“Oooh, you really are a cad,” she sputtered as the thought of her wedding night, already a terrifying issue, struck her with the appalling realization that she would have to experience it at this man’s hands. Nothing could be worse. Nothing.
“Being a cad I never denied,” he said, grinning down at her, and she wanted to die from mortification that she had asked him all those questions and listened to his lies, let him lead her astray with sweet promises of bliss. She knew now exactly whose side the bliss would be on. He’d left the woman’s part out entirely.
“Yes, and now I’m married to you,” she said darkly. “Of course, it’s always been my deepest desire to be married to a cad. Can you imagine how happy I am in this moment?”
He threw his head back and hooted. “Obviously ecstatic,” he said, taking her hand. “Never mind, sweetheart. I feel confident that we can work out the misunderstanding.”
Elspeth
came beetling up to them before
Serafina
had a chance to formulate a reply. “So, Aubrey, we meet at last.” She beamed at him as if she were greeting a long-lost son, and
Serafina
wanted to cry with frustration. Her aunt had no idea what a scoundrel Aiden was. If she’d had, she’d have pulled out one of her bone hairpins and skewered him with it through the heart.
“Miss Beaton, I assume?” Aiden said, bending over her hand. “I must thank you for bringing
Serafina
to me in such a timely fashion. And you made a very fine bridesmaid,” he added, his face perfectly straight.
“I did my best,” Elspeth said with satisfaction. “And a very pretty ceremony it was, most satisfyingly dramatic. I’m sure we are all wondering what that little conversation at the altar was about.” She looked at
Serafina
expectantly.
“It was nothing,”
Serafina
said, coloring. “I was only attempting to ascertain this man’s identity before I was tied to him for life. Since we’d never met, I mean.”
Aiden laughed. “Ah, yes. A confusing state of affairs to be sure. Had I thought of it I would have carried a piece of identification on my person to present to my bride, but I was sadly ill prepared.” He shrugged. “Still, all’s well that ends well, and I think it’s ended very well indeed. My dear, may I take you to the house? Our guests await. Do accompany us, Miss Beaton.”
Serafina
had no choice but to take his arm and let him lead her away, but she treated him to stony silence the entire way back.
Aiden had no such problem. He busied himself with talking to Elspeth as if she were a relative he held in exceptionally high regard, regaling her with stories of Townsend, quizzing her in turn about their life at Clwydd, listening to her responses as if he hung on every word.
Serafina
wanted to kick him.
He carried on in the same vein at the wedding breakfast,
seating
Elspeth at his left and
Serafina
at his right where she studiously ignored him, talking instead to the boring bishop, who banged on about theological dictums that
Serafina
found baffling. But she heard every honeyed word Aiden spoke to her aunt.
He finally got around to the subject that had obviously been burning on his mind. “And do tell me, my dear Miss Beaton, about the gentleman who was kind enough to escort
Serafina
down the aisle to me?” He regarded her with a slight tilt of his head. “An old family friend, perhaps? I have not yet had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. I was wondering why he is not in attendance at the breakfast.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be proper since Tinkerby is my man of all work. He’s eating in the servants’ hall,” Elspeth said, regarding Aiden with what
Serafina
could only construe as adoration.
“Tinkerby?” Aiden said.
He shot
Serafina
an incisive look, filled with amusement, and she wanted to crawl into a little ball, remembering far too well how it was that Tinkerby’s name had come up in conversation the day before. She tore her gaze away from his, blushing hotly.
“He has been with you a long time, then?” Aiden asked Elspeth, as if he had no idea of Serafina’s embarrassment. She truly wanted to kill him.
“Oh, yes, Tinkerby has known dear
Serafina
since the day she was born and was with her father for many years before that. He’s a good man, if a bit misguided in his opinions.”
“Oh, yes?” Aiden said, looking as if he was trying not to laugh, which only infuriated
Serafina
more. How dare he make light of Tinkerby? He probably thought himself too good for the man. He probably thought himself too good for her too, given the cavalier way he’d treated her in the woods. Apparently Aiden was a snob on top of everything else.
“Yes,” Serafina
said disdainfully, turning to him. “Tinkerby comes from a long line of men of all work. His father blacked the boots at Bowhill. That’s where I used to live before I was forced away, but you probably know that.”
She speared a forkful of chicken livers that had been sauteed in a sherry sauce, even though she despised chicken livers and had just discovered that she didn’t like the taste of sherry either. But it was one of the only dishes that she recognized on the table. She was far more accustomed to simple stews and roasts. “Tinkerby came with me to Clwydd and taught me everything he knew from gardening to scouring the pots and pans,” she said, waving her fork in the air for emphasis. “And I can black the boots as well as anyone can.” She twisted the fork in her hand and shoved the revolting stuff into her mouth.
“How useful,” he said, not missing a beat, although he regarded her with an odd expression. “I’m sure you’ll teach my valet any manner of things, once I can afford one.”
“Whether you can afford a valet or not is none of my concern,”
Serafina
replied through her mouthful, forcing herself to swallow. “Of course, if you are so hard done by I suppose I can always manage the task for you. I won’t require much of a salary.”
Aiden met her gaze evenly as if she hadn’t said anything untoward and leaned his cheek on his hand. “Would five guineas a year be acceptable?” he asked lazily. “I think I might just be able to manage that, although the wage does seem extravagant.”
“At that price, I think I’ll have to throw your boots at your head each morning, my lord, and consider that my extra compensation.” She narrowed her eyes. “But then maybe it’s the most effective way to wake you up.”
Aiden chuckled. “I can see I have a stormy ride ahead of me. Perhaps I’d better break out my spurs.”
