“We can figure a way out of this.” Summerset stalked back and forth across the small vestry in St. Katherine’s church. He raked a hand through his fair hair, mussing the artful locks.
Sin stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror. The swallowtail jacket and trousers were of simple black wool and his top hat was a sensible height, but still he felt a fool. Like a trussed-up dandy. It must be the shoes. Summerset had allowed him to forfeit breeches or pantaloons in favor of his trousers, but had put his stylish pump down at the boots Sin wanted to wear. “I think you’re more upset over my upcoming nuptials than I am.” He turned to the side. The plaid waistcoat was a trifle showy, but an appropriate nod to his heritage.
At least here in London he didn’t have to wear a bloody kilt.
Summerset tossed his hat onto the chair by the door. “Why the sodding hell aren’t you more upset? Getting leg-shackled just because you were caught alone with a chit. You didn’t even take your pleasure from the crime of a seduction yet you still are enduring the punishment.” He crossed his arms. “And what the hell kind of name is Winnifred? She’s a bluestocking if ever I saw one. Definitely not someone you want to be your companion. For life.” His friend made a moue of disgust with his lips, as though the very idea of a life-partner offended him.
Sin arched an eyebrow. If Miss Winnifred Hannon was how bluestockings were built nowadays, he had sought out liaisons in the wrong quarters. No, his betrothed wasn’t some dainty little chit who barely came up to his chest, and he could definitely picture her surrounded by stacks of books, but her tall, sturdy form was pleasing to the eye. Her skin was clear and her eyes intelligent. And her wide hips and high bosom … well those definitely made an impression. What more could a man want?
“I find her handsome enough,” he said mildly.
Summerset ignored that. “Winnifred. Do you suppose she goes by Winnie?” He huffed out a breath. “Good Gad, you’ll be Sinnie and Winnie. How nauseating.”
“No one will call us Sinnie and Winnie.” He glared at his friend. “Not if he wants his tongue to remain in his mouth.”
Summerset closed his eyes. “I’m sorry we didn’t leave the rout when you wanted. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t forced you to stay.”
Sin snorted. His friend was tall, but Sin still had several inches on him and probably double the bulk. “You cannot force me to do anything I don’t wish.” He fingered the auburn tail of his queue. Perhaps he should have cut his hair to fashion for his wedding.
“Damn it, Sin. This isn’t the time for jokes.” Summerset kicked a chair, the emeralds on his heeled-boots glimmering in the sunlight slanting through the window. “Marriage is for life.”
Sin went to his friend and laid a hand on his shoulder. “John, it had to happen sometime. Unlike some other poor sops, I don’t need to marry for money. It might as well be to Miss Hannon. She seems as tolerable as anyone else.” Tolerable, and puzzling. The two of them had only met once more before this rushed affair, in the presence of her disappointed father. The woman seemed to take the forced marriage in stride, giving no further hints of distress. No hints of any emotion. Perhaps she was as practical as he. A wedding would have been in her near future if she didn’t want to be on the shelf. Marriage to a marquess would be considered a success.
His friend’s shoulder was hard as a rock under his hand. “How do you know this wasn’t a trap on her part. A marquess is quite the coup for the daughter of a botanist, even one who used to be under the tutelage of the Royal gardener and has befriended some of the ton. If she arranged her own disgrace, you cannot reward her with marriage.”
Sin arched an eyebrow. “She was in the cellar before me. Do you think she ensconced herself among the wine bottles hoping someone with a title would wander down for a drink?”
“Perhaps she overheard us complaining of the wine….”
“And predicted that I would enter the cellar to pilfer my own bottle, racing ahead of me to get there first?” Sin shook his head. “Truly, your censure is unjustified. The woman is blameless in this. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances; one I must make the best of.”
Summerset kicked a cabinet, his heel making a half-moon crescent in the soft wood. “She’s dull, as tedious and flat as her dish-water hair. And she showed no emotion over this marriage whatsoever. She was … disinterested. Cold. It will be like bedding a very large icicle.”
“How would you know she’s dull?”
“You forget, while you were making arrangements with her father, I sat with the girl. She didn’t ask about her future husband or question me about Kenmore Castle. One would think a girl would be curious about her new home. She spoke only of her father’s experiments and the practicalities of travel to Scotland.”
Sin considered. She hadn’t seemed dull in the cellar. A bit queer, perhaps, but he’d found her slightly inebriated discussion charming.
“I don’t give a toss about a woman’s hair color,” he told Summerset. “And you know I prefer tall women.” And as for being bored in bed … He grunted and pushed that disturbing thought away. He’d blow up that bridge if and when he came to it.
