Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

“ W ill there be sweetmeats?”

“There will be cakes and sweets aplenty, Annie, now do get down from there and help me with this,” Mrs. Adams said, her kind face contorted with the effort of not laughing. “It is our Miss Elizabeth’s wedding day, after all. We must be getting on!”

“Will all the ladies be dressed in lace and frills?” Annie said, grinning and spinning on one foot. She was stood on the chair at Elizabeth’s dresser and was trying her hardest to make a fichu look like a bridal veil. “And will there be enough flowers that I could have some?”

“Now, none of that,” Mrs. Adams said, looking over at Sally with a raised eyebrow that said she thought her older daughter might have been filling her youngest’s head with fancies. “Any flowers will belong to Lady Elizabeth and she’ll get to say what happens to them.”

“I would be glad to send you some, Annie,” Elizabeth said. “But I do not think I shall have the time.” In secret she rather suspected that she did not in fact get to say what happened to anything, but it would do no good to spoil the girl’s fun by saying so.

Sally smiled at her mother and ducked around Elizabeth to pull her little sister down and take the gloves and fichu off her so they could continue putting the finishing touches on the packing.

Their laughter was so familiar to Elizabeth that it was like a hug, and that made her feel all the more like there was a knife going into her stomach with every second that she got closer to leaving forever.

Annie had been so little not so long ago, just a tiny little slip of a girl and here she was already shot up to Elizabeth’s height, a strapping girl of three and ten. She had her own duties for the family, she was almost a young woman now.

What else might Elizabeth miss of her life now she was going away?

She was standing in the center of all the bustle and chaos staring out the window but she was caught in the middle of thoughts of the only family she really cared about and how she couldn’t take them with her or even come visit them, not properly.

She was to become a duchess, after all. Duchesses didn’t go calling on housekeepers and their children.

“My lady,” Sally called, her bright cheerful face blazing with a smile. “Come on now, let me help do you up. We’re almost ready.”

The dress felt foreign to her. It was a dark green, and she knew just enough to know that there was a message in that somewhere, something a little cruel, a little grim. Just like most things that her family did.

But even so it was so much finer than anything she had ever worn that the fabric felt dangerous to touch too much with her hands. She was standing as still as she could manage, her arms held awkwardly at her side so she would not mess up the embroidery somehow and she almost had to laugh at how silly she must look.

All the many little buttons down the back of the dress still had to be done up and she was already so aware of every inch of herself that she dreaded that last little bit of suffocation like it might wring the breath from her lungs.

How could she do this? She had never gone out in society one day in her life, how could she now go from her only home and be enough for a duke to marry? Could she really make it that far or would he look at her in the church and turn his head away like everyone had thought he would that day in the drawing room?

Elizabeth swallowed, her face heating at the reminder.

Why had he looked at her like that? He was so much taller than she had expected, so broad and so striking. He looked as though he was on fire inside, like everything he touched must catch on fire too.

Maybe that was why she felt so hot under her skin when he was close to her, leaning over her -

“All right, Miss,” Mrs. Adams took one of her hands and squeezed it, her smile large and warm just like everything else about her. “It’s perfectly normal for a lady to be nervous on her wedding day. Don’t you worry, you’re only going to better and bigger things.”

“That’s right,” Sally said stoutly. “I’ve heard that the Duke of Westall has twice the money at least that His Grace does. I bet that sticks in his throat and chokes him when he’s trying to sleep!”

Elizabeth bit back a laugh as Mrs. Adams rounded on her daughter, shock on her face. “Sally Adams, you bite your tongue and pray that the good lord didn’t hear you talking so about your betters!”

“I don’t know about my betters,” Sally muttered, almost too low to be heard. “Money doesn’t make a gentleman, you always say.”

“And a fast tongue doesn’t make a well behaved miss, neither,” Mrs. Adams said, wagging her finger comically enough that Elizabeth gave in to a giggle.

“Now, Mother Adams,” Elizabeth said, touching Sally on the arm fondly. “Let’s not quarrel today. I want you all to be glad with me.”

“Of course, my lady,” Mrs. Adams said, her face softening. “Girls now work quickly, I want to see my lady in her finest at last.”

