Chapter 18

I'm beginning to forget what happiness is.

~ The Duchess of A

S everal hours later, Raina, attired in her finest gown of pale blue, crystal-encrusted silk and with her diamond studded tiara affixed to her artfully arranged curls, stared blankly at her brother's office door.

The irony of this full-circle moment was not lost on her.

Just days ago, she'd stood in this same way, outside this same panel, elegantly dressed at a godforsaken hour. Then, Raina knew only an eager excitement for the relationship she'd conjured up between herself and the man her brother would make her bodyguard. He'd have been a friend and confidante.

Now, he'd be…her husband.

Her brother, the duke, would stand for nothing less. If Raina didn't go through with this, Severin and Gregory, two men, so very alike in their ungodly amount of power, wealth, and pride would duel.

One man would die.

Sweat slicked Raina's skin.

An image slipped in—of Severin and Gregory on a misty field, while someone called out the pace count. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the play in her mind could not be stopped.

The signal to fire and then Severin and Gregory wheeling around.

The morbid, sickening thoughts came so fast, they couldn't be stopped.

The loud report of flintlock pistols and then, the smoke clearing to reveal Severin, with a hole blown through his chest. A slow expanding, dark stain, that begins small and widens. His hard mouth parting with shock…and then, collapsing to his knees.

Raina's breaths grew shallow and shaky.

Stop.

She squeezed her eyes shut and curled into herself to will the vision of Severin's life-blood slipping from his broad, powerful frame, gone.

Then, the image contorted and twisted and reversed to that hated beginning and played out all over again—this time, with Gregory, his crooked, confident, cheer-filled smile frozen on his mouth.

Raina pressed a fist against her mouth to stifle a sob. Either way, be it Severin or Gregory who fell, she'd never recover from a bottomless grief.

And it would be Gregory. Rumored to be a great shot, with a number of duels to his name, he still stood as no match to Severin. Self-serving and personally driven and distant as her brother had become, Gregory still was her older brother, and she'd love him forever.

There also wasn't the insignificant worry as to what would happen to both she and her younger sister were Gregory to die.

The idea of being married to the earl should horrify her.

Not because she feared Severin or was disgusted by him. He'd been blatantly open with her about his violent and dark past, but she could separate, even when Severin could not, the things he'd done in service to the Crown to the man he was.

For Severin, he'd done the manner of work he had for so long, it'd become entwined with his person, and he couldn't separate the two.

No, any and all horror stemmed from the fact that Raina pathetically , and against all her better judgment, had fallen hopelessly in love with Severin Cadogan, the Earl of Killburn.

An aching sorrow filled her breast.

To Raina, Severin, though blunt—albeit, grudgingly—in a short time, had become what she'd dreamed he might be—a confidante with whom she'd shared things she'd never shared with anyone else, and also…the only real friend she'd ever known.

A sizeable knot formed in Raina's throat and when swallowing proved impossible, she rubbed a hand at her neck in a bid for air.

What a sad commentary on the state of your life , a cruel voice in her head needled. Nearly twenty years of age and the closest Raina had ever come to a friend was a dour, pitiless man whose only interest in her, as he'd claimed and proven, was purely carnal in nature.

Made of steel, Severin wasn't one who could be made to do anything , yet somehow, Raina's brother had managed to bring him around to marrying her. Despite the shock, disgust, and horror she'd spied in his eyes earlier that morning, the last thing he wanted was Raina as his wife.

It was why this wedding between she and Severin—a man who disavowed love and detested intimacy, outside of the physical— would proceed.

Grounded by that practical reminder, Raina gave her head a shake to clear the lingering scenes in her head.

But then, what else could she expect when the only two men in her life were possessed of ghastly amounts of power, money, and connections?

She closed her eyes.

Livingstone, the kindly, handsome footman to the right of the door cleared his throat. "Ahem. Should I…open the door?" he ventured.

It is time.

Raina nodded.

The moment Livingstone announced her, Raina stepped inside.

For a moment, with the dim lighting of Gregory's office and the absolute silence, Raina believed she must have been mistaken; that she'd been directed to the wrong place.

