“May I come in?” Lucy Hunt’s voice filtered through Sarah’s bedchamber door. The words had been preceded by a soft knock.
“Come in,” Sarah called blankly. She’d been doing nothing more than staring unseeing out the window.
The door creaked open slowly and Lucy walked in. She was dressed in the formal clothing she’d worn to the wedding earlier.
“Are you all right?” Lucy asked, coming to stand behind Sarah at the dressing table, a sympathetic look on her face.
Sarah patted her coiffure. She’d long ago removed her veil, but she remained dressed in her exquisite gown. “Expected me to be crying, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest,” Lucy replied with a sigh.
“Well, I’m not crying. I refuse to cry. I’m not sad, I’m… angry.” She lifted her chin and faced Lucy.
Lucy nodded slowly. “Angry at Christian?”
Sarah raised her gaze to the ceiling briefly. “Yes, and at myself.… This whole thing… it’s turned into a complete mess.” She flicked a hairpin across the top of the dressing table.
Lucy stopped it with the palm of her hand before it flew off the end of the table. “If it helps at all, I do think Christian loves you madly.”
“That’s what Hart and Meg tried to tell me, but I still have my doubts.”
“I don’t. Not one.”
Sarah braced her elbow on the table and let her forehead fall onto her palm. “Why in God’s name did that man wait till the very last minute?”
Lucy squeezed Sarah’s shoulder. “I agree. He hasn’t handled it well, any of it.”
Sarah groaned. “Andwhydid he do it in such an ignominious fashion? My parents will never live down the shame. Father will never speak to me again.”
“Your father just needs time.”
“You don’t know my father.”
The anger that had been bubbling in her since she’d run out of the church finally spilled over. Sarah slapped a palm against the top of the table. “Christian had no right to do what he did. Absolutely no right.”
Her mother had come to visit her when they’d first returned home. Sarah had tried to calm her down at first, but her mother had continued to hurl accusations at her and even accused her of planning Christian’s announcement with him. In the end, Sarah had asked her to leave her room. She didn’t know where her father was or Christian, either, for that matter. She’d asked Hart and Meg to give her time alone to think. Apparently Mother wasn’t about to keep a duchess from calling. And at the moment, Sarah was thankful to have Lucy to talk to. Sweet, kind, unconventional Lucy.
Lucy squeezed her shoulder again. “I agree that his timing was hideous, but aren’t you the least bit glad not to be married to Lord Branford?”
Sarah groaned and rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Ah, yes, a reprieve from one man’s whimsy only to end up at the mercy of another’s. I’m sick of being treated like a valuable doll.”
“Good,” Lucy replied. “You should be. It’s high time.”
Sarah’s head snapped to the side to face the duchess. “You agree with me?”
Lucy pushed a curl aside. “Of course I do. I’m a lady, too, aren’t I? We should be treated with nothing but decency and respect and allowed to make all our own choices as far as I’m concerned. I’m only sorry that you didn’t see fit to tell your father to go to hell before the wedding.”
Sarah couldn’t help the smile that popped to her lips. “I would have liked to see the look on his face if I had.”
“As would I,” Lucy replied with a conspiratorial grin.
Sarah stood, turned around, and smoothed her skirts. There was no use wishing things had gone differently. All she could do now was face the future with courage. “What’s going to happen now, Lucy?”
Lucy tapped a finger against her cheek. “If I don’t mistake my guess, Berkeley is downstairs in the study with your father, writing your marriage contract.” She smiled. “All things considered, I would not make his wedding night easy for him.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The archbishop was a tall man with white hair, grand white robes lined with sable, and a permanently unsmiling face. Sarah had watched out the window from her bedchamber as the prelate arrived at her father’s town house at approximately eight o’clock that evening. Apparently, when a duke, an earl, and a viscount required his presence, the archbishop complied. The Duke and Duchess of Claringdon were there, as were the Earl and Countess of Swifdon. Along with Sarah’s parents, Hart, and Meg, they were the only witnesses. Lucy Hunt was smiling from ear to ear.
