Waggling his brows, he hoped she’d laugh or at least smile.
“This is crazy, Commander, but since I’m a former inmate of Bedlam, why not? Yes, I’ll follow your schedule.”
He drew his hands behind his head and watched her wobble like she shifted through dessert jellies returning to the adjacent room.
She left the door separating them wide open, and he hoped that was indicative of how they’d continue. He picked Colin’s diary back up, looking for the final clues that would set Patience free.
CHAPTER 29
A CEREMONY OFCONVENIENCE
Never thought I’d marry again.
Or that one of my bridesmaids would be a cat. The countess’s kitty had gotten a hold of the bouquet Jemina made of the brave pimpernel flowers from the field. Athena took them and ducked under the duke’s bed.
I knelt and tried to coax her out from under the bed. “Come, girl. I need you, dear, to r-return to me.”
My nerves showed as I stumbled over my words.
The countess snapped her fingers, but the kitten had too much fun shredding the red and yellow petals.
Well, it added color to the celebration.
The duke laughed. “Let her be. Gantry has the rings. Athena can litter those petals to decorate our makeshift wedding chapel, this lovely bedchamber.”
He was in good humor and took my hand. “Begin, sir.”
The parish minister began his speech.
Lionel lay beside the duke. He’d rolled over, surely a result of the baby drills.
My free palm smoothed my skirt, a huge white cottongaulledraped with a gold-and-scarlet madras shrouding my waist. The gown spoke of Demerara, of my lost home. I wore a hat, a slim cream-colored bonnet, very English, very much what a free woman would wear on the island. It was a proper memento of my papa, much better than carrying my gold knife.
No wearing gray or black. I was done mourning. I proudly rolled myr’s on my duke’s title.
The minister, a man wearing a powdered wig with a very pale face, made me laugh, thinking of my masquerades. But this was no act. It was true. I was wedding my duke.
“Do you, Busick Strathmore, take Patience Jordan to be your wife?” the minister asked.
Slightly sitting up, with his cranberry uniform draping his shoulders, he wore the brooch Lionel loved. “I do.”
His face wrinkled when he held my son, and he seemed to pay more attention to my baby than the binding words the minister offered.
“Do you, Patience Jordan, take this man to be his lawful wife?”
“Yes.”
Jemina nudged me.
“Oh, I mean I do.”
This brought a new round of chuckles.
This was a marriage of convenience. Admitting to more would ruin things. The tightness in my chest as I looked at Busick would be my new secret.
Athena ran by, dropping petals at my feet.
The countess made a coaxingtsk.
