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“My lord,” the vicar said, his voice soft and even kind, “will you take this woman...” He began to rattle off the requirements of him. To hold her from this day forward. To honor and cherish, for better or worse—
Now there was a laugh. There was no accidental honoring and cherishing at this altar. The notion that he should have to vow such a thing was so absurd that Grace could feel a slightly hysterical, completely irrepressible smile begin to curve her lips.
As the vicar continued to speak, Merryton looked at her curiously at first, then crossly. He undoubtedly did not find any of this amusing, and in spite of her attempt to hide her hysterical smile, neither did Grace. But the more the vicar spoke, the more absurd it all seemed, and Grace’s laughter was rising in her like a storm tide, threatening to explode on the gentleman standing before her. She bit her lip, but she couldn’t keep that damnable smile from her lips.
“I will,” Merryton said curtly.
Grace hadn’t even realized the question had ended.
“Miss Cabot,” the vicar said, “will you take Jeffrey Thomas Creighton Donovan to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, to honor and obey until death do you part?” he asked quickly, his gaze on the book he held.
Oh, dear. Until death parted them seemed an awfully long time. Grace thought of her fantasy of escaping, of running away. She would do that long before death ever thought to part them, and that, therefore, begged the question—
Merryton squeezed her hand. Her hesitation had earned her twin stern looks from the vicar and from Merryton. “Oh, yes,” she said quickly, and looked at the vicar. “I will.” Her voice was surprisingly strong for all the roiling in her belly. She shifted her gaze to Merryton. His expression was either a devouring one, or it was a very heated one, and she was mystified as to what, exactly, his gaze meant.
She looked away, finding the stained glass once more, praying for wisdom, forbearance, hope.
The vicar reminded them both that they had said these vows in the presence of God, and then intoned, “I pronounce you man and wife.”
The moment he said it, Merryton dropped her hand.
“If you would, my lord, sign the parish register,” the vicar said, his hand on Merryton’s elbow, showing him the way to the register.
Grace didn’t move from her spot at the altar, feeling quite at sea.
The vicar paused and looked back. “Mrs. Donovan!” he said, as if she were a lagging child, and held out the pen to her.
Well, then, that sealed it. If she was addressed as Mrs. Donovan, she must be married. Grace signed the marriage book, her hand shaking beneath the firm strokes of his signature. Merryton, he’d written. Cousin Beatrice signed as witness, wiping tears from her face as she did. Her husband signed next, and when he laid down the pen, he looked at Merryton and said, “My sympathies, my lord.”
Grace gasped with disbelief and gaped at Brumley, but she was so inconsequential to him that he never even glanced in her direction.
Merryton did, however. He turned that dark, cold gaze to her and said simply, “Come.” He turned on his heel, walking from the chapel, his cloak billowing behind him. He had not even removed his cloak.
A sob came from somewhere behind her, and in the next moment, Beatrice’s hands were grasping at Grace, turning her about, pulling her into her chest. “You poor dear,” she whispered. “Please let me write to your mother! She will be a source of great comfort to you now.”
Grace had to physically push away from Beatrice to draw a breath. “I’ve already sent a letter,” she lied.
“Oh, right, of course you have,” Beatrice said, and clasped Grace’s face between her hands. “Be brave, darling. It will not do to cry and carry on when you yourself have brought this on yourself.”
Grace blinked. She gave a small, rueful laugh. “No, of course not,” she agreed.
“Lady Merryton,” Merryton called sternly from the entrance.
It was a moment before Grace understood that he was speaking to her. She peeled Beatrice’s hands from her face and stepped away. She could still hear Beatrice’s whimpering as she walked down the aisle toward the sunlight streaming through the open door. Bright, cheerful sun, as if this was the happiest of days.
Grace stepped out into the sunlight and lifted the hood of her cloak over her head.
At the bottom of the hill, Merryton stood beside a black coach pulled by a team of four. It was deceiving in its lack of ornamentation; Grace knew it was one of the new, expensive landau coaches. The only nod given to the rank of the man who owned it was red plumes that billowed up from either side of the driver’s seat. Four coachmen in livery stood at attention, and she could see her trunk strapped to the boot.
