and her aunt were seated opposite him in the smart carriage he had hired for the occasion. Andrews was following behind on horseback.

  Miss Morris looked remarkably attractive this morning. It was the frivolity of the frills and bows on her bonnet that did it, he supposed, as well as the touches of color. And there were loose curls visible at her neck and temples. For the first time—and, he fervently hoped, the only time—he looked upon her with sexual curiosity. He was about to make mental comparisons with Miss Knapp, but he could no longer permit himself to think about her in any way at all.

  Mrs. Pritchard kept up a running monologue, exclaiming loudly at the splendor of the buildings they passed, at the noise and bustle of the streets, at all the smart conveyances that passed them. She was trying, he realized, to set both her niece and him at their ease. He handed them down when they reached the church he had selected for the quietness of the neighborhood. The rector had assured him that they would not be kept waiting and that the ceremony would take a mere few minutes.

  Miss Morris set a hand on his offered arm, and he led her inside the church. Her aunt came along behind them, aided by Andrews's steady arm. They were a wedding party of four, the bride and groom and two witnesses. For an unguarded moment Aidan pictured the sort of wedding Bewcastle would have insisted upon for him under different circumstances, the first of them to marry. It would have been a grand, glittering affair, full of pomp and splendor with half the ton in attendance.

  The stone-flagged floor of the church echoed hollowly beneath his Hessian boots. The interior was dark in contrast to the bright daylight outside, and chilly. A little gloomy. The rector appeared through a doorway beside the altar and hurried toward them, a smile of welcome on his face. He was wearing his vestments and held a book tucked against one shoulder. He bowed and greeted them and led them forward, Mrs. Pritchard beside him. He instructed them on where they were to stand and beckoned a reluctant Andrews closer. All was cheerful, impersonal business.

  And then suddenly it was happening. It had started. The nuptial service.

  “Dearly beloved,” the rector began, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God . . .” He spoke with all the sonorous solemnity of a clergyman addressing hundreds.

  Just a few minutes later, he was concluding in the same manner. “. . . I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” He made the solemn sign of the cross with his right hand.

  It was all over before Aidan had quite composed his mind to pay full attention. He had spoken vows when instructed to do so without really listening to what he said. She had spoken vows, quietly and unwaveringly. He could not recall a single word of them. He had held her hand and placed on her finger the shiny gold ring he had purchased earlier, repeating certain words after the rector as he did so. He had done it as if in a dream. But the earth had moved during those few minutes. Something momentous, irrevocable, irreversible had happened.

  They were married. Until death did them part.

  The church for a moment seemed as dark and as chill as the grave.

  And then Mrs. Pritchard, teary-eyed and smiling, was hugging her great-niece and—after a moment's hesitation—Aidan too. Andrews was shaking him by the hand—a rare occurrence indeed. The rector was smiling and nodding affably and offering his congratulations. And they were signing the register, without once having really looked at each other, his bride in a neat, sloping hand, he in his bold, no-nonsense style. Her aunt and Andrews witnessed their signatures, the aunt with an X, he was interested to note. Aidan offered his bride his arm and led her out onto the pavement, where the hired carriage waited to take them back to the Pulteney.

  It was all over. All finished. His debt had been paid, her home secured. The shackle had clanged shut about his leg. The sun beamed its warm mockery down through a break in the clouds.

  “What a lovely service,” Mrs. Pritchard said after he had handed her carefully into the carriage. She made a show of spreading her skirts about her, he noticed, and propped her cane against her seat so that when her niece climbed in after her she was obliged to take the seat opposite. “It was short, but the minister spoke with great feeling. You chose him well, Colonel.”

  Aidan took his place beside his bride, who had moved as far along the seat toward the window as the space allowed. Her aunt beamed at them.

  “What a handsome couple you make,” she said.

  “Aunt Mari!” Miss Morris said with quiet reproach.

  Aidan realized with an unpleasant jolt of awareness that his bride was no longer Miss Morris. She had just taken his name.

