A few long and wispy moments later she sighed and got up, then walked over to the wing chair where her pelisse still lay. The duke had left as soon as he got the answer he wanted. He said he had some arrangements to make and that they would be married within the hour.
Married. Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie married to a duke. She wondered what a duchess did and wondered if she would be any better at duchessing than she was at witchcraft. It worried her a bit, but somehow it was not at the pinnacle of her thoughts.
The duke was.
Odd how a man who never smiled could make her feel things she didn't know existed. He held her heart in his hands. From the moment she saw him, some thread had linked them together. This man needed her. He needed her hope and her magic.
He needed smiles and kisses. Everyone needed kisses. And nothing else seemed to matter, not the fact that they had just met, not their differences—the fact that he was a mortal and she was a witch—not her spells, not the worry about the future. This felt so right. Something, some intuition, made her feel certain that this was where she was destined to be, and so badly wanted to be. She'd received the gift of a fairy-tale ending. It had been placed in her hands, tied with bright ribbons of love and need and dreams that would come true.
The door opened and he entered. She took one look at his scowling face, and a sinking feeling of dread came over her. With a sadness that came from a short lifetime of disappointments, she prepared herself for the worst. She had known it was too good to be true. Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to Joy, and it was not going to happen now, either.
From his face she could see the wedding had been canceled. He looked as if he'd eaten something that had made him ill. He was preparing himself to tell her that he didn't want to marry her after all. She steeled herself for disappointment, something she knew very well.
"We have a problem."
Her heavy heart was somewhere near her feet. She rose and gripped the back of a chair, trying to will away the tears she could feel burning behind her eyes."I understand," she said in little more than a whisper.
"Three of the ton's most voracious gossips are waiting beyond that door. Don't let them intimidate you. Do not volunteer any information. Let me do the talking. Just nod your head and agree with whatever I say." He didn't wait for an answer, but she figured one didn't need to answer a ducal order.
He picked up her pelisse and held it for her while she slipped it on. Then he handed her her hat and gloves. "If the situation gets too uncomfortable I want us to be able to leave quickly. If we must wait for the vicar, we shall do so at the chapel."
Joy exhaled with relief. The wedding had not been called off.
She smiled then, a great big brilliant smile that she couldn't have hidden had she tried. He cocked his head and searched her face, as if he saw something there he could not comprehend. After an uncomfortable silence her smile faded and she looked away, spotting Beezle still asleep by the fire. She closed the distance and picked him up.
His snoring ceased, and he slowly pried open one bored eye, then let his head fall back over her arm so he could stare at the duke, eyeing him the way a sly thief might eye a fat purse. The duke scowled and returned the animal's feral look. Joy lifted Beezle to her shoulder and he crawled up, settling into his favorite position, but instead of going to sleep, he pulled the pins from her knot of hair.
"Beezle! No!" She tried to grab the pins, but she wasn't fast enough. Her hair cascaded down her back, past her waist, and down to the backs of her thighs. She heard the duke take a sharp breath. Probably in irritation, she thought. She plucked the weasel off her shoulders and set him in the chair.
She retrieved the hairpins and then straightened, grabbing a handful of hair and twisting it into a coil around her hand. "He does that sometimes. He likes to play with hair, twisting it, braiding it, chewing it. This will take me a few minutes."
She walked over to the small dressing table and sat on the bench, watching in the mirror as she sectioned off a handful of hair and twisted it around her hand before pinning it at her neck. She was bent over, trying to wrap the very back section when she felt the duke standing behind her, watching her. He seemed fascinated by what she was doing.
"My hair is terribly long and takes so much time. I—"
"It's lovely." He reached out and lifted a strand, rubbing it through his fingers as if he had never felt hair before.
"Can you hand me that last section please, the one in the back?" She held her hand out, but he didn't move. It was as if he hadn't heard her at all. She waited, watching him and trying to read his expression. He continued to finger her hair. The only sound in the room was the crackle and snap of dry wood in the fireplace. The smell of burning oak and the stale perfume of the women who had sat here before her mixed with the scent of this man to whom she was so attuned. After a minute he glanced up and met her gaze in the mirror. He looked ill at ease, very ill at ease.
"Here." He handed her the section of hair and turned away, walking over to stand by the door and wait.
Joy stuck in the last pin, stood up, and crossed back to the chair. She put her hat on, tying the ribbons beneath her chin as she leaned to the right so she could catch his reflection in the mirror. He was just out of sight.
She tugged the ribbons into a lopsided bow and gave the crown of the hat a quick pat, watching the listing feather flop like a broken twig. The hat was a mess, but it would keep Beezle from picking her hair apart again. She picked up her snoring weasel, slung him around her neck, and joined the duke.
His back was to her, his hands clasped behind him while he rocked on his heels and stared at nothing.
"I am ready."
He turned but didn't meet her look, just reached out and, after a slight hesitation, clasped her elbow and opened the door.
A richly dressed red-haired woman almost fell through the doorway. Two women behind her grabbed her pistachio green skirt with both hands to steady her. There was a second of scuffling, the rustle of silk skirts, and then the three of them flowed into the room like a gaggle of colorful geese.