With a curt nod of his head, Merryton commanded the coach door to be opened and the step brought down. He looked at Grace.
She took a breath and did not release it until she reached the coach. And even when she did, hardly any breath left her, all of it absorbed by her trepidation.
Merryton held out his hand, palm up, to help her into the coach. She hesitated before laying her hand in his. He didn’t look at her as he handed her up. When she was seated he stepped back. “Godspeed, madam.”
“Wait—pardon?” she said, confused, and lurched forward, bracing herself in the open door of the coach. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I will ride.”
“But I—” But she what? What could she possibly say? She wanted him to ride with her? No, no, she didn’t want that. Hours of cold silence was far worse than being alone on her wedding day—
Before Grace could work out what she meant, he’d shut the door. She surged toward the window, pushing aside the curtain. She had to crane her neck to see him, but she watched him stride to a horse that a boy held and easily swing up. He looked like a king on that horse, taut and muscular, his shoulders squared, his countenance stern. He turned to speak to the coachman, and then spurred his horse, galloping away from the chapel as if the devil chased him.
A moment later, the coach lurched forward, tossing Grace back into the leather squabs. She blinked up at the silk-covered ceiling. That was that, then. She was married to him, until death parted them, and he despised her. She abruptly bit down on her lower lip to keep tears from falling. She agreed with Cousin Beatrice—it would not do to cry when one had brought the situation on herself.
She would not cry, bloody hell, she would not.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WASN’T LONG before the scattering of cottages grew farther apart, and soon, there was nothing but forests rolling by, broken by the occasional pasture dotted with sheep or cows or, as Grace saw in one pasture, dozens of pigs grazing around their little hovels. Occasionally, she would spot the chimneys of a grand estate over the tops of trees, but that was the only sign of people on this road.
She was hungry; she wondered if it was acceptable to ask the coachman to stop in a village, to allow her to rest, to eat something, to freshen herself before she arrived at Blackwood Hall.
She reread Honor’s letter to take her mind off her discomfort, but found nothing but more anxiety in the happy loops and swirls of her sister’s handwriting. Grace put the letter away, folded her arms and leaned her head back against the squabs, squeezing her eyes shut against the images of the life about to unfold before her. The constant rocking of the coach made her limbs and eyelids feel heavy; Grace was aware she was sinking into exhaustion, but she didn’t recall sliding down onto the bench. That was where she was when the coach hit a bump, and her head struck the side of the coach, waking her. “Ouch,” she said, wincing and putting a hand to her head.
She pushed herself up and swept aside the curtains. The day had turned gloomy, and they were rolling past some barren cliffs. But the road turned, and the forest began again, rising up dark against the hills. The coach slowed and turned north, into the thick of the forest. The trees were so dense that they blocked what little light existed. The forest was truly black wood.
The coach began to slow. They passed through a massive stone gate, its height so tall that from Grace’s vantage point through the small window she could not see the top of it. Once inside the gate, the trees had been thinned, and gray light dappled the pristine lawn.
Grace gasped softly when the house came into view—it was quite large, at least as large as Longmeadow, the Beckington seat where she’d spent her youth. But where Longmeadow was light and cheerful, Blackwood Hall was dark and foreboding. The stone was gray, the windows black eyes. The chimneys were covered in soot, and there was no color that Grace could see, other than the green ivy that covered one corner of the house.
The house looked just like its master—bleak, dark and foreboding, the only color in his face the stark green of his eyes.
The house staff was scurrying out the door, lining up in order of rank as the coach rolled in. There were fifteen in all, the butler and the housekeeper at the head of the line. They came to a halt, and the door swung open. The bench was set before the opening. A coachman held up his hand to assist her down.
Grace swallowed down a small lump of fear, and stepped out.
The staff were looking straight ahead, but more than one pair of eyes slid in her direction. She let her hood fall back and glanced around for Merryton. He came striding across the drive, his crop tapping against his leg. Eight times. A pause. Eight times again.