Gregory's booming and effusive greeting put an end to that possibility. "Ah, my sister, the beautiful bride."

She looked to where he stood at the hearth.

As her smiling sibling headed to greet her, Raina's gaze however, of its own volition, flickered past Gregory, and over to the unsmiling trio. Each of big, sturdy builds and broad frames positioned as they were, near one another, managed to blot out the light cast by the fire.

Each man bore a scar of some sorts. Only one, she knew.

And he, could not even bring himself to look at her.

Instead, Severin kept his flinty, emotionless, eyes trained over the top of Raina's head.

Look at me, Severin. Please.

But, he didn't.

Raina caught the inside of her lower lip, hard, between her teeth.

For the arctic glaze upon his person, her husband-to-be, the dark, frosty, earl may as well have been chipped and chiseled from the coldest glacier.

"You had us all in suspense, dear sister!"

Dumbly, Raina looked to her brother. At some point, he'd joined her at the entrance of the room.

"The groom has been positively restless," he chided, his affable grin erasing all hint of rebuke.

Positively restless…?

She cast a brief dubious glance Severin's way in search of some hint of any form of movement and found none.

" I, however," Gregory continued on, bringing her attention whipping back his way, "assured the earl I did not doubt you'd be here, and that you wished to make a grand entrance, not that meant to worry your groom."

A grand entrance?

Worry her groom?

Was he mad ?

Feeling like she'd stepped onto the stage of farce and found herself the only one without the benefit of the script, Raina allowed her brother to slip his arm through hers and escort her over to her husband-to-be.

When she stood before him, Severin didn't so much as spare Raina a glance…until the big, black-clad fellow between Severin and another stranger snapped open a book.

"Let us begin." The man, who upon careful inspection of the book in his hand appeared to be the one performing the ceremony.

"Wait!" Raina's voice emerged shrill.

For the first time since she stepped foot inside the room, Severin, finally looked at her.

And she promptly wished he hadn't.

An apoplectic rage and dark, black hate emanated from those blue-black irises.

She gasped and stumbled away from him.

That same murderous rage, he'd previously leveled on the men who'd slandered her, he now fixed on Raina.

Given his volatile response and a startling display of desperation after they'd been discovered in their host's parlor, she'd known Severin didn't want to marry her—that much, couldn't have been clearer.

What she'd been wholly unprepared for, however, was this . The measure of hate he directed her way. It blazed from his eyes and seared her skin.

She'd witnessed that lethality before when she'd found him pulverizing her detractors.

Never, however, had she herself been victim to that terrifying emotion.

This was the supernatural god of mortal men's nightmares.

Raina took another step back and collided with something solid.

Frantic, she cast a desperate look over her shoulder.

Gregory.

Stationed close. To offer support? To ensure she not run?

Or, knowing her brother it was likely both.

"What is it, Raina?" Gregory gently asked.

What was it? Was he serious? She strangled on a panicked laugh.

Did her brother not see, or worse, not care—about the antipathy Severin carried for her?

Then, Gregory angled his body in a way that shielded Raina from Severin's death stare.

He did so with all the same tenderness he'd shown Raina when she'd been a girl. Tears formed in her eyes.

How much simpler life had been then. How much—

"Raina?" Gregory urged this time, with such a sense of urgency and impatience. "Any and all doubts and regrets you might have—"

" Might have?" she choked out on a whisper.

"Ceased to matter the moment you allowed Cadogan liberties reserved for your future husband," her brother spoke on a hush. He carried on over her quiet gasp. "It is time to do this and now …before Cadogan has a change of mind."

As Gregory delivered that last, and, clearly, most important part, he directed it not to Raina but to her stony bridegroom.

Fury mixed with pain and resentment, into a potent storm of blistering rage. "No," she said, not even bothering to mask her bitterness. "That wouldn't do at all," she spat, her voice climbing. "In fact, if he doesn't marry me, it would be a veritable disaster."

"Have some pride, Raina." Color splotched Gregory's cheeks. "Lower your voice."

Horrified, she glanced back at Severin, and here she'd believed the hate emanating from his eyes couldn't have burned more.

"Now, Raina," her brother snapped.

