"Oh! What a lovely day!" Lady Agnes wedged her way past the viscount to stand barely a nose length from Joy. "Such a pity your family could not be here." She waved her handkerchief in front of Joy's face and then leaned even closer, her face instantly feral. "Who are they, my dear?"
"Your Grace," the duke corrected her, his voice ice and steel and his arm holding Joy protectively close.
It was Lady Agnes's turn to step back. Joy was sure anyone else would have run out of the kirk in Devil-fear at the sound of that cold tone. Lady Agnes had more gall.
"Why—why, of course. Forgive me, Your Grace. I know how unnerving a wedding can be, don't I, Henry dear? I have married off three daughters."
"Bought husbands for them," the Earl of Downe said to the Viscount Seymour in a loud whisper.
Lady Agnes didn't hear him because she was still rattling on. "And it was not that long ago that I myself was married."
"Forty years at least," muttered Downe.
"Of course my family attended the ceremony, and my mother—"
"The dragon," the earl said under his brandied breath.
"She sought to ease my nervousness, but then, your mother is not here, is she, my—Your Grace?"
Lord Henry must have seen the duke's eyes turn as lethal as a raiding laird's, because he tugged on his wife's arm and her two friends began to back down the aisle.
"This wedding is private. You may leave by those doors." The duke nodded toward the church entrance.
"Well, I
nev
—"
"Time to leave, dearest." Lord Henry clamped a hand over his wife's mouth and pulled her down the aisle, her indignant muttering muffled by his hand.
Only when the doors closed behind them did the duke turn back to Joy. His look softened a bit. "We need to sign the register. Then I promise we shall leave as swiftly as possible."
"Your Grace?"
"Alec."
"Alec," she repeated, the sound of his name doing odd things to her insides. "Here." She handed him back the ring. "I am afraid I will lose this."
He stared at her outstretched hand; his ring was so large it took up a good portion of her palm. He took it and slid it on his finger. "I shall see about another ring as soon as possible."
"I don't need one if—"
"You are the Duchess of Belmore. You will wear a ring befitting your station." He took her elbow and led her toward the altar. She had hoped he would give her a ring; it would serve as a reminder that this wasn't a dream. A ring was real, something she could touch and hold, something that would show the world they were married.
They went up the steps to the altar and toward the right, near the pulpit, where a cleric stood with pen and ink. He wrote something, then turned the vellum book toward them. Joy stared at the entry:
His Grace, Alec Gerald David John James Mark Castlemaine, Duke of Belmore, of theBelmore Parish, and Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie of Dervaig, Scotland, a Protestant, were married in Cropsey Chapel by license this day, the thirtieth of December in the year
1813
by me, Jonathan Potsworth, vicar.
This marriage was solemnized between us:
The cleric handed the pen to the duke. He signed the register, then dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to Joy. Her hand was shaking like a birch branch in the wind. She was almost tempted to grab her wrist with her other hand so she could sign legibly. She took a deep breath and signed her name. Then her husband handed the pen to his friends to witness. The viscount signed and turned to congratulate the duke and gallantly wish Joy the best. She liked this man. Nervous and fidgety as he was, he had kind eyes and a sincere smile.
"Please, Your Grace, call me Neil. I'm sure we will be fast friends."
"Thank you, my lord. Neil it will be, but you must call me Joy."
"Surely a name selected by the gods, and very appropriate." He kissed her hand and smiled.
Meanwhile, the earl was weaving over the book. "Hold the bloody thing still,
Seymour
."
The three turned and looked at the earl. She hadn't thought it was possible, but he was even drunker now than he had been earlier. Neil grabbed his friend's shoulder and steadied him, being careful not to apply pressure to the slung arm. The earl rested the sling on the register lectern and scratched a drunken scrawl across half the page, sideways.
He straightened his back, teetered a bit, then gave her a lascivious leer while rocking slightly. "I'm Richard, and I would like to kiss more than your hand."
Alec's arm tensed and she glanced down at his hand. It was in a white fist. She looked up. His face had not changed, did not look the least concerned. His fist told her that his face lied.
A second later Richard's eyes rolled back and he slumped against a column. The only thing holding him upright was the viscount.
"Best get him to a room before he passes out. Not up to snuff, passing out in a church." He tugged on the earl's good arm.
"Need a drink." Richard rummaged through his coat with his good hand. "Where's m' brandy?"
"Gone." Neil helped him walk the few steps to the side door.
"Wait." Richard dug his heels into the carpet. "Belmore can't abandon us here." He pulled his arm out of Neil's grip and turned back, giving them an insolent grin. "What would people think?"