Summerset waved him away. “Yes, yes, you’re scared of crushing a Pocket Venus, I know. But this is—”
“Enough. It’s done.” Sin turned back to the mirror and smoothed the end of his cravat under his waistcoat. “At least my mother will be happy. She’s been trying to marry me off for years.”
“She’ll have your ballocks for marrying without her in attendance.” Summerset heaved a sigh. “Perhaps you can yet delay the wedding. Say you want your family and friends to attend. We can figure something out.”
“No delays.”
A knock sounded at the door and a lined-faced topped with grey hair popped through the opening. “Gentlemen,” Liverpool said as he slipped through and shut the door behind him. “This was truly the last place I expected to find you.”
Summerset scowled. “Where the devil were you two weeks ago? If you’d met us at Stamworth’s party, as you’d requested, none of this would have bloody happened.”
The prime minister drew his bushy grey eyebrows together. “I had urgent business in Algiers.” Only those close to him would hear the steel warning underlying his words. “Now I’ve returned.” He nodded at Sin. “Are you going on a bridal tour?”
Sin shook his head. “No. I think it best to introduce my bride to her new home. We’ll be traveling to my estate in Scotland directly after the luncheon.”
Liverpool clapped his hands together. “Then my timing is perfect. There have been rumblings of discontent from our brothers in the North that are beginning to worry me. I’d like you to investigate, see if there is anything England needs to be concerned over.”
Summerset planted his hands on his hips. “Bridal tour or no, he will be a newly married man. You can’t expect him to forgo his honeymoon.”
Sin barely restrained his eyeroll. Even with such fervent objections to Sin’s marriage, Summerset would still expect him to spend all of his time bedding his new wife.
He brushed a fleck of lint from his arm. “I’m sure your concerns are unjustified. The Scottish are always angry with our southern neighbors.” And with good reason. Ever since the Treaty of Union a hundred years ago, the English had been treating their “brothers” with anything but brotherly love. Scotland’s wealth and power seemed to flow south in a never-ending river of enforced tribute.
“I’d like you to look into it just the same.” Liverpool tucked his thumb between two buttons on his waistcoat and scratched his rounded belly with his fingers. “We can’t afford another rebellion. As one of only sixteen Scottish representatives in the House of Lords, one would hope you’d be interested in helping to maintain the peace between our two lands.”
Sin bowed his head. According to the letters from his steward and his mother, his people were a bit tetchy. The crops were doing poorly this year and their discontent was to be expected. But if Liverpool wanted a report on each and every bellyache, he’d give it to him.
Any work for the Crown would be preferable to the drudgery of managing his estate.
Liverpool cocked his head and ran his gaze up and down Sin’s form. “You know no one would fault you for not marrying some nameless chit, regardless of the circumstances in which you were found. Her disgrace wouldn’t extend to you.”
Summerset flapped his hand. “Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell him.”
Sin snorted. The power that a name held for the English. If Miss Hannon had been Lady Hannon, how different their attitudes would be. “I was the cause of harm to Miss Hannon’s reputation. She is no less deserving of the protection of marriage than any other lass.”
“There have been odder alliances in your family’s history.” Liverpool shrugged. “I wish you well.”
Sin drew his shoulders back. The man probably knew more of Sin’s familial history than Sin did.
Liverpool paused at the door. “Let me know if the situation in Scotland requires more men. Bloodshed must be avoided at all costs.” And he slipped out the door, his presence as fleeting as a ghost.
“Well.” Sin tugged at his lapels. “Shall we get started?”
Summerset stopped him at the door with a hand on his sleeve. “I know you are determined in this marriage, but Montague, Rothchild, and Sutton would want to be here. Give them time to come in from their estates.”
Sin rubbed his chest. All four of his closest friends should be here. But it couldn’t be helped. He turned for the door. “I’ll throw a ball for everyone to meet my wife. That will have to do.” His hand paused over the latch. His wife. That was a phrase he hadn’t imagined himself uttering for a long while.
It rolled around his mind. In mere minutes, he would have a wife. Another person who was his responsibility. Under his care and protection.
The idea didn’t fill his stomach with dread, not like the thought of the tenants and servants of his estate did. So many lives a marquess was responsible for. He’d felt nothing but an imposter since inheriting the title at age thirteen, knowing that regardless of how smart a decision he rendered, how sensible a policy he laid down, he was always just one misstep away from destroying everything his forefathers had built.
But the idea of attending to the wants and desires of one woman for the rest of his life was … intriguing. A challenge instead of a yoke around his neck.
He pushed through the door and strode to his spot by the altar, Summerset a step behind.
His wife. The words had a nice ring to them.
***
Winnifred’s father stood at the small stained-glass window, his hands clasped behind his back. Red-toned light filtered onto his face, deepening the appearance of the grooves that lined his forehead.