“Mr. Cox, Mrs. Garland, may I present Lady Merryton,” he said matter-of-factly. He announced it so casually, in fact, that one would reasonably assume he must have sent word ahead of his marriage. But it was clear that when the two principle servants both froze, and the ripple ran through the rest of the servants gathered, that none of them knew.
“My lady,” Mrs. Garland said, the first to recover as she dipped into a quick curtsy. She looked to Mr. Cox for guidance, but the tall, thin butler had yet to regain his composure. Not that Merryton cared, apparently, because he looked at Grace, clenched his jaw and strode inside, the crop still tapping against his leg. Eight times.
“Ah...” Grace glanced over her shoulder; the coachmen were unlashing her trunk. She turned back to the group of servants. “How do you do,” she said, forcing a smile, nodding at them. “This...this must come as something of a surprise.”
There was a murmur of agreement, more shuffling about.
“Yes, well...it was meant to...be a surprise,” she said hesitantly, reaching for anything to ease her arrival as a Fallen Woman.
“You are very welcome, my lady,” Cox said, having recovered from his initial shock. He jostled two chambermaids out of the way and walked briskly forward, bowing before Grace, then gesturing for her to precede him into the house. “If I may, I shall show you about the hall. Mrs. Garland, please do see that the lady’s chambers are made ready? Make way,” he said, and the servants instantly split into two lines, stepping back to allow Grace to pass.
Grace smiled again, lifted her chin as if she were entering Lady Chatham’s sitting room, nodding and murmuring a greeting to the servants as she passed by them and walked into the foyer of Blackwood Hall.
She had expected grandeur, and while the house was certainly grand—the marble floors, the winding formal staircase, the Grecian columns—there was not the usual assembly of paintings and armor that, in Grace’s experience, generally graced the entrance to a grand home. This foyer was stark, as if the owner had only recently taken possession.
Mr. Cox walked her down long hallways, showing her small salons and larger, more formal salons, the breakfast room, more than one dining room and one formal one that would seat sixty. There was a ballroom and so many guest rooms that Grace lost count. The house was magnificently constructed, but somber in its decor. There were no paintings on the walls, no familiar signs of family history, no evidence of ancestry for all to see. There were only identical vases of identical hothouse flowers—roses—cut at identical height.
In the main salon, Grace paused before the massive hearth and glanced up at the mirror that hung above it. “I have noticed there are no paintings,” she said to Cox.
“No, madam. His lordship prefers that the frames be made uniform, and if they cannot, he prefers they not hang.”
“Pardon?” Grace said, glancing over her shoulder at the butler.
Even though Cox’s hair was thinning, he was unexpectedly young for the position he held. He said again, “His lordship prefers uniformity,” he said.
What on earth did that mean, he preferred uniformity? She glanced up to the mirror, the only thing in the room to adorn the walls. Moreover, there were four chairs set before the hearth, two facing two, all of them at equal distance from the other.
How odd.
“Shall I show you your lady’s suite of rooms?”
“Please,” Grace said.
She was happy to see that her suite of rooms faced south and west, which promised sunlight to chase away the gloom of this house. The rooms themselves were tastefully appointed, painted a pale creamy pink, with white shutters at the windows and embroidered draperies. The wood floor had been covered with a thick rug. It was very inviting. Except that, again, there was nothing on the walls to brighten the room.
“Is there anything you might require?” Mr. Cox asked.
“Yes,” she said, and pressed her hands to her belly. “I am quite hungry, Mr. Cox. Might I have something to eat?”
Mr. Cox looked strangely uncomfortable at her request. “I beg your pardon, madam, but supper is served at precisely eight o’clock.”
Grace looked at the mantle clock. It was a quarter to five o’clock. “Do you mean to say that I may not have anything to eat until eight o’clock?”
Cox swallowed; his cheeks colored slightly. “His lordship prefers food be served at those hours. Breakfast is likewise served at eight o’clock, and luncheon at twelve o’clock, tea at four o’clock.”
Grace stared at the butler, thinking she would see the hint of a smile, discover that he possessed a jovial streak. But Cox merely stood, awaiting her direction.
