“We should go,” she said. “It would not do to keep the Duke waiting.”
Lady Eleanor released her hands but did not step back. Instead, she reached up and adjusted a strand of Maribel’s hair that had slipped free from its pins—a small, unnecessary gesture that nonetheless made Maribel’s eyes sting with unexpected tears.
“You are not alone in this,” Lady Eleanor said quietly. “Whatever happens, whatever difficulties arise—you have my support. And I suspect...” She paused, her expression thoughtful. “I suspect you may find the Duke less formidable than you fear, once you come to know him.”
Maribel thought of the churchyard. Of wildflowers laid upon a grave. Of a man struggling beneath the weight of a grief he had no choice but to carry, though he forced himself to hide it.
“Perhaps,” she said. “Or perhaps I shall spend the rest of my days married to a stranger who regards me as an obligation rather than a wife.”
Lady Eleanor’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile. “My dear girl. Most marriages begin precisely that way. The question is not how they begin, but how they end.”
The ceremony took place in a small chapel on the outskirts of London—a modest stone structure with narrow windows and hard wooden pews, selected for its discretion rather than its grandeur. No flowers adorned the altar. No music swelled to mark Maribel’s entrance. The only witnesses were Lady Eleanor, seated in the front pew with her hands folded in her lap, and a dark-haired gentleman Maribel did not recognise until he turned at her approach.
Lord Julian Westcott. She remembered him from Margaret’s letters—Nicholas’s friend, and therefore Thaddeus’s as well. He was handsome in a quiet way, with thoughtful eyes and an air of calm competence that put her immediately at ease.
He inclined his head as she passed, and she caught the ghost of an encouraging smile before she turned to face the man who would become her husband.
Thaddeus stood before the altar in unrelieved black, his broad shoulders rigid beneath his coat, his jaw set with the determination of a soldier preparing for battle. He did not smile when their eyes met. He did not offer any word of greeting or reassurance. He simply watched her approach with that unreadable grey gaze, his expression giving nothing away.
Maribel lifted her chin and walked toward him.
The ceremony itself passed in a blur of words she barely heard. She felt Thaddeus’s hand close around hers, his fingers cool and dry, his grip firm, and she watched as a simple gold band was slipped onto her finger.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The words did not feel like they belonged to her.
Maribel stared at the ring upon her hand—that thin circle of gold that marked her as belonging to another. She was a married woman now. A duchess. Bound for life to a man she barely knew,in a ceremony witnessed by strangers, wearing a borrowed dress in a chapel she had never seen before.
Margaret, she thought, and the ache of her sister’s absence threatened to overwhelm her.Margaret, I wish you were here. I wish you could tell me that this will be well. I wish?—
“Lady Blackwood.”
The unfamiliar title jolted her back to the present. Thaddeus stood before her, his hand extended, his expression as neutral as ever. She realised with a start that she was meant to take it—meant to allow him to escort her from the chapel as his wife.
She placed her hand in his and permitted herself to be led outside, toward the carriage with the Blackwood crest emblazoned upon its door. A footman handed Maribel up into the interior, and she settled onto the leather seat with her hands folded in her lap, acutely aware of the man who climbed in after her.
Thaddeus took the seat opposite rather than beside her. The carriage lurched into motion, and they began the long journey back to Blackwood.
Neither of them spoke.
Maribel watched the city give way to countryside through the window—the grey sprawl of London gradually softening into rolling fields and hedgerows, the pale autumn sunlight filteringthrough the glass to cast shifting patterns across her borrowed gown. She could not escape Thaddeus’s presence. He filled every part of the carriage, every part of her mind.
She ought to say something. She ought to make some attempt at conversation, at establishing the terms of this new and unfamiliar relationship. But every phrase that rose to her lips withered before she could give it voice, and so she remained silent, her fingers twisting the unfamiliar ring upon her hand.
An hour passed. Then two.
The carriage swayed and jolted over rutted country roads, and Maribel found her thoughts drifting to Oliver. He would be waiting for them at Blackwood—Mrs. Allen had promised to keep him occupied until their return, to explain in gentle terms that Maribel and the Duke had gone away briefly but would be back before nightfall. He was too young to understand what a wedding meant, too innocent to grasp the complicated web of obligation and scandal that had led to this moment.
All he would care about was whether she was staying.
Yes, she thought fiercely.Yes, I am staying. Nothing will take me from you now.
“The groundskeeper’s cottage.”
The words startled her—Thaddeus had spoken so little that she had almost forgotten he possessed a voice. She turned from thewindow to find him watching her, his grey eyes unreadable in the afternoon light.
“I beg your pardon?”