“What were you thinking?” he asked her for the hundredth time. “Why would you visit Stamworth’s cellars alone?”
Winnifred stared at her reflection in the small mirror on the wall. She was pale, but that couldn’t be helped. It matched how she felt. Faded. Detached. Once the initial terror of knowing her life had upended had passed, she’d felt … nothing. Two weeks of impassively listening to her father’s rebukes. Fifteen days of organizing her life in preparation for her move.
She knew little of her future husband, but she appreciated the speed with which he’d arranged their banns to be read, and the efficiency with which he’d organized the wedding. If he was as diligent in all things, they should have as good a chance of suiting as any other couple with an arranged marriage.
“You know why.” She pinched her cheeks to no effect. “Mr. Raguhram asked us to find an 1810 vintage in his letter. I’ll admit acceding to his request would only have sated his curiosity, not accomplished anything of significance to test his hypothesis. But after all the information he’s been kind enough to exchange with us, I felt it was the least we could do.”
“You should have brought the bottle to me immediately, not lingered in the cellar.” He twisted his lips, as though he’d tasted something bitter.
“Yes, father.” If she had, her own chances of tasting the wine to see if she could detect any notes of ash would have been next to nonexistent. And she’d been curious. Did a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world affect the flavor of grapes grown in France? Could an ash cloud travel so far?
Her heart squeezed. All her work was at an end. Even had the natural philosophers of her correspondence been willing to maintain their exchange of ideas with her without the pretext of being her father’s secretary, no marchioness would be allowed such an eccentricity. There would be no more ‘assisting’ with her father’s experiments. No further study into the effects of chemical agents on the local flora. The one bastion of pure rationality that she could subsume herself within was no longer available. All that remained was the management of household affairs that would be expected of her.
Hardly sufficient to keep her mind engaged.
She sucked in a sharp breath, battling back the nausea that burbled in her stomach. Alas, she did feel something, after all.
“At least you’re marrying well. I’ve had nothing but congratulations from friends, and a slew of new people wishing to become my friend.” Her father turned. “Having a marquess as my future son-in-law has made me popular.”
Winnifred smoothed her hands down the bodice of her pale blue gown. That popularity hadn’t extended to her. Until she was safely wed, she was still the girl who had been caught in a compromising position. She didn’t blame the caution of her acquaintances, but when facing marriage to a stranger she realized it would have been nice had she cultivated true friendships. A woman to share her concerns with, perhaps someone already married who could give her some guidance.
The role her mother should have taken.
Her father frowned. “I’m only sorry he’s a Scot.”
“He doesn’t sound Scottish.” She’d wondered about that. He had the auburn hair and rougher appearance of their northern neighbors, but his accent was as cultured as any Eton-educated man.
“Well, hopefully he’s been civilized.” Her father stepped forward and took her hands. “You look lovely. I only wish your mother were here to see this.”
The back of her eyes burned, and she dropped her gaze. A knock at the door thankfully prevented them from traveling down that road any farther.
“It’s time.” She turned and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. She led him out the door and down a corridor. The double doors to the nave stood open, and they paused between them.
The Marquess of Dunkeld stood at the altar, his stylish friend by his side. Her future husband was clean-shaven today, his hair neatly swept back into a low queue tied with a black ribbon. The tailoring of his coat and green plaid waistcoat displayed a broad chest and thick arms. His thighs were as wide across as birch trunks, and he stood as though ready to take on an army of invaders. His size was intimidating, the set of his mouth stern. Her belly quivered.
Dunkeld’s eyes alit on her, and he gave her the smallest of nods, an acknowledgement that they were in this jumble together, and it settled some of her nerves. She pulled her shoulders back. It was, after all, only marriage. A condition that was the lot of the majority of women. Nothing to make a fuss over. She was observant and adaptable; she would analyze her husband to determine the proper actions that would make this union a success.
Winnifred took a deep breath, and the first step toward her new life.
Her father patted her hand as they slowly paced down the aisle. “I always could count on you to face things sensibly,” he whispered. “Just think. My daughter. A marchioness. And he’s a member of the House of Lords, you know. You’ll visit London often. But I will miss you.”
She squeezed his arm. She hated to leave him. When her mother had left, he hadn’t risen from bed for a month. But he was as practical as she. They both knew the time had to come.
He leaned in to kiss her cheek before handing her off to the marquess. Dunkeld’s hand swallowed her own, and he held hers gingerly, as though afraid she would break.
Looking up, she gave him her most reassuring smile. She would make this man a good wife. Care for him and their children, if they were so blessed. Be reserved and sensible in all things.
And he would never suspect the truth about her.