“No exception might be made today?” she asked.
“If his lordship agrees, of course.” But he made no move, which led Grace to believe that she would have to be the one to inquire. If that was the case, she preferred to feel the pangs of hunger.
“Might I have a bath?” she asked. “Or...are there requirements for the time they might be drawn?”
“No, madam. I will have one drawn right away.” Mr. Cox gave her a curt nod and strode briskly from the room.
When he’d gone, Grace let her reticule fall to the floor. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do next—her belly was growling and she was exhausted from the strain of this day. A bath would help that, and then she would count every minute to supper and the moment she’d be allowed to eat something. After that, well...whatever came after that, she couldn’t contemplate without feeling a bit ill.
But also a wee bit intrigued.
After all, not every moment in the tea shop had been dreadful.
* * *
JEFFREY’S PRIVATE CHAMBER was situated in the front hall of the first floor, overlooking the entrance to Blackwood Hall. It was twenty-four steps long and sixteen steps wide.
The master suite, which Mr. Cox frequently brought up in the hopes that Jeffrey would one day occupy it, was at the southern corner of the first floor. It had two walls of windows, with three windows each, overlooking the more picturesque bits of his estate. It was also thirty-one steps long and twenty-three steps wide.
Mr. Cox believed that Jeffrey preferred not to sleep where his father had passed away, and Jeffrey was content for him to assume so. But in truth, he preferred it here, in the quiet comfort of eight. It settled him, made him feel at ease.
Until today. This room was uncomfortably close to the new Lady Merryton’s suite of rooms.
He had taken refuge in his rooms when they’d arrived from Bath, pouring himself a generous portion of whiskey and removing his boots. He’d sat down onto the upholstered chair before his hearth, had leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his mind racing around the improbable fact that he was now married to a woman he did not know.
As he sat there in his quiet, he heard the servants in the hall. “Have a care, Willie, mind you not make a noise,” one footman said harshly to the other. “I told you, one bucket, each hand. If Mrs. Garland notices you’ve sloshed water on the carpets, she’ll have you sent to the stables.”
Jeffrey slowly opened his eyes. He realized that they were hauling buckets of water so that Lady Merryton could bathe.
He downed the rest of his whiskey, clenched his jaw and closed his eyes again. He tried his best not to imagine her naked body sliding into steaming water, her breasts floating on the surface. But the more he tried to banish the images, the faster they came at him. He saw water swirling around her sex, caressing her as he ached to do. He saw her lifting a slender, tapered leg from the water and running her hands over it, then her breasts, then leaning her head against the back of the bath and sliding her hands lower to where he wanted to put his hands—
Jeffrey suddenly came up with a start. He walked to the windows and flung one open, leaning into the casing, taking deep breaths of air. He had to control himself and his ugly thoughts. He had to learn to exist in this house with that woman—that treacherous, beautiful woman.
He whirled around from the window, grabbed up his boot. He silently counted to eight, then shoved his foot in. Again on the other leg. And then he strode out of his rooms, bound for the study, his fist tapping in a futile effort to ease his racing thoughts.
There he remained, burying his thoughts in an avalanche of work. He reviewed invoices, examined the ledgers, wrote his own correspondence. At ten of seven, Cox entered the study. “Will you dress for supper, my lord?”
“No,” Jeffrey said without looking up from his work. His response no doubt caused Cox a bit of consternation, for Jeffrey was nothing if not habitual. “Quite a lot to be done,” he said vaguely, and looked at the papers before him. “Please inform her ladyship of when and where we might dine.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Jeffrey stared blindly at the page before him as Cox went out, counting the butler’s footsteps. Six. Only six. Everything around him was off-kilter, out of balance, and Jeffrey didn’t know how to get it back. He couldn’t avoid the feminine presence in his house. He could already feel it seeping in through the walls, surrounding him like a vapor. He had spent so much of his adult life carefully constructing the boundaries around him that he’d not thought of what he might do if those boundaries were breached.
