He tried to soften the kiss, but she was having none of it. Her hands were tight and heavy on the back of his neck and his skull. Her lips and her tongue were demanding and ravening. He gave into it. He let his hands slip from her back to her bottom and he squeezed.
Thank God. Thank God, she at least wants me as a wife should want a husband.
Suddenly, she pushed him away and walked to the door. She put her hand on the knob and paused, her head down, not looking at him.
“Thank you for agreeing to marry me. I’ll see you in two days. I’ll be on time.”
And then, just like the day before, she was out the door and gone.
Twenty-Nine
On the morning of her wedding, Phoebe woke at five and had vomited three times before six. She lay in her bed, clutching the dirty chamber pot, waiting for the next episode. A trunk had been packed by Dawson yesterday, and it sat now at the foot of her bed. All her black dresses, her undergarments, some nightdresses. Not much. The rest would come at some later time.
By half past eleven today, she would be Lady Danforth. Her fourteen-year-old self would have been giddy with joy. However, her twenty-two-year-old self was wracked with nausea. And not all of it was from her pregnancy.
She had been thinking about her wedding for as long as she could remember. And about her marriage—about having a life with a man who loved her and cherished her—for almost as long. And now to be married in this shameful way, in mourning for her father, the smallest number of witnesses required by law.
And to be marrying a man who hadn’t wanted her until he couldn’t have her. Who had spent her whole life correcting her.
She had always thought her husband would think she was perfect. The prettiest girl. The cleverest. He would indulge her. He would tell her he was the luckiest man in the world. He would make her feel like a queen.
In short, she thought her husband would be like her father.
But there were no men like her father. Not George, not Thornwick, not anyone. All those gentlemen at balls who had never danced with her. They all thought there was something wrong with her.
Even Andrew was disappointed in her now, knowing she was wanton. Pregnant and not yet married. No better than a whore.
Thank God Papa is dead. Thank God. So he never knew how bad I am.
She sat up and hung her head over the chamber pot, heaving. She was empty but her stomach still rebelled.
At eight o’clock, when Dawson came in, Phoebe was standing at the window, looking at the garden. It was the same window George had climbed through back in June when it was so hot. The summer flowers were gone now.
“Will you have a bath, my lady?”
“Yes.”
She bathed. Dawson helped her into a black dress. Bride or not, Phoebe was still in mourning.
She arranged her own hair with Dawson holding the pins and handing them to her. Her arms ached when she was done.
She sipped some tea. It didn’t come back up. Dawson brought her some dry toast and she nibbled on a corner. That stayed down, too.
It was four minutes to eleven. She stood and went downstairs to the drawing room. Mr. Davies, the vicar from St. George’s Church just around the corner, was there. He was kind enough to smile at Phoebe. The Earl of Burchester was also smiling, but Andrew looked angry and George looked worried.
The man who would be her husband searched her face as soon as she came in the room. She wished she could give him a smile that would reassure him. But she could muster nothing for him.
The ceremony only took a few minutes.
She was married. To George.
Her brother grabbed her and embraced her before she left the house on George’s arm.
“Thank you, Andrew,” she said. “We are going out to the country tomorrow so we’ll tell Mother. You don’t have to do that.”
He released her. “I don’t mind, Phebes.”
“I mind.”
