Instead, he took her gloved hand. Holding it as if he understood what this information meant to her in a way she didn’t fully understand herself.
She looked down at their joined hands. Her throat seemed to close as tears threatened. She forced herself to speak. “I would understand if you would choose not to marry. I mean, with my background and unknown parentage—”
He cut her words off with a kiss. He leaned across the close space between them with a hard, no silliness kiss. It was different from the one the night before and more effective.
It settled her, brought her to him, to what they were about to do. Her hands went to his arms as if she reached to keep her balance.
The kiss broke. His face was so close to hers she could make out the flecks of blue in the grayness of his eyes. Kind eyes, nonjudgmental ones.
“Clarissa, I’m a modern man. I don’t believein superstitions such as a person having bad blood because of their parents or whatever it is you fear taints you. Your mother is not you any more than my mother is me. Unfortunately, this is hard news to receive on your wedding day. Areyouall right?”
He worried about her?She looked up at him, a bit overwhelmed by his acceptance, and said truthfully, “I don’t know. All my life I wondered about her, and now this? Makes me wonder if it is a warning of sorts.”
“A warning?” He frowned. “Like spilling salt and having bad luck? I told you I don’t believe in foolishness, and I am surprised you do.”
“I believe in signs.”
“How is something that happened decades ago a sign of this moment here and now?”
He was right.
Still, “If your mother learns of this—”
“My mother assumes that we are already married.”
“You could be honest with her. You can apologize for a lie. That you were caught up in the moment.” She realized she was testing him, giving him the opportunity to run.
He gave her a mock frown. “What? And rehabilitate your opinion of me?” He laughed, his teeth even and white. “No, Clarissa, I shall not leave you at the altar. I expect you to go through with this deed today. I am marrying you for Dora, but,” he added as if coming to a realization of his own, “I am not against the match.”
He wasn’t?
The words seemed to hang in the air between them. She didn’t know what to make of such a statement. She felt she had to talk sense into him. “But what if you meet someone else you wish for a wife? Someone from your class.”Someone you could love. “Someday you will need an heir.”
A look crossed his face she couldn’t define. Annoyance? Guilt? He took her gloved hand and squeezed it tightly. “Clarissa, you are the only one I trust. The future of my title is not that important to me.”
“It should be.”
“I have other goals.”
She frowned, not understanding what he could mean—and then realizing, he’d made his choice... and he’d chosen her.
Sitting in the coach with his presence filling every corner, his expression sincere, she realized that if she’d had a choice of husbands,hewas the one she wanted.
Mrs. Warbler was right. She was letting her sensibilities run away from her. Mars had reached his decision, now she made hers.
“Then let us marry,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
I took the step off the precipice.
—Book of Mars
They spoke their vows in the quiet church with Mrs. Warbler and Mrs. Summerall as witnesses. Before he pledged his troth, he asked her to remove the glove on her left hand and then he placed a good band bearing the signet of the Earls of Marsden on her bare ring finger. It fit perfectly and was a daintier version of the one he wore.
The ring felt foreign on her hand, and yet, it made everything very real.
Reverend Summerall pronounced them man and wife in a booming voice. Mars placed Clarissa’s hand on the crook of his arm and walked her out of the church where the villagers waited.
