Yours ever,
Lord Cedric Allardyce
Dear Cedric,
I beg you to release me from my promise. I would embark for America tomorrow morning, if it were possible. You need not worry about the competition with your brother; I would not have anything to do with him if someone were to pay me £20,000. As such, there is no need to go to these extremes.
Yours most sincerely,
Merry
Dear Merry,
I am happy to inform you that I have procured a special license from Doctors’ Commons. Furthermore, I have confirmed with the registrar at St. Paul’s that we shall be able to marry at ten of the clock tomorrow morning. Although we are marrying with what some might term undue haste, I dislike the idea of marrying you in a manner beneath our dignity, and I was happy to confirm that the Bishop of London will wed us. Footmen are busily running about London spreading the joyous news.
Ever yours,
Lord Cedric Allardyce
Dear Cedric,
You cannot want a wife who would rather find herself at the bottom of the sea than joined to you in holy matrimony.
Merry
Dear Merry,
The revelations go on and on. Who would have imagined that the stubborn young American lady had such a poetic soul?
On a less poetic note, as I am sure you are aware, your uncle and I have brought our final contractual negotiations to a satisfactory conclusion. I am not sure whether your uncle has informed you, but my brother has involved himself in the business. He has been insistent that your settlements are most generous—not that I would not have been, but I admit to feeling a touch of pique as regards your behavior with him.
He and I have talked extensively today, and he is right: pique has no place in marriage. I am writing to tell you, Merry, that I forgive you. You can trust me never to mention again the kisses you shared with the duke.
It is in the past; we begin with a clean slate.
Ever yours,
Cedric
Merry stared at Cedric’s final sentence for some time. She had spent most of the night sleepless and crying uncontrollably, and the whole of the day composing letters that she hoped would persuade Cedric to relent. But now it was ten in the evening, and they were set to marry in twelve hours’ time.
He wasn’t going to relent.
The duke . . . the duke had insisted that her settlements be generous. She understood the impulse behind that: he was ashamed of having kissed her—not the kiss itself, but his motive for it. As well he should be.
Bess and Thaddeus seemed positively ecstatic that their niece would at last make it all the way to the altar. Bess hadn’t even asked whether Merry truly wanted to go through with the marriage. Merry quickly scolded herself for that self-pitying thought. She had to stiffen her spine and get through this.
She went to bed feeling like a prisoner facing the gallows, exhausted and terrified. No matter how fiercely she willed herself to stay asleep, it was impossible. She kept jerking awake, mind whirling.
She had a feeling many women neither liked nor respected their husbands. But was there any woman who had felt such a deep yearning for her brother-in-law that as soon as her eyes closed, she dreamed of kissing him? Especially a brother-in-law who had behaved so despicably?
How would she ever look at the duke without remembering his kiss?
Better question: How would she ever look at her husband without loathing him?
By the time dawn arrived, she had, thankfully, cried herself into a state of numbness. It felt as if she were enveloped in a cloud that moved with her wherever she went. It muffled the world, and made her aunt’s chatter fade away.
She floated through Aunt Bess’s brief but informative discussion of the wedding night, registering just enough information to conclude that she would have to join Cedric in swilling brandy in order to survive that.
During her wretched night, she had somehow arrived at several important decisions.
The first was that, for once in her life, she would keep her promise. She would be honorable, if nothing else. She understood English society well enough to know that if she jilted Cedric and absconded back to America, he would be ruined.
Who would marry him? She suspected that fathers of eligible English lasses already viewed him as a drunk and a fortune hunter.
When would the next American heiress come along, ready to be dazzled by borrowed poetry and ignorant of the fact that a man can be befuddled by brandy and still dance a quadrille?
Never.
No, she had made a final, fatal choice when she had accepted Cedric’s proposal, and she must carry it through.
Second, she would allow a year or two to pass before she encouraged reconciliation between her husband and his twin. She would spare herself the company of the man who had kissed her for such a terrible reason, whether His Grace was repentant or not.
And finally, but certainly not least, Cedric would have to give up brandy. In fact, she would insist he give up wine and spirits altogether. She refused to accept a drunkard for a husband, even if she had to take him to an island off the coast of Wales and keep him there until he forgot what brandy smelled like.
Her life would be good. Even her married life would be good, because she would make it good. She would have children, and she would love her children, and spend time in the garden.
Her plans churned through her mind even as their carriage rolled up Ludgate and into St. Paul’s churchyard, which swarmed with all manner of carriages. Cedric was right: even with such short notice, most of fashionable London had managed to gather.
A few minutes later, standing with her uncle in the great doorway at the western end of the aisle, her daze finally evaporated and panic took its place. She had gone to bed feeling like a condemned prisoner; at the opposite end of the aisle was her gallows.
Before she stopped herself, an image of the duke laughing at her analogy popped into her head. He would think she was absurd. But he wasn’t marrying a drunken, unpleasant lout.
