Douglas turned, descended the steps, and entered his carriage, conscious that Simons was still watching him. Once seated in the vehicle, he glanced up to see a female hand gripping the edge of a curtain on the second floor. Perhaps the hand belonged to a maid, industriously dusting. Or was it Lady Sarah?
He’d come to reassure himself of her safety only to discover that she was in more peril than he’d realized.
Tomorrow he would rescue her by marrying her.
Would she see it as such?
Chapter 3
Two days later, Sarah was well and truly wed, to a man she didn’t know, a man who’d been whisked from her father’s home five minutes after they’d met.
“Escort my daughter upstairs,” her father had said, and just like that, she was led away, to quite a lovely chamber, if she could ignore the noxious shades of peach. She’d stayed there during her last disastrous season, and there were no good memories in attendance.
As she walked into the room, the door was closed behind her, and a key turned in the lock. She didn’t bother pounding on the door or shouting for Simons. Her father’s servants were, if not fanatically loyal, then at least afraid of him to the extent they would not release her.
That night, a note delivered with her dinner tray only emphasized her father’s intent. Either she married, or he would send her mother to Scotland. Neither fate seemed palatable, but she didn’t have the right to choose her own well-being over that of her ailing mother. She sent him a note in reply, asking for his guarantee that he would leave her mother at Chavensworth if she agreed to the marriage.
He didn’t respond.
There was no choice, after all, but it was with some irritation that she greeted her bridegroom at the bottom of the stairs two days later.
Douglas Eston didn’t look the least disturbed by the fact that she was being forced to wed him or the fact that it was barely a few hours past dawn, a time that few society weddings occurred. Nor did he appear disconcerted that she was frowning fiercely at him. He continued to regard her with a half smile, those strange-colored eyes of his impossible to read.
“You had to be complicit in this,” she said, refusing to take his arm when he offered it. “A special license must be procured by the groom.”
He didn’t answer.
“I shan’t be a good wife,” she warned him. “I have a solitary nature, one that is not amenable to other people. I’m bookish, I’ve been told. I have too many flaws. I like to study the stars.”
At that, he glanced down at her. Another irritant, that he was so much taller than she. He was rather large, too, with shoulders that blocked her view of the room.
She looked away rather than be mesmerized by those eyes of his.
“How do you study the stars? Have you a telescope?”
She glanced up at him. She was not going to tell him that he was the first person ever to ask her that question. Nor was she going to tell him that his question elicited the first bit of curiosity about him. No, it was best if they remained as they were, strangers who were about to wed because of her father’s cruelty.
He led her into the parlor, where a minister stood, chatting away with her father, both of them wearingsmiles as if this morning had been blessed by God himself.
Did the minister think that she was with child and this furtive wedding performed to protect her father’s reputation?
She didn’t say a word to disabuse him of that notion. In fact, it gave her a little thrill to think that the good man might be a gossipy sort, willing to trade a few rumors with a friend. Good, let him pass along the news that the Duke of Herridge’s daughter was loose. Her father prided himself on his good name. All her life she’d been counseled on how to act, how to behave in public so as not to shame her father.
Her mother would always chastise her with a whisper. “Think of your father, Sarah.”
The minute she left London, she had no intention of thinking of her father ever again. In fact, there should be no occasion whatsoever for her even to see the man.
Two servants served as additional witnesses to her marriage, a young maid she didn’t recognize and Simons, who couldn’t quite look her in the eyes. If nothing else, she was grateful for him sending a young maid to help her with her hair this morning.
The girl had apologized profusely and endlessly for her ineptitude.
“It’s not your fault,” Sarah had said. “You were not hired to do my hair. Nevertheless, I appreciate your attempts to assist me. Besides, no one shall be looking at my hair,” she added. “They will be stunned into silence by my dress.”
She glanced down at herself. The modiste hired by her father had been enamored of stripes. Every dress made for her second season had either had a striped skirt or a striped bodice or a striped leghorn sleeves.This ghastly garment had all three, and when she’d found it in the armoire, she’d sighed inwardly, remembering the loathing she’d felt for it and why, exactly, she’d left it behind in London.
Now it didn’t seem to matter since she had no one to impress, and all that truly mattered was the fact she was clean and presentable. Well, hardly presentable with all these pink, brown, and white stripes, but she was clean.
She heard the minister’s words and forced herself to pay attention. She’d been to her share of society weddings, and she’d been amazed at the expense necessary to marry off a daughter properly. Giving her a proper wedding would have cost her father a fortune. But she doubted that he’d spent more on this ceremony than the stipend it took to lure the minister to his house.