She stared at the elbow he extended.

Raina found herself reminded all over again that Gregory was no longer the loving brother out to protect a beloved sister. But then, he wasn't just her sibling. He was the all-powerful Duke of Argyll. And she, just like every other woman in the world, existed for the sole purpose of serving men.

That reminder sent a fresh wave of bitterness coursing through her.

To hell with him and his indifference.

"Where is Millie?" she clipped out.

A perplexed-looking Gregory shook his head, as if he'd never heard the name before. As if it was the most natural thing in the world for their youngest sibling to be absent from her sister's wedding.

" Mil-lee ," she repeated, enunciating each syllable through gritted teeth. "I know it is early, but I want her to be here—"

Severin spoke his first words since Raina's arrival. "For the happy occasion?" His low baritone oozed such condescension and mockery and loathing, her heart and everything else within her being ached.

Knocked off-balance once more, Raina could only manage a bob of her head that emerged as something between a nod and a shake.

But at least he'd spoken to her.

Raina held his hate-filled gaze. "F-For the c-ceremony," she amended, her voice barely reaching her own ears.

"Millie is not here."

It took a moment to register what her brother just said.

Raina whipped her gaze over to Gregory. "I…don't…where…?"

All her thoughts went unfinished, and she hated herself for that weakness. She despised that she'd been reduced to a stuttering, woundable miss. No, that she'd let herself be reduced to such a pathetic state.

"You'd keep her from me?" Raina whispered.

"I thought given the situation it was the wisest course," he murmured.

Given the situation? The wisest course?

Anger proved a welcome emotion over her misery and dejectedness. Raina whipped about to face him completely.

"What are you talking about, Gregory? No one is any wiser to…" She slid a look to the pair of mutes. With their having failed to make so much as a single inhalation or exhalation, she'd forgotten their presence—until now.

When she again spoke to her brother, she did so in even quieter tones. "Millie needn't know anything about the reason for my marriage—"

" Our marriage," Severin put forward in mockingly cheerful tones that could never be confused with genuine affection on the groom's part for his bride-to-be.

It mattered not that she'd whispered; he heard everything .

"After all, my dear bride," he jeered, "the sole purpose of your union requires my complete and full cooperation."

His cooperation.

Somehow, Raina managed to go even colder.

Gregory had somehow wrangled Severin, a man who cowed to no one, to this make-shift altar to do right by her.

It mattered not that he'd been as much as a willing participant as she, Severin would hate her forever for landing him in a position he did not want.

Gregory touched her lightly on the arm. "Cadogan would rather keep your union a secret as long as possible," he explained.

Confused, she stared at up at him.

"A secret?" she repeated.

Again, Gregory glanced Severin's way, and then nodded.

Even more befuddled, Raina looked to her bridegroom, and searched his face.

He'd set his stubborn jaw at a mutinous angle. His deadened eyes contained nothing more than an icy cold.

And then, posed with his pitiless expression and what her brother had said, the realization of what it actually meant , hit Raina like a blow to the chest—Severin didn't want the world to know he'd married her.

Her neck, cheeks, and chest grew impossibly hot, and she had to fight to keep from clawing at the fabric of her dress.

The idea Severin's only love—and the sole thing on earth he'd commit to—his career, was one thing. Him not wanting to publicly acknowledge having her as his wife, was entirely another .

Raina stood exposed—on full-display for her brother, bridegroom, and the two, big, strangers he'd arrived with—feeling so very small.

She wanted to flee. She wanted to get away from her brother and Severin and this moment and continue running so fast backward that she landed herself at a time long before this one.

"Raina," her brother said quietly, but firmly. "It is time to begin."

Time to begin…

Raina couldn't go through this. She and Severin couldn't.

Taking her brother by the arm, she forced him to follow her, putting some distance between Raina and Severin and the men he'd arrived with.

"I can't," she whispered, imploring her brother.

His eyes instantly hardened, and she knew the very moment when Gregory disappeared, and the Duke of Argyll emerged in his stead. "You have no choice, Raina," he said, his voice muted and coolly matter-of-fact. "The decision was made when you allowed Cadogan liberties."