Ice trickled down her spine and her extremities tingled. Her feet wanted to run, just as fast as they could.
Out of St. Paul’s for a start, followed by out of England.
How could she have ended up in this situation? The last two days had passed in a frenzy, each hour propelling her closer and closer to this moment. Yet some small part of her mind had been certain that it wouldn’t actually happen.
Was it too late to change her mind? Merry clutched her uncle’s elbow and peered through her veil up the aisle. The veil was Belgian lace, bought optimistically during their Paris sojourn, and so difficult to see through that it might as well have been fashioned as a tablecloth.
“Uncle Thaddeus,” she whispered.
Of course it was too late. Her uncle couldn’t even hear her over the chatter of the hundreds of people who had congregated to see the wedding.
Were the English always so boisterous? In Boston, guests waited in dignified silence for the bride to arrive, with merely rustling or a hastily suppressed whisper here or there.
“Uncle!” Merry tightened her fingers around his elbow.
She glimpsed through the veil that he had turned his head to look at her. He may have smiled, but the lace blotted so much of her view that it might as well have been a blindfold. She felt as if she were standing in a very small and very hot white cave.
Thaddeus leaned close, bringing with him a reassuring whiff of the best tobacco and strong coffee. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he rumbled in her ear.
Merry swallowed hard. “I just—”
The organ swelled, downing out her voice with its jubilant announcement of the bride’s appearance. Thaddeus began to guide her slowly forward, as she trembled from head to foot within the grotto of her veil.
There is no going back. The words beat relentlessly in her head, keeping time with her uncle’s slow pace.
The nave seemed endless. Her veil moved a little with every step, but not so mu
ch that she could see anything other than the black-and-white checkers beneath her slippers. The pews and their occupants were nothing but a haze. She couldn’t even distinguish the faces closest to the aisle.
It made her feel like a pawn, advancing up an endless checkerboard. Her uncle played her piece, not she—but again she had to tell herself not to be sorry for herself. She made the choice to marry Cedric, and this sorry situation was no one’s fault but her own.
The checkerboard abruptly changed pattern, giving way to radiating circles of checkers. She was fairly certain that meant they’d entered the transept. Not far now. With every step, her heart beat faster, and her hands trembled.
A swell of noise filled the cathedral and she detected movement at the edge of her vision; it seemed Cedric was walking forward to meet her.
Her uncle brought them to a halt and for a moment all she heard was an excited murmur echoing throughout the vast space.
“Uncle?” she asked, turning her head.
He brought her forward two more steps. “Merry,” Thaddeus said, lowering his voice. “You must trust me, my dear. You will be happy.”
He was wrong, so wrong. Her heart was shattering. Still, there had been brides like her throughout history. They had survived. She would survive.
Merry turned her head toward her groom, but her cursed veil prevented any but a general sense of his person. Wordlessly, he took her arm from her uncle and moved to stand beside her, facing the bishop.
At least Cedric didn’t reek of cologne this morning. He seemed to own more vials of scent than she did, but this morning he smelled quite nice, with merely a touch of wintergreen soap about his person.
“Dearly beloved,” the bishop intoned, and Merry’s heart gave a painful thump. This was unbearable.
“We are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
She heard Cedric take a deep breath next to her. Panic flared again. The bishop rattled on with the rite but she couldn’t concentrate.
She should have stayed with Bertie. True, he had compared her to a red wagon, but he had adored her. Truly adored her.
With a start, she realized that the bishop was addressing Cedric. “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 . . .”
Honor?
She neither liked nor respected Cedric; how could she be expected to honor him? Or, for that matter, obey him? Her heart pounded so that she did not hear Cedric’s response over the rushing in her ears.
He must have said, “I will,” because moments later she found herself vowing to honor and to obey, in addition to keeping herself only unto him and all the rest of it.
The bishop turned to Cedric again and rattled on about how he should love and cherish her.
A choked scream pressed on the back of Merry’s throat. But rather than scream, when a hand encircled hers, she obediently parroted everything the bishop told her to say, the words emerging from her mouth like smoke, as if they meant nothing.
Do vows that a woman doesn’t hear matter?
The bishop said something else. A different voice interrupted her hysteria. “With this ring I thee wed,” her groom stated. “With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
What a liar he was.
What a liar she was.
A ring slid over her finger. “Oh no,” she whispered under her breath. “No, no.”
But that plea went unaddressed, because hands gently turned her, and then gathered and lifted her veil.
Light struck her face but Merry was looking at the marble floor, at the toes of her elegant slippers.
Slowly, she raised her head, steeling herself.
And met her husband’s eyes.
Chapter Twenty
Trent was prepared, if necessary, to catch his swooning wife when she discovered whom she had married. When he entered the cathedral, he had not expected Merry’s veil to be so thick that he couldn’t even make out her features—which made him doubt that she had seen his face.
In short, she might think she had married Cedric. He had a shrewd idea that her aunt had depended on just that.