  “You are probably both ready for a meal,” he said curtly. “I have given instructions for the carriage to return to the Pulteney. It is too late to start back for Ringwood today. I will show you both something of London this afternoon, if you wish.” It was not something he had planned, but it had suddenly struck him that it would appear boorish to abandon them at the Pulteney for a whole afternoon and evening when they were both strangers to town. There was, of course, the chance that he would be seen and recognized and he would prefer that not to happen, but it did not matter quite as much as it had this morning. Besides, no one seeing them—unless he had the misfortune to come face to face with a brother or sister—need know that the younger of his two companions was his wife.

  “That would be delightful if it would be no trouble to you,” his bride said, sounding genuinely pleased. “I would love to see the Tower and St. James's Palace and Hyde Park or anywhere else you would recommend. Wouldn't you, Aunt Mari? We are in London.”

  “The weather is ideal for sightseeing,” he said briskly.

  “I must say I am quite worn out with all the excitement,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “And there is another long journey to be faced tomorrow. I really must rest quietly at the hotel this afternoon—and such a splendid room and such a comfortable bed are not be wasted. But that mustn't stop the two of you from going out.”

  “Aunt Mari—” her niece began.

  “After all,” her aunt said, smiling placidly, “you no longer need me as a chaperone, my love, do you? You will be with your husband.”

  Was Mrs. Pritchard hoping to ignite some romance between them by choosing to leave them alone together for the whole of an afternoon? Aidan wondered. From the way in which his bride shrank farther into her corner of the carriage, he guessed that she was entertaining the same suspicion.

  That was all he needed to complete his happiness today—a damned matchmaker! The woman, like an old, wrinkled little sparrow, was regarding him with assessing, twinkling eyes.

  COLONEL BEDWYN RETURNED PUNCTUALLY AT HALF PAST one to the Pulteney to take Eve driving about London. She was surprised to find that she was looking forward to the outing despite the fact that she had not been able to prevail upon her aunt to change her mind about accompanying them. But it was just as well, she thought as she followed her new husband from the hotel. He had hired a curricle to replace this mor
ning's carriage. Aunt Mari would never have hoisted herself up to the high, narrow seat.

  “I have never ridden in a curricle,” she admitted. “It seems alarmingly frail and high off the ground.”

  “Are you afraid?” he asked, handing her up.

  Actually she was not. She was exhilarated. They would be able to see a great deal from up here, and they would be open to the warm, summery air. She had changed into a light gray, high-waisted muslin dress, but she still wore the lavender-trimmed bonnet, and at the last moment before she left Aunt Mari had produced another length of the wide lavender ribbon and tied it beneath her bosom in place of the gray sash she usually wore with this particular dress.

  “I suppose you are an accomplished whip,” she said.

  He merely raised his eyebrows and came around the curricle to take his place beside her.

  She did not understand why she felt so strangely lighthearted. She ought not when she remembered what had happened this morning and all that she had sacrificed. But Atlas-like, she felt as if an enormous load had been lifted off her shoulders. It was too late now to make a different choice. The deed was done. There was no point in regretting it or wishing it had not been necessary. In the meantime she was in London for the first and probably the only time in her life, the sun was shining, and she had a gentleman to escort her about and show her all the most famous sights. Life back at Ringwood was going to be a long and in many ways a lonely business. She was going to be facing terrible heartache there. But she might as well enjoy today. Secretly, although she had been horrified at the time, she was glad Aunt Mari had decided not to come with them.

  “Shall we go to St. Paul's first?” the colonel suggested. “It is my favorite church in London.”

  “Everything is new to me,” she said. “I am in your hands.”

  He looked closely at her before giving the horses the signal to start. “Lavender suits you,” he surprised her by saying.

  He really was expert with the ribbons, she noted with some admiration as they drove through the streets of London, even though both the vehicle and the horses were unfamiliar to him. It was hardly surprising, of course. He was a cavalry officer. He was also very large and solid. She could not prevent herself from swaying against him on occasion even though she kept a grip on the rail beside her. He smelled of leather and musk.