I am not just marrying a title. I am coming home.
Ambrose stood at the altar, looking every bit the formidable Duke in his midnight blue tailcoat as she gazed at him. Hisposture was as straight as any ancestor carved in the marble around him, yet his hands, clasped tightly behind his back, trembled with a vulnerability no Welton had ever dared to show.
“Steady, Your Grace,” the vicar whispered with a knowing, gentle smile. “Your bride is coming any moment.”
Ambrose didn’t look at the vicar. He couldn’t look away from the oak doors.
“Why do my knees feel as though they are made of water?” He whispered to the Vicar.
“Because today you are not a Duke,” the old man replied with a smile. “You’re just a man, standing in front of a woman, asking her to love him.”
Then, the doors creaked open. When Imogen appeared, the breath left Ambrose’s lungs. She was draped in a gown of ivory silk, the lace tracing the delicate lines of her throat like fresh frost, the fabric hugging her every curve. She looked radiant and confident, no longer a woman hiding in the shadows of a schoolroom. She was a woman stepping into the light of her own life, and she was to be his.
I am the luckiest man in the world. Oh, and how I have waited for this moment, to have this beautiful woman.
Beside Ambrose, the Duke of Kirkhammer leaned in with a roguish grin that suggested he was enjoying his friend’suncharacteristic loss of composure a bit too much. The candlelight caught the gold embroidery on Morgan’s waistcoat as he nudged Ambrose’s elbow.
“Close your mouth, Your Grace. You’ll be catching flies if you keep at it,” he whispered, his voice low enough to escape the vicar’s notice but sharp enough to needle his oldest friend. “Though I suppose I can’t blame you. You’ve managed to capture the only woman in England with enough sense to handle you. Truly, the age of miracles is not dead. I am so happy for you.”
“Thank you, friend,” he replied as he looked to the door as it creaked open wide.
Ambrose didn’t take his eyes off his bride. Imogen was halfway down the aisle; her gaze locked onto his and made the rest of the room dissolve into a golden blur.
“I might find a wife for you next,” Ambrose joked to Morgan. “I hear the Dowager Duchess of Sussex has a niece with a very sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. She’d have you cataloging your library and drinking chamomile tea by next year.”
Morgan chuckled, the sound sweet and light, though a strange, pensive shadow crossed his friend’s handsome face for a fleeting second.
“God forbid,” he murmured, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle in his sleeve. “I’m quite content to watch your domestic bliss from a safe, unmarried distance. For now.”
As Imogen finally reached the altar, the air in the chapel seemed to hum. She didn’t wait for the tradition of being given away, for all she had was her newfound family. She stepped into place beside Ambrose as his equal, her silk skirts whispering against the stone floor. The vicar, a man who had christened Ambrose thirty years prior, cleared his throat and began the ancient rite.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two souls in the most holy sacrament of matrimony,” he began.
The ceremony was an intimate, focused affair. In the front pew, the only guests of honor were two young faces, Arthur and Philip’s, that shone with a brightness that rivaled the beeswax candles, Mrs. Higgins, the valet, Mr. Jennings, and Mr. Jones. When it came time for the vows, Ambrose’s voice, usually a command that could carry across a parade ground, dropped to a rough, private register. He spoke the words not as a Duke claiming a prize, but as a man surrendering his heart. Imogen’s responses were steady, her eyes never wavering from his, even as the candlelight danced in the tears she refused to let fall.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” Ambrose whispered, his hand finally steady as he slid the thick, gold band onto her finger. It was a modest ring, chosen for its weight and warmth rather than its size, a symbol of a life built on substance rather than show. Tiny diamonds adorned it and glistened in the light.
The vicar raised his hands, his voice echoing in the vaulted ceiling. “I now pronounce that they be man and wife together, in this life and the next.”
He barely had theAmenout of his mouth before the dignified silence of the Welton chapel was shattered. The applause was led by two very loud, very enthusiastic young boys.
“Huzzah!” shouted Arthur, nearly falling off the velvet pew in his excitement. Beside him, Philip was clapping so hard his face split by a grin that could have lit the entire estate.
“He did it!” Philip cried out, his voice cracking with the transition into adolescence. “He actually married her!”
The chapel erupted as the few attendees all rose to their feet and began to clap. Ambrose didn’t care about the breach of decorum. He laughed, a sound so rare and genuine it seemed to startle the portraits of his ancestors on the walls, and swept Imogen into his arms.
He didn’t just kiss her. He lifted her up off her feet, her ivory silk swirling around his boots. The scent of lilies and beeswax was eclipsed then by the intoxicating scent of her hair, lavender, sweet soap, and the lingering, sweet memory of the English rain.
“Well, I suppose you are stuck with me now, Your Grace,” Imogen whispered against his ear as he set her down, her hands lingering on his shoulders. “Legally bound, until death do us part.”
“I think the Vicar actually said in this life and the next.”
“Oh goodness, that is quite a long time,” she said as she planted a small kiss on his cheek.
“More than a life sentence, surely,” Ambrose replied, his eyes dancing in her emerald gaze. “And I shall be the most devoted prisoner in the realm. You will have me on my knees.”
“I am excited for that,” she rasped against his ear, as he finally set her down. “Let us greet our guests, husband.”