Elizabeth let them finish with her gown, and smiled a little at her friend as Sally went to get her headdress and Mrs. Adams fussed and worried over her hair.

They were so excited for her. They were so sure that this would be the best thing that could have happened for her. They wanted her to have her freedom at last.

“Oh Miss Elizabeth,” Mrs. Adams breathed.

Elizabeth looked at her dearest friend’s mother, the woman who had held her at night when she was a little girl crying about how lonely and cold and dark her rooms were, the woman who had listened to her thoughts and worries, had watched her grow. The only family she had really ever had.

Sally handed her the beautiful silk gloves that felt like a second skin and then led her over to the mirror so that she could look at herself.

The green of the dress was just like his eyes, she thought. It was such a sudden thought that her knees felt weak beneath her. His eyes and how they had bored into her as she stood before him, just an object for him and her father to bicker over - why had they affected her so?

She was pale, the darkness of the gown making her more so and making her eyes look huge in her face. Sally and Annie and Mrs. Adams were clapping their hands and saying how beautiful she was and how happy she would be but all Elizabeth could see in the mirror was a caged bird going to a new cage.

The footman had her bags and was loading them into the carriage and Sally was going to follow after with her own cases, of course. Elizabeth wished desperately they could come to the ceremony and stand with her, but of course that would look strange at a duke’s wedding wouldn’t it?

No one would be happy if she admitted that she saw the housekeeper and her daughters as more her own than her flesh and blood.

“I’ll think of you every day,” Annie whispered fiercely, grabbing her hands and pressing them tight. “And I’ll pray every night for you, Lady Elizabeth, I promise I will.”

“I’ll miss you, Annie,” Elizabeth said softly, ruffling the girl’s hair. “Be careful.”

Mrs. Adams was next, clasping her into an embrace that felt like home and everything that she would be leaving behind and Elizabeth ached to cry and cling and beg her to come too.

“I wish you all the best, my dear,” she said very softly in Elizabeth’s ear. “Be well and be happy, Lady Elizabeth. Have everything that you ever deserved.”

The Duchess of course had not come to see Elizabeth getting ready and neither had Lottie or Rose. They were her half-sisters, she was marrying the Duke of Westall to save them from having to do it and they couldn’t even bother to come and wish her well before the ceremony.

But this was enough, Elizabeth felt, closing her eyes tight so that she wouldn’t have to let the tears fall. This was what a mother’s blessing was meant to feel like. This was all that she really wanted. She squeezed Mrs. Adams back and whispered, “ Thank you ,” and hoped that it said everything that she meant in her heart.

“I really cannot thank you enough, sister,” Dudley said, his long legs crossed as the carriage carried them towards the church. “Your generosity and self-sacrifice will not be quickly forgotten by the family, I assure you.”

Lottie made a loud sniggering noise and Elizabeth wondered if she thought the Duke of Seymour would approve of his wife making such a vulgar sound.

“Is the Duke of Westall really wicked, Dudley?” Rose asked. She was the youngest, and she should perhaps have been the sweetest. Elizabeth could still remember when she was a little baby, all rosy cheeks and those wide eyes of innocence.

Their gazes met across the carriage. There was no innocence in Rose anymore. There was nothing in this whole family but malice and misery.

“I couldn’t possibly scare my sweet sisters so terribly,” Dudley said. “Exposing your delicate ears to the tales of his villainy? And so close to our sweet Elizabeth’s marriage to the devil? Oh! It would be too cruel for words!”

“You can’t simply tease us and leave us wondering,” Lottie said, her fan dropping to her lap and her eyes sparkling with merriment. “I’m sure that Elizabeth will appreciate any truth about her intended in the spirit in which it’s meant, won’t you Lizzie?”

Elizabeth looked at her steadily, but said nothing. It was always best for her to say nothing when they were like this. They circled her sometimes, like hungry beasts tracking their prey. They surrounded her and if she was still and quiet and gave no sign of the blood they were drawing they got bored and went away.

“You are quite right of course, Lottie,” Dudley said, slapping his thigh. “I had not thought about how it might be useful for Elizabeth to know what she must be careful of with her new husband.”