He certainly didn’t know what to do now, and continued working, filling his head with figures and the problems of managing a large estate until the supper hour. As much as he would have liked to have dined alone in his rooms, his sense of order and habit was much stronger. He strode down the hallway—sixteen steps in all—to the family dining room. He walked in, and the woman, his wife, was standing at the buffet.
His entrance clearly startled her; she jerked around, knocking into the buffet and causing the stack of plates to rattle. She quickly put her hands around the plates to still them and smiled apprehensively.
Her hands, he noticed, were slender and elegant. Long, tapered fingers. He looked down, pushing an image of those fingers sliding into body orifices.
“Good evening, my lord,” she said with as much cheer as one could muster, given the day. Her voice sounded melodic.
“Good evening, Lady Merryton.”
“Ah...Grace,” she said, as if perhaps he hadn’t remembered it, as if he hadn’t signed a marriage book and a special license with her name clearly spelled out for all eternity: Grace Elizabeth Diana Cabot. Twenty-four letters in all.
“You will forgive me if I do not feel the familiarity necessary to address you by your given name as yet.” He thought he was being helpful. He couldn’t very well explain to her that certain things had to happen before he could call her by her given name—even he wasn’t sure what—but he couldn’t speak to her as if they were known to each other. As if he had courted her, had asked her permission to address her more intimately.
Clearly, his helpful explanation had not had the desired effect; he could see her delicate swallow course her neck. She pressed her lips together and nodded politely.
She apparently had given up any pretense of mourning her stepfather, as she was wearing a shimmering gold gown with intricate embroidery of crystals on the skirt. They caught the light and made it look as if she were sparkling. The gown hugged her body tightly, and her breasts, heaven help him, were two creamy mounds that looked as if they would burst from her décolletage at any moment. Her golden hair was swept up in a simple roll at her nape. Jewels that matched the glitter of those around her throat dangled at her earlobes.
She was, in a word, lovely.
Jeffrey gestured to a seat at the table; a footman instantly moved to hold the chair for her.
She sat elegantly, her hands in her lap, her gaze on the setting before her. Jeffrey admired her long neck, the tiny wisps of hair that were not caught in the roll of her hair. She took a deep breath, her chest lifting with it, then smoothly falling again as she silently released it.
Jeffrey sat heavily in his seat at the head of the table, prepared for what he assumed would be a difficult evening. He tried not to look at this stranger, this beauty, his wife. To look at her was to imagine the claiming of her, the possession of her body. It was within his right, but Jeffrey could not bear it. He feared what he would do, that he would lose control, that he could, God forbid, hurt her. It was one thing to seek the company of women who shared his appetites, or could be persuaded to like them with a generous purse. It was something else entirely when the object of his desire was a virginal debutante.
He couldn’t help himself; he tapped his forefinger against the table eight times as nonchalantly as he possibly could.
“Shall we serve, my lord?” Cox said behind him.
Yes, please serve, let this day be done! “Please,” he said, and leaned back, his fists on his thighs, his jaw clenched.
The place settings had been laid perfectly—the water goblet four inches above the center of the plate, the wine goblet four inches to the right of that. The china plate, purchased from a rather desperate aristocratic Frenchman, boasted a fleur-de-lis in the center of the plate. The top of the fleur-de-lis pointed to the center of the water goblet. Jeffrey did not look at the plate’s border; it was a terrible hodgepodge of scrolling evergreen boughs and tiny fleur-de-lis that made no sense to him and disturbed him.
“You have a lovely home.”
The dulcet tone of her voice slipped through Jeffrey; he risked a look at her. The first thing he’d truly noticed about her—the first time he’d seen her in light, in that wretched office before they were wed—was her eyes. They were hazel, more green than brown, and they reminded him of the colors of late summer. Her lashes were darkly golden but long, her brows feathery arches over her eyes. He’d been struck by her beauty, something that he’d failed to notice the night in the tea shop.
What he noticed tonight was that her fingers were tapping lightly on the stem of the wine goblet. She had pulled the goblet out of its place, closer to her, and that it was out of place gave him a feeling of uneasiness. “Thank you,” he said. He looked away.
“Have you always resided here?”