Elspeth, who had been leaning on every word, gave a loud crack of laughter. “And your crop too, I should think,” she said gleefully. “You’ve a green one on your hands, Aubrey.”
Serafina
blushed beetroot and glared at her aunt, willing her to keep her mouth shut. Knowing Elspeth, she was next going to offer Aiden her virginity for dessert. Blood pudding.
“Oh, but I never use a crop,” Aiden said. “I believe in the art of friendly persuasion.”
Serafina
wanted to slide under the table in mortification. She shot Aiden a filthy look and turned back to the bishop and his boring conversation.
She couldn’t wait for an opportunity to escape, desperately needing solitude and time to sort out her confused thoughts. But to Serafina’s dismay the company moved into the drawing room when the meal was finally over.
The man who had been introduced to
Serafina
as the Duke of Southwell, which had only made her feel even more inadequate, pushed Charlotte’s chair over to the window and engaged her in conversation, his back turned away. She knew they were both studiously ignoring her, which didn’t help to alleviate her sense of alienation.
But she’d already divined what Charlotte thought of her, and since the duke had done nothing but fix her with chilly looks all throughout the breakfast, she wasn’t particularly surprised. Had Elspeth said Charlotte had a viper in her bosom? It seemed to
Serafina
that she’d landed in an entire nest of vipers. She scowled darkly, looking around the room.
Lord Delaware and Elspeth had vanished somewhere between the dining room and the drawing room, taking Aiden with them. Aiden had excused himself prettily enough, saying only that he would be back shortly. If she had her way, he would never return at all.
The bishop and the vicar were involved in arguing over some silly theological point, a conversation
Serafina
had no interest in joining. Their God was low on her list at the moment.
That left
Serafina
with only the vicar’s wife to hold conversation with, and she quickly found her a singularly stupid woman, full of pretensions and nauseating obsequiousness. She prattled on and on until
Serafina
wanted to wring her fat neck.
“Oh, my lady, I must say I find it thrilling that you are married to your childhood sweetheart at long last,” she trilled. “The village is all in a tizzy about it.”
“My childhood sweetheart?”
Serafina
said, staring at her in horror. “Where did you come up with that idea?”
“Why, from Lord Delaware, of course. He said you were engaged to each other when Lord Aubrey was all of seventeen. How deliciously romantic,” she cooed.
“Not at all, Mrs. Liddle,”
Serafina
said. “It is my understanding that peers and future peers of the realm never marry for love, nor are they foolish enough to choose wives who would expect it of them. Such saccharine sentiments are reserved for those of the lower classes.”
“Oh …” Mrs. Liddle said, her fatuous smile fading. “But I thought—”
“You must have misunderstood,”
Serafina
said calmly, even though her heart felt like breaking at the irony of Mrs. Liddle’s assumption. “The marriage was an arrangement made between our fathers, nothing more,” she continued. “I am sure Lord Aubrey will go his own way soon enough, with no need to perform his matrimonial duties once he has his heir.”
The Duke of Southwell’s head slowly raised from his conversation with Charlotte. He turned and gave
Serafina
a long assessing gaze, meeting her eyes evenly, his own as cold as slate and filled with obvious dislike.
Serafina
dropped her gaze, overcome with a desire to burst into tears of despair. She felt as if she had just married into the enemy camp through no devising of her own. It was more than obvious to her that neither Aiden’s sister nor his cousin considered her a suitable bride, and she could hardly be surprised, since Aiden shared the sentiment. Aiden would have been much better off with a woman like himself, someone cold and unfeeling, someone who didn’t care about being loved or about giving it. He’d told her that much already. As well as a great deal more.
She really couldn’t bear another minute in the company of strangers. “Please excuse me,” she said, blinking hard to contain her tears. “I find I am exhausted from the festivities.” She nearly ran out of the room, not caring in the least that everyone was staring at her.
Serafina
changed into one of her old dresses and slipped out through the back of the house, unwilling to face another person. She didn’t know where to go, only that she wanted to disappear as fast and thoroughly as possible.
But she’d only walked a few yards when a voice came from behind her, stopping her in her tracks.
“So, here you are, Countess,” the Duke of Southwell said smoothly, and
Serafina
spun around in alarm.
“Oh … it’s you, your dukedom,” she said stupidly, not knowing how to address him properly, wishing Elspeth had prepared her better for this sort of thing.
“It is indeed. But please, do call me Raphael, now that we’re family.” He said it as if the thought disgusted him.
“Yes—yes, I suppose we are,” she said, her fingers catching nervously at the edges of her skirt, not sure why his being Aiden’s friend made them anything but enemies.
“I’m delighted we agree. So, since we’re family, I’d like to know why it is that you look at Aiden with daggers in your eyes and murder in your heart.” He fixed her with his level gaze.
“I—I can’t speak of it,” she said, desperately wishing to escape. “It’s for Aiden to tell you, if he will.”
“What is there for him to tell me that he hasn’t told me already? He’s made his feelings about the marriage clear to me.”
“In that case, I can only suppose he told you that I coerced him into the agreement. I assure you, I had nothing to do with it.”
Serafina
wrenched her gaze away from his, the taste of bile bitter in her throat.
“Didn’t you?” Raphael asked calmly. “It’s not unheard of for a woman to use whatever tools she has at her disposal to elevate herself in the world. So maybe you’d like to take this opportunity to explain yourself.”
“There’s nothing to explain,”
Serafina
said miserably, knowing there was no way to explain anything, least of all to herself.
“No? Then if you don’t wish to tell me your motives for marrying Aiden, maybe you’ll explain your behavior at the wedding breakfast. Or there’s always the particularly vitriolic condemnation you made of Aiden’s intent to the vicar’s wife. Are you trying to make a fool out of him, now that you’ve secured his tide?”