Twenty
"My goodness, June, hold still!" Dorothy tugged at the lace edging of June's peach dress, her fingers working with the frantic precision of a woman racing against time. "If you insist on fidgeting like a child, we'll never have you looking presentable before the Duke arrives."
June bit her lip, forcing her body to remain motionless despite the riot of nerves threatening to overwhelm her. In less than an hour, she would be married. Married to Dominic Blake. The Duke of Icemere. The man whose kiss still burned on her lips despite the scandal it had caused. The man who might be dying.
"There." Her mother stepped back, surveying her handiwork with a critical eye. "The dress is quite lovely, though I still maintain we could have managed something more elaborate had we proper time to prepare." She adjusted a stray curl at June's temple.
"I think she looks beautiful, Mama," May said, turning away from her position by the window. "The simplicity of the peach silk suits her complexion perfectly. And see how it brings out the amber in her eyes."
June smoothed her hands over the delicate fabric, grateful for her sister's support. The dress was indeed lovely—a simple day dress of peach silk with cream lace trim, hastily altered by Theo's seamstresses to serve as a makeshift wedding dress. Not the elaborate creation she had once imagined for her wedding day, but perhaps fitting for this strange, rushed ceremony.
"Has the Duke arrived?" Dorothy asked suddenly, patting her own carefully arranged coiffure.
May turned back to the window, squinting slightly through her spectacles as she surveyed the curved driveway below. "Not yet!"
Dorothy clicked her tongue in annoyance. "He better be on time. The guests do not know we are to have a wedding today, but if he does not arrive, they will surely suspect."
June's head snapped up. "What do you mean, Mama?"
Her mother paused in her fussing to give June a look that suggested the answer should be obvious. "Well, my dear, I could hardly announce your wedding before the groom arrived, could I? That would be most improper. But I did wish to mark the occasion with some small celebration."
A knot of dread tightened in June's stomach. "What have you done?"
"Nothing excessive," Dorothy assured her, though the gleam in her eye suggested otherwise. "I merely had the drawing room filled with flowers. Orange blossoms primarily, of course, to symbolize purity and fertility, though I added roses for love and lilies for majesty, given your future position as duchess."
"And this wouldn't raise suspicions?" June asked, her voice rising slightly in pitch.
Dorothy waved a dismissive hand. "I simply told everyone they were to celebrate your betrothal, which is true enough. But if the Duke does not arrive promptly, people will begin to wonder why we've assembled them for an announcement without the bridegroom present."
"So everyone is already gathered downstairs?" June felt the room tilt slightly. She reached for the back of a nearby chair to steady herself.
"Just a small gathering," her mother replied, though her definition of "small" had always differed dramatically from June's. "Family, mostly, and a few close friends. And Lady Worthington, of course, as she is the Duke's aunt."
"And the vicar," May added helpfully from the window. "Though I believe he thinks he's here to discuss the church restoration fund."
June closed her eyes briefly. It was becoming painfully obvious that this was it. She was getting married. Today. Now. To a man who might have been forced into this match, who harbored secrets she couldn't begin to understand, who might leave her a widow before she'd properly learned to be a wife.
I cannot breathe, she realized with a distant sort of panic. The stays of her corset suddenly felt too tight, the room too warm, the future too uncertain. She was drowning in expectations and arrangements, in peach silk and orange blossoms, in the memory of Dominic's touch and August's damning words.
"You'll need these," Dorothy said, oblivious to her daughter's distress as she presented a small velvet box. "Your grandmother's pearls. 'Something borrowed,' as tradition demands."
June accepted the box with numb fingers, unable to bring herself to open it. The weight of it in her hands made everything more real—too real. Her throat constricted with emotion she dared not express.
A sharp knock at the door startled all three women.
"Oh!" Dorothy's hand flew to her throat. "That must be?—"
May hurried to answer the summons. June's heart hammered against her ribs, her gaze fixed on the door with a mixture of dread and terrible anticipation. Was he here already? Had the moment arrived before she'd steeled herself to face it?
But when May swung the door open, it was not Dominic who stood on the threshold, but Albert and August Vestiere.
"Papa! August!" May exclaimed. "We thought perhaps..."
"The Duke has not yet arrived," August said, his voice carrying the crisp authority he'd developed in his years overseeing the Wildmoore estate. "Though he sent word ahead that he has obtained the license and will be here within the hour."
June's stomach dropped further. An hour. Sixty minutes more of this torturous waiting, of pretending to be the serene bride when she felt anything but serene.
Albert Vestiere stepped into the room, leaning slightly on his cane though his expression was bright and alert. "My June," he said warmly, his gaze taking in her appearance with obvious pride. "You look radiant."