Fire scorched her cheeks. "As if you haven't done far more, and far worse with a legion of—"

" I'm not a woman," he cut her off. "We are not held to the same standards and be it fair or not, that is the reality. You'll be ruined."

Raina gripped him by his arms and gave him a slight shake. "How?" she implored. "How when you are the only one who knows—"

"Because I know," he interrupted. This time, there hung an air of finality and warning upon his words.

Her shoulders sagged. "He doesn't love me."

"He will."

A laugh burst from her lips. "He doesn't even like me."

"He likes you enough, and in time, will grow to feel even more for you. I do not doubt it."

He didn't doubt it.

Because why would he? Her brother, as a duke, was all-powerful. The world bowed and bent to his wishes and whims. No one challenged him in any way, leaving him so arrogant, too arrogant to imagine he could ever be wrong.

And he was—wrong. Dead wrong.

With a growing sense of hopelessness, she registered the duke taking her by the arm and steering her over to the stoic men who waited.

The moment they returned, the tallest, biggest, man snapped his book open and got on with it.

Dearly beloved, 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; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is…"

While the most unconventional, but surprisingly, sonorous, man-of-cloth droned on over the Book of Prayers, Raina's gaze drifted about the equally unlikely place of her wedding.

"… and is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable among all…"

She had grown up believing the day she married would be a grand event. It would be held in St. George's Cathedral, resplendent in floral decor to rival the late Queen Charlotte's gardens. The king and queen were to have attended, along with all the ton's most powerful peers, so the vestibule pews were full to overflowing.

That'd been Raina's expectation, not because it was the dream she'd carried for herself. Rather, her ostentatious parents and equally sensational brother saw the Goodheart family as one grand exhibition.

They always insisted Raina's eventual wedding would befit a duke's daughter.

The only dream she'd carried, the only hope she'd held in her heart, was that she'd stand across from a loving, devoted, bridegroom who could not take his eyes off her.

Of course, what she'd dreamed of, her wants, her wishes, they'd never mattered—not even to the brother and parents who'd sired her.

It was why, she found herself face to face with a man who hated her so much, he wouldn't even look at her.

Raina squeezed her eyes shut to keep from weeping and made herself focus on the moment and not misery at what would never be.

"…therefore," the minister murmured , "it is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding…"

Raina's toes curled reflexively into the soles of her slipper.

Without even looking at Severin, she could feel the heat of his mocking gaze.

"…First, it was ordained for the procreation of children…"

Children.

Raina's heart leapt at the word; at the prospect, at that which she'd only and always wanted—a loving family, for who each spouse, each child, was enough for one another.

Just another thing that will never be…

Her chest constricted sharply.

There came the crisp snap of the minister turning his page.

"…Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry…"

This time, she did lift her gaze to Severin's, and with her eyes, she willed him to see the love she held for him, she willed it to matter.

"Severin," she mouthed his name, turning it into an entreaty.

His silence and opaque stare said nothing and everything all at the same time.

"…Therefore, if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace…"

He doesn't want this. Surely, in Gregory's witnessing Severin's antipathy toward Raina during their ceremony, he would stop this. Surely, he'd see this could not continue.

Desperate, she turned to her brother.

"That's the last place where you'll find objection, sweet," Severin whispered.

"And I take it the first place I'll find it is with you, dear husband-to-be."

Where did she find the strength and will to issue that spirited, impertinent, rebuttal?

He smirked. "That would be correct."

Had he gutted her with a dull knife it couldn't have hurt more than his icy rejection.

Lest he see the fresh tears that sprung to her eyes, Raina lowered her gaze to the floor, and distantly listened on as the ceremony continued…on and on…and on.

"…At which day of marriage, if any man do allege and declare any impediment, why they may not be coupled together in matrimony, by God's Law, or the Laws of this Realm; and will be bound, and sufficient sureties with him, to the parties; or else put in a caution…"

Raina began to wonder if Severin, in fact, chose the minister he had in the hope Raina would die of boredom before the wedding concluded.

The vicar's oration grew increasingly robust, as it appeared to climb towards a crescendo—and then it did.