"Oh! Your Grace!" The woman took great pains to brush her brocade dress instead of looking at the duke. "That horrid room out there is too stuffy. I was so overcome with weakness that I leaned against the door for support. Your Grace caught me by surprise."
"His Grace caught you trying to get an earful," he said under his breath.
Joy glanced up at him, biting back a smile. His Grace had made a jest. She expected to see some amusement on his face. She was wrong. He gave the woman the ducal glare, but she seemed completely unaware of it and of his comment. She was staring right at Joy, and she looked stunned.
The woman quickly overcame her shock and with one determined sidestep scanned Joy from the top of her head to her shoes. Joy knew instantly that this red-haired woman could, with one wee look, gauge her weight, height, and shoe size in less time than it took a kettle to whistle.
"Why, Your Grace, I don't believe I've met your . . . your—"
"Betrothed," he interrupted, ignoring the woman's sharp intake of breath. "Lady Agnes Voorhees, Lady Eugenia Wentworth, and Mrs. Claire Timmons, may I present Miss Joyous MacQuarrie."
"A Scot!" Lady Agnes gasped, clutching her throat as if she expected Joy to grow a second head. If it hadn't been for the duke, Joy might have tried to conjure one up for the rude woman.
Lady Agnes stepped back, and her two companions backed away, too, their faces revealing abject horror.
Joy watched them, wondering how they'd react if they knew she was a Scottish witch. She looked at the red-haired woman's nose, which was elevated so she could look down at her.
One wart, Joy thought.
Perhaps I could just give her one wee wart.
Before she could even picture the image in her mind's eye, the duke placed her hand through his arm and rested a cool hand atop hers. "If you will excuse us, madam, we have a wedding to attend."
And he walked Joy through the doorway, pausing between the woman's two companions, who scurried aside as if met by the plague. He stood a good two heads taller than any of the three women, and he squared his shoulders and looked down at Joy. "Isn't it a shame, my dear, that your grandparents, the earl and the countess, were unable to be here."
From behind her, Joy heard Lady Agnes gasp. She stifled the urge to smile and before she could even venture a peek at the woman, the duke led her away, a distinct look of supreme satisfaction on his face. She looked up at him as they walked through the inn. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw firm with a duke's pride, his hand still rested atop hers, as if to provide some assurance and protection. At that instant it seemed to Joy as if her handsome duke had just grown a foot taller.
Chapter 7
The little brownstone church with its high narrow white spire stood at the north end of the
village
of
Cropsey
where a small brook meandered through a deep gray copse of skeletal willow and beech trees. Framing the wide path to the arched chapel doors was a matching brownstone wall thick with frost-laden ivy, where only minutes before, a small wedding party had passed by, never noticing the cold air in their rush to start an impromptu wedding.
The same frost still rimed the surrounding grass, the trees, and the church roof. But inside, past the leaded-glass windows and the walnut pews, the gilded sconces and the white marble and brass baptismal font that sat near the mahogany pulpit, the only frost in the room was in the cold blue eyes of the bridegroom when he turned and saw the uninvited wedding guests.
Chattering like magpies they walked into the church just as the vicar began the ceremony. They settled themselves in the front pew, and the vicar raised his voice so as to be heard over the harping of Lady Agnes. By the time the intruders had quieted, the bride and groom were repeating their vows.
The duke slid his signet ring onto Joy's finger, then held her hand in his tight grip so the ring wouldn't fall off. She watched his face, but his expression did not reveal any emotion. The earl's speculative and drink-ruddied face stared at her from the duke's right side. She had caught Downe watching her more than once since the duke had called his friends into the retiring room to announce that she was to be his duchess, that the marriage would take place in an hour, and that they would serve as witnesses.
"What the Lord hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
A sob rivaling that of Sarah Siddons's Lady Macbeth blubbered from behind them. The duke's shoulders stiffened, and his jaw tightened. Joy couldn't help herself. She stole a curious peek over her shoulder at the party in the front pew.
Lady Agnes was sobbing into her lace handkerchief while her beleaguered-looking husband tried unsuccessfully to give her a bit of comfort by patting her heaving shoulder. On her other side were her two friends—Mrs. Timmons, whose most memorable feature was her skin, which was as ruddy as oat flour, and Lady Eugenia, a black-haired mouse of a woman who was so small that at first glance one thought she was a child.
Both women stared at Joy as if to memorize her every feature. She suddenly felt like a butterfly specimen pinned to a board, but she had no time to worry because the duke squeezed her hand firmly enough to get her attention. She turned back just as the vicar congratulated the duke and then turned to her.
"Best wishes, Your Grace."
Joy waited for her husband to answer. After a long silence she looked up at him. He nodded toward the vicar, who was looking at her expectantly. The duke slipped his arm around her and leaned down."Scottish?"
The intimate sound of that name whispered down at her turned her blood to warm honey. She looked up at him.
"He is speaking to you. You're a duchess now."
Feeling her face flush bright red, she averted her eyes and mumbled, "Thank you."