Lady Charlotte cast her eyes downward. “I cannot say. I am sworn to secrecy.”
“You needn’t be. I recognize my mother’s art.”
“You cannot trust her,” Charlotte said gently, “Lady Isla, I mean. But you can still trust me.”
Edward was walking backwards, trying to disengage her hands. Finally, with a growl he seized her about the waist, lifted her without effort and placed her atop the wall that separated the churchyard from the fields beyond. She squeaked, eyes widening in surprise.
“What we might have been depended on truth,” he said. “You just feigned injury to catch me alone. Do not try this again.”
He loathed that her words found the splinter already in him. He loathed more that it existed in the first place. He returned to the chapel with his jaw set and the taste of iron on his tongue.
***
Guests arrived in careful pairs. He reviewed the order with the rector and took his place, hands loose behind his back, a frigate at anchor. Music shifted. The ripple began at the door. He kept his eyes steady until the moment required, then looked, ready to be indifferent. In that moment, the day altered.
Isla came on her brother’s arm and the whole business of avoidance died as neatly as a candle pinched between finger and thumb. The gown was not the fashionable torture she had worn at dinner.
Whoever had dressed her this time understood that strength could be its own ornament. Ivory fell in clean lines, a small cluster of heather in the bouquet made London blooms look over-bred. Her hair shone copper where the light found it. She did not look tamed. She looked untamable. Wild but as dignified and proud as a queen.
Edward claimed Isla’s hand from her brother. Her skin felt soft and perfect. Her perfume was more intoxicating than the whisky they had shared. It filled his head and warmed him more than the sunlight spilling into the church through the stained glass windows. Alistair released her hand with a glance that admitted both relief and warning. The warning of a brother acting as a father. The relief of …
A man seeing his plans come to fruition. A man who sees himself one step away from riches he has never dreamed of.
Edward kept his face neutral, kept his anger contained. Isla stood beside Edward, not so near as to scandalize the rector but near enough for him to hear the measured lift of her breath. The service began. Words he had heard a dozen times took on weight. When asked if he would have this woman, he said I will and felt the answer lodge, solid as a nail driven true.
Isla’s voice was low and certain, with the lilt she never quite smothered. Edward’s mother sat rigid in the front pew, a posture of endurance. Somewhere to the right, he could see Charlotte. But his awareness returned to the orbit of the beautiful woman who stood before him.
A woman I seek to enter into a transaction with. Her hand to spare us both a scandal. There is nothing between us and nothing wanted.
Rings. He had the unreasonable thought that he ought to have learned Isla’s hands the way he had learned a ship. A small scar nicked the knuckle of her third finger, he wanted to know its cause. He slid the band onto her finger. Her skin was warm and perfectly feminine.
“Those whom God hath joined …” The rector’s voice balanced piety with punctuality. Edward heard only his own private vow.
You will not be harmed for my sake. I will make this clean.
“You may seal your vows with a kiss,” the rector finished.
The chapel held its breath. He had intended decorum. A touch, a polite promise. He lifted her veil and saw her mouth soften and intention deserted him like a fair-weather friend. He bent, brushed his lips to hers. He meant to withdraw. He did not. Her breath answered, something in her yielded without retreating. Her hand found his sleeve and held as if balance required it. Perhaps it did. If his kiss made her feel the way hers touched him.
He stopped because he was suddenly aware that the chapel was full of eyes. He drew back far enough to see her face. Color had risen and her pupils were the dark green of the forest. She didn’t look triumphant but startled. It was as if she had learned a new word and was not yet sure she had said it correctly. The murmurthat followed threaded the pews and filled the hallowed space like fog.
Outside on the steps, congratulations and calculations pressed close. Rice rained down from the two lines of well-wishers who flanked the path leading from the church and back towards the looming gloom of Ravenscroft house. Alistair embraced his sister as if he might never have another chance. He shook Edward’s hand vigorously, beaming.
“Your brother is enjoying himself,” Edward whispered to Isla, watching her to gauge her reaction.
“He is relieved,” she replied, smiling for their public.
“I am sure he is. His financial problems are over,”
Isla shot him a look that could have taken down a mast. He looked back.
“You had something else in mind?” he asked.
“He sees scandal and gossip defeated. Which gives him a chance to rebuild.”
“And you?”
“I count the days to my freedom.”