Of course sometimes they were just encouraged to try harder.

Dudley leaned forwards, his face twisted into a mimicry of concern. “Now, Elizabeth. I have met your intended several times, and quite a few of those times were with a sword in my hand. The first thing you should know about Westall is that the man has a temper that would put the devil himself to shame. One time I was trying to retreat from the field after winning the first blood, and he was so enraged that he came at me with his bare blade and tried his best to cut me open with it.”

Lottie and Rose gasped, their hands going to cover their mouths and Elizabeth raised both her eyebrows. It would be rude to roll her eyes at him. She would not do so, no matter how much she wanted to.

“It was only the involvement of our seconds that saved my life, that day,” Dudley said. “He is a fiend when things go against him, but he is even worse when they go for him. One time when he had disarmed me and all should have been ended, he came forwards and ground the heel of his boot into my hand.” He turned his left hand, showing the faint scars across its back. “He said ‘that will teach you to try to best me, you young cur, you’ll think of this next time you raise a sword against me’.”

“The scoundrel!” Lottie said, heat in her voice.

“How can it be borne,” Rose said. “You must have gone back to teach him a lesson, brother darling, you must!”

“Of course I tried,” Dudley said, attempting an expression of modesty which fit very poorly on his face. “But the man is such a slippery fellow. One cannot fight him fair and to his face and one cannot trust him to leave be once the fight is done. He is all temper and cunning, like a howling dog.”

Rose wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s shoulders. “Oh we are so fortunate to have a sister who will save us all from him!”

“Aren’t we?” Dudley said, meeting Elizabeth’s gaze and smiling.

Was it possible that even this man could be worse than her own family? Elizabeth wondered.

But then he had warned her not to provoke him.

And he was so tall. So strong.

“Of course his sisters are no better,” Lottie said sharply. “That older one with all of those strange ideas, she’s loud and coarse. If I ever find myself in company with her I quickly make my excuses, it’s just impossible to have a normal conversation with her.”

“And the younger, she’s not even out yet,” Rose said. “And she’s eight and ten! It’s all because the older one just won’t abide a man, but I can’t imagine that the younger is much better. I’ve heard she’s touched in the head.”

“That or she has some sort of disease,” Lottie said. “That would explain why she’s so old and hasn’t any suitors.”

“Of course it might just be because she is rather plain.” Rose tittered here, her smile broad and her cheeks dimpled.

“The brother is awful too,” Lottie said. “Going after Dudley the way he did, he must be quite mad! He very nearly killed him!”

“I wouldn’t say nearly,” Dudley demurred. “He was lucky, that’s all. I was feeling quite ill on the day.”

His sisters petted him and Elizabeth swallowed, her stomach churning as they drew ever closer to the church. This was what her life was going to be, was it? An angry violent man and a family who hated hers and wanted them dead?

She could certainly tell that the Duke was dangerous when she first met him, it was in the controlled liquid way he moved, the broadness of his shoulders and the quick way his gaze assessed everything around him. It was frightening but it also made a part of her thrill a little, like liquid excitement in her veins. She had never felt it before.

The carriage drew up and rumbled to a stop and there was a flurry of activity as the Duke came over to help his little girls down and fuss over them. There was so much of a fuss, so much going on that Elizabeth didn’t notice until too late that she was on her own with Dudley.

She was never alone with Dudley.

She never dared.

He caught her wrist before she could move to get down from the coach, ignoring the need for a hand to dismount in her rush to depart. “Now, sister. Stay a moment, there’s just one more thing I want to say to you.”

“I cannot tarry,” Elizabeth said, swallowing as she heard how pale and faint her voice was in her own ears. “I must get to the church.”

He leaned close, his voice lowering, a smile on his face as their father came over to help her down. “It’s just this, dearest. If your husband should happen to be an Othello, or perhaps a Herakles and tear you limb from limb I want you to remember and be glad in the fact that we, your family, will be happy to avenge you.”

His teeth were bared, barely even a smile, and she felt cold all over, numb and trembling as her father handed her down from the carriage and towards the church.