How foreign that sounded.
He promised himself he would shoulder this honorably, that he wouldn’t expect anything of her that she wasn’t prepared to give.
While he had discussed all of the business aspects of the marriage with Lord Stratford, Asher now wondered if he should have spent more time reviewing the practical facets of their marriage with Lady Evelyn — what would be required of her and what he would provide for her.
But he supposed it was too late for that now. They would just have to learn as they went.
He stayed in his chambers for as long as he possibly could until he finally realized he could no longer delay the inevitable and went downstairs, surprised to find not his mother and sister as he had been expecting, but Lord Julian awaiting him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked his friend after the butler had led him into the front parlor. “We were supposed to meet at the church.”
“I thought I should probably come here first, make sure you actually left the house for the church and followed through,” Julian said with a chuckle. “I know that I, for one, would have a hard time forcing my feet to find their way to an altar.”
Asher started. “I told her we would marry. I’m not a man to back down from my word nor my responsibility.”
Julian sobered and studied him. “No, I do not suppose you are anymore, Asher, are you?”
While their lives had changed, the two of them not being in the same situation as they once had been, there was no one else that Asher would want standing up next to him.
“We should go get this over with, should we not?” he finally said, and Julian stood, clapping his hands against his thighs.
“We should,” he said. “All will be fine, Asher.”
Asher only wished he held the same confidence.
Evelynand her father had always preferred this small parish church tucked away in a quiet corner of Kensington to any Mayfair church where everyone went only to be seen. Evelyn’s request to be married here had likely surprised the duke, but he didn’t seem opposed to a ceremony that would hopefully go mostly unnoticed by theton.
Unlike on a crowded Sunday service, today the chapel was much colder and slightly echoey, with only a few people present. Evelyn’s father stood next to her while Verity, Lady Thalia, the duke’s mother, Lord Julian, and the vicar waited at the front amid the wooden altar and the candles flickering in the early light.
It all seemed almost clandestine, adding to the concern that she was doing something wrong.
Evelyn looked over at her father.
“Are you sure this is the only solution?” she asked him, hoping he would provide her with a last-minute alternative, but his face was grim as he nodded, and she swallowed hard.
Likely concerned she was about to change her mind, her father tugged on her arm and led her down the short aisle to the front of the church. Evelyn was sure she was expected to appear demure, but she couldn’t stop herself from lifting her head and staring nearly defiantly at the front of the church as she made her way down. She would face her future head-on.
When they arrived before the altar, her father shook hands with the duke, leaving Evelyn to stand beside the man who was about to become her husband. She looked up, her eyes locking with his dark, intense stare, and she nearly stopped breathing. There was an intensity to his gaze. An intensity and… an apology? Something passed between them, something she didn’t entirely understand but still made it difficult for her to find her breath for some time.
The vicar didn’t seem to notice, and with warmth in his voice, he began, repeating the words he had likely spoken one thousand times before.
The duke was the first to repeat his vows, his response quiet, strained, but, strangely, sincere.
He surprised Evelyn when he reached out and took her hands in his.
“I, Asher Fairborne, take thee, Evelyn Landsdowne…” His voice was steady but low — almost intimate, and she couldn’t help the slight tremble that raced through her from where their hands were joined. The duke covered her fingers lightly with his thumbs, steadying her, just as he had the other day.
Her own words were more collected than she had expected them to be, and the rest of the ceremony passed so quickly that when the duke began to lead her toward the exit of the church, she was shocked that it was already over.
It hadn’t escaped her how early they had planned for the ceremony to take place, and she wondered if part of it was to escape notice. Even the carriage was waiting near the doors of the church, and while Evelyn had arrived separately from the duke, she noted two ducal carriages as well as her father’s waiting in a line.
“We are the first,” the duke said, his voice a low rumble beside her as he led her up into the carriage.
She nodded, her eyes meeting Verity’s for a moment as Verity stared, biting her lip, as though equally as shocked that it was all over. Finished. That now Evelyn was climbing into a carriage to ride home — her new home — with a stranger who was now her husband.
Suddenly, Verity’s eyes shifted beside her, her mouth widening, and Evelyn cringed when she heard a cry, “It’s the Duke of Ravenscar!”
They had been discovered.