"Severin Constance William Cadogan,"

His name in its entirety—strong and bold and all-powerful as he—she'd not even known until now.

"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—"

Something welled in her throat.

"— comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health…"

Comfort her? Keep her in sickness and in health?

Raina giggled.

And wonder of wonder, she managed to silence the ceaseless vicar.

Her skin prickle with the feel of five annoyed stares upon her.

Raina turned the rest of her droll amusement into a cough. "Forgive me," she demurred. "If you'll please, continue."

The vicar inclined his head and resumed from the beginning of Severin's vows. "Wilt thou love her—"

As if Severin could. The whisper of Severin's earlier promise became tangled with the vicar's words.

"I don't make love to women…I fuck them."

She choked back another giggle.

"…Wilt though, comfort her…"

Never.

"…You do not mean anything to me. You are a job, my lady. That is all, that is it. A job just as every other I've taken, and not a thing more."

Then, the man of God's words seemed to come faster and faster. "Honor her…keep her in sickness and in health… forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

It was too much.

A raspy laugh exploded from her with such force her body shook, and tears streamed down her cheeks—this time, these tears, were ones of utter mirth and amusement.

All the strangers present for Raina's wedding day stared on.

Good, let them stare.

Let—

Someone—her brother—took Raina firmly by her forearm and led her away.

Not releasing his hold on her, Gregory spoke her name with a quiet insistence. " Raina ."

She erupted into a rueful snort of hilarity. No doubt he absolutely despised he couldn't control her emotions. Through her blurred vision, she caught sight of her brother's worried gaze.

Worried. That thin line she straddled between amusement and despair grew frail, and she teetered on the edge of madness.

Through the maelstrom of emotions, she felt Gregory's grip grow firmer.

And then it was gone.

A deep baritone penetrated Raina's confusion.

"The next time you put your hands on her, I'll cut them off," Severin warned.

At some point, he'd removed Gregory's hand from Raina's person. He now held Gregory in a hold so punishing, even her stalwart brother's cheeks had gone a sickly white.

Wide-eyed, Raina stared at the two men, so different in every way: Gregory fair, and slightly taller but several stones lighter than a black-haired, dark in every way, heavily muscled Severin.

"Am I clear?" Severin whispered and squeezed Gregory harder.

Raina's lungs cinched. No one had gone toe-to-toe with the Duke of Argyll, and most certainly not because of or for Raina.

Her brother's mouth tightened in furious annoyance, but still, he proved no match for the earl.

Gregory gave a jerky nod.

Severin released him so quickly, Gregory stumbled, then caught himself.

"Leave us," Severin said flatly. He directed his command at the duke, but his unswerving eyes remained on Raina.

His gaze would never not cause her to tremble.

Smoothing the lapels of his jacket, a ruffled Gregory gave another terse nod.

He rejoined the silent pair at the hearth, and Raina and Severin were alone with an illusion of privacy.

This had been the closest they'd come to being alone since he'd made love to her at Lord and Lady Rutherford's ball. How strange, a woman could be so close as she'd been to Severin, in every way, just hours ago, only to find herself at sea and shy and unsettled before him now.

"I know the reason for your laughter, Raina," he said quietly.

Raina hugged her arms tightly at her middle. "You have no idea, Severin."

Absent of his earlier vitriol she could almost believe he didn't hate her.

His next statement disabused her of any such delusions.

"You're thinking about all the ways I resent you…"

She flinched. How coldly impassive and matter-of-fact.

"And yet, when we wed, regardless of the," his eyelid twitched, "the circumstances surrounding our union, I will protect you and see you safe. I'll cut a man's hands off if he so much as attempts to put a finger on you." Severin paused. "And your brother is included in that list of men I'd not even blink at killing." His eyes flashed fire. "I protect what is mine, Raina, and make no mistake, going forward, you belong to me."

You belong to me.

I am his…

Raina shivered. Only, it wasn't fear that coursed through her, but rather, a feverish, breathlessness at having this man's fierce, male, protectiveness promised to her.

This time, it was not her brother who escorted Raina over to the ceremony, but the man who'd be her husband—until death did part them.