He lifted her veil and met Merry’s eyes. Sure enough, they widened in shock. She opened her mouth, perhaps to scream.
Instinctively, Trent took a step forward and covered her mouth with his own.
He meant to merely brush her lips but he deepened the kiss instead, willing her not to protest. Sensation shot all the way down his body.
Merry was his wife now. He hadn’t stolen her; he had only taken what his brother had tossed aside. His hands circled her waist and he bent his head, memorizing the shape of her lips, and when she gasped, her taste.
No matter how it had come about, she was his now.
Merry’s veil had disappeared, and instead of Cedric . . .
The duke.
Her husband?
Impossible. Impossible.
Yet the duke was kissing her, and Cedric was nowhere to be seen. His Grace’s kiss felt unhurried, as if there was nothing else that either of them should be doing. There was no self-consciousness about it, either, even though a church full of onlookers sat before them and a bishop stood behind them.
He didn’t pull her improperly close, but she could feel the strength in his hands through her gown.
Merry felt her eyes closing. The duke made no sound but his approval shimmered through her. For one second, their kiss became something completely different: sensual, daring, scandalous.
The congregation! The bishop!
Her eyes popped open and she pulled away.
The man she had unwittingly married was looking down at her, his eyes unreadable. “My brother relinquished his claim to your hand,” he said, in a voice only she could hear. Her hands came up without her volition, grasping his forearms.
“He did what?”
“We shall give it out that I fell madly in love with you, and my brother gave you up from the goodness of his heart. People expect that sort of thing from twins.”
“He gave me up,” Merry repeated.
Well, obviously he had, because Cedric was not standing in front of her. The relief that abruptly flooded her body was so acute that her knees trembled.
Alarm crossed the duke’s face. “You’ve done so well. Please don’t be the first woman to faint in my presence.”
“I shall not,” Merry said, willing her knees not to buckle.
“I forgot that Americans never swoon,” he murmured, and she saw a flash of amusement in his eyes.
Somehow, her prayer had been answered. She had not opened her eyes to discover that she had become Lady Cedric Allardyce.
“Where is he?” she whispered.
Her husband turned them to face the assembly—which caused a commotion that would have counted as a roar in a Roman amphitheater—and leaned over to speak in her ear.
“He embarked for the Bahamas on last night’s tide.”
Merry could scarcely hear him through the tumult. She curled her fingers around his elbow. Her breath was coming quickly . . . From the shock? From the kiss?
She told herself to smile, and began the return journey down the aisle. Their marriage must be legal. The scandal would be far too great otherwise.
Beside her, His Grace was nodding to people as he walked. Just as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in marrying his brother’s intended.
Merry had the queer feeling that she had toppled straight into a novel, one of those that appeared in three volumes with special bindings. Miss Fairfax had always pointed out sourly that life wasn’t like a novel.
Miss Fairfax, it seemed, was wrong.
In more than one way.
The girl who was too tall, who had no manners, whom no Englishman would want to
marry . . . that American girl was now a duchess.
Chapter Twenty-one
Thaddeus Pelford met Trent’s eyes with a knife-edged nod that said as clearly as a cocked pistol that Trent had better make his niece happy.
He would.
He hoped.
He glanced down at Merry. Yards of billowing lace set her off like a jewel, emphasizing her silky hair, wide eyes, rosy mouth. Her train was long enough to sweep the widest path in Hyde Park. Like a peacock dragging its tail on the ground, she looked magnificent, if slightly ludicrous.
They emerged from the great doors into May sunshine to be met by a shout of excitement from the crowd gathered outside. A cluster of journalists from the gossip rags sprang forward screaming questions. Clearly, news of the bridegroom swap had spread.
Footmen clothed in the ducal livery stood shoulder to shoulder in two rows, creating an aisle to the carriage door. The crowd stretched as far as Warwick Lane, jostling shoulders and craning necks to see the beautiful heiress from America whom a duke had stolen from his own brother.
Merry made a little sound, and her hand tightened on his arm. But then she smiled and raised her right hand in a wave.
A romantic gesture was clearly called for, so Trent scooped her up. The curves of Merry’s body fit his arms as if she’d been designed for them. In the sunlight, the violet in her eyes was the color of forget-me-nots.
The crowd roared with approval.
He nodded at a footman, who sprang forward and gathered up the yards of lace spilling on the ground behind them. At the carriage door, Trent leaned in and placed his bride on a seat, then climbed in after her, and sat down opposite.
Any man would be moved by Merry’s curves. Any man would feel a possessive thrill. It was probably a requisite part of the wedding ceremony, invoked by the vows that had bound her to him.
The footman pushed an armful of lace through the door and closed it. The coachman instantly loosed his reins, and the throng parted as the carriage started slowly forward.
As if they’d been alone together a hundred times, Merry reached up and began pulling out her hairpins, creating a little pile on a seat until she was able to pull her veil free.