"He's made arrangements to rent Hobson's horses," Neil told him. "We'll ride back to
London
in the morning." He turned to Joy. "Have a pleasant wedding trip, Your Grace. This is destiny, you know. The fates chose you, and now everything is right." He looked at the duke. "Even if Belmore here refuses to believe it."
"I need a bloody drink!"
"Stifle it, Downe. You are in a church for God's sake."
"I don't believe in God. The only good thing he ever created was brandy!" He jerked his arm away from the viscount.
Neil grabbed him again and helped him walk out of the church.
"Is he always like that?" Joy asked.
Alec looked at her, then glanced back at the door. "Of late. He didn't used to be. People change." He grasped her arm. "The carriage is waiting."
"Wait, please. Where is Beezle?" Joy looked around, frantic.
"Henson has him."
"Your footman?"
"Our footman."
They walked through the doors and directly to the carriage where Henson immediately opened the door and pulled down the carriage steps. Beezle clung to his back and was happily chewing away on the footman's queue.
"Your Grace," he said, bowing as if it was perfectly normal for him to have an ermine weasel clinging to him like a leech.
Joy plucked Beezle off his back. "Thank you, Henson, for taking care of him."
"Certainly, Your Grace."
Joy glanced at the footman. His hair hung loose outside the ribbon that had previously tied back his queue. She looked at her familiar. He was sleeping in her arms, innocently sleeping. Joy dismissed it, knowing how fascinated her familiar was with hair, and let the servant help her inside. Her husband barked a few orders while she settled Beezle and herself onto the seat. The duke joined them, and a few minutes later they were off.
***
Four long and relatively silent hours later the carriage slowed and turned, then ambled through a guarded gate and down a long drive flanked by majestic old elms and pollard trees. Joy watched with silent curiosity as they passed massive tree after massive tree.
She had studied her husband for the last silent hour, not daring to again ask if they were almost there— he had seemed irritated after the sixth time—and wondering how close they actually were to Belmore Park. To her delight he had volunteered the information as they passed through the last quaint little village.
Belmore
Park
was right outside this village, he'd said.
She had pressed her nose to the cold window to watch the timbered houses and rustic high-roofed thatched cottages pass by. She'd caught a glimpse of a wee burn edged with hazel trees. They'd trotted past a tall white kirk high on a hill with a spreading hawthorn tree perched nearby. Black smoke had billowed into the winter sky from an open smithy where a cumbersome ancient wagon stood in disrepair behind an old and weather-stained wall. Village dogs had barked a loud, continuous harangue when they passed the village green where a group of curious children stopped playing to point and gaze in awe at the carriage.
It had been nearly an hour since they left the village children to resume their game of blind man's bluff in the common, and every minute since had seemed an eternity, especially since she was so terribly eager to see her new home.
Still staring out the window, she spotted what appeared to be glassy water past the tall border of pollard trees. She moved her head, eager to get a better look, but the carriage passed a low wall, then turned through a smaller set of iron gates decorated with the ducal crest. A heartbeat later a huge home loomed before her gawking eyes.
They halted in front of a tall columned portico with cream-colored limestone steps and thick carved stone balustrades fanning outward from the steps like welcoming arms. There was a quick fluttering flash of someone in the beveled-glass sidelights that framed the enormous polished walnut doors. They opened, and a rush of green and gold liveried footmen came down the steps.
Met with all the pomp and circumstance awarded to a conquering monarch, she thought, watching as the footmen lined up like guardsmen on either side of the steps. Joy expected them to break out the trumpets at any second. Instead, the carriage door opened and her husband, the laird of the manor, descended, then turned to help her down. She placed her hand in his and paused. Just the touch of his hand could turn her heart over.
"This is our home,
Belmore
Park
." There was pride in his voice, the first emotion she sensed that he did not try to hide.
She looked up and her mouth fell open. Completely awestruck she craned her head back to take in all of the palatial glory of her new home.
It was three stories tall and completely made of pale stone with what appeared to be near a hundred huge pillastered leaded-glass windows.
Duart
Castle
also had glass, but nothing like this, and the castle windows were small, little more than old arrow slits in the tower rooms where she had lived. The glass, as rustic and old as the castle itself, was thick and wavy and filmed with the salt of the sea. But here there was so much leaded crystalline glass that at first glance the windows looked like diamonds set in pale stone. She wondered how this house would look in spring with the sun shining on all that glass. It would be almost like a magic spell—a thousand stars sparkling in the light of day.
"This is … magical." Her eager eyes scanned the facade and the four three-story angular bays that stood out, giving an impression of depth.
"It was built by Sir John Thynne, after the original house burned down. See the balustrade along the roof?"
Joy followed his hand to the roofline of the house where an ornamental railing bordered the flat roof.