The Changeling Bride (7 page)

Yes, her waist was much smaller than usual, and yes, her breasts were bulging like honeydews above the neckline, but breathing was an agony; she couldn’t raise her arms thanks to the tight shoulder straps, she couldn’t
bend at the waist, and her belly was already feeling pinched and tortured.

Next came a single petticoat, then stockings that were held up by garters tied above the knee. Marianne held up a large sausagelike affair, covered in muslin and tapering at the ends, that she then tied around Elle’s waist, so that the thickest part rested above her derriere. Her butt was not a part of her anatomy Elle had ever wanted to pad for effect.

She sat on the vanity bench and allowed Marianne to lightly powder her face and apply a touch of color to her lips. With a small brush Marianne subtly darkened Elle’s lashes and brows. Elle looked at the results and wished she had her bag of L’Oreal. She’d spent the last ten years of her life learning how to apply makeup to her best advantage, and now, on her wedding day, she’d have to do more or less without.

Another maid carried in the wedding gown, cradled carefully in her arms. Marianne clapped her hands together in delight, and Elle could only stare in wonder at the creamy confection of gauze, lace, and muslin.

The maid laid the gown on the bed, and Elle kept her eyes upon it in the mirror as Marianne set to work confining her hair. How many dress designs had she dreamt of through the years, thumbing through bridal magazines? It seemed like thousands. Well, here was a wedding dress for her, and she was going to be married in it to a man who was a stranger, and there would be a party afterwards attended by people she didn’t know, and she’d be congratulated by family and friends that she’d never seen before and would never see again. All of it had been planned by someone else, and not one choice about the food or music or decorations or entertainment had been hers to make. She wasn’t paying for so much as a miniature quiche. After tonight, even the husband wouldn’t be hers.

All considered, it was a pretty good deal. Her heart beat with happy excitement.

In a room at an inn near the church, Henry George Archibald Phillip Trevelyan, the Earl of Allsbrook, dressed without the help of either a man or enthusiasm. His younger brother, Frederick, was sulkily polishing his boots yet another time, his large, poetic brown eyes expressing all the dismay that he had been forbidden to express by mouth. He had been quiet for some five or six minutes now, and a minute more proved unendurable.

“But why does it have to be
her?”
he questioned yet again.

Henry groaned silently. Freddy’s eighteen-year-old heart was a romantic, impassioned relic of another age. He should have been born a hundred years before, when stories of princesses in distress and true love winning the day were all the fashion.

“I refuse to discuss this any further, Freddy,” he said without a trace of his own inner disquiet.

“Do you not believe in love? Do you not think you will regret this all the days of your life, as you grow old with a woman you despise?”

“I do not despise her. She is young and ignorant, as are you. That is no cause to dislike someone but rather a reason to educate them. A tactic that has obviously failed in regards to yourself, I regret to say.”

“Well, I do not like her.”

“You have not even met her.”

“I have heard about her, and that is enough. You know how servants talk. My man Jim has heard plenty since we arrived, and it is very little of it good.”

“I am glad to hear that you have become so fine in your judgment that actually meeting the accused and forming your own impressions are unnecessary. That is quite an accomplishment.”

Frederick flushed under the rebuke. “You have met
her, and I do not hear you singing her praises. You do not even look happy, on this, your wedding day.”

“Even if she were the loveliest woman in the country, possessed of the finest mind and the most equable spirit, I do not see how that would alter my mood. Marriage is a practical matter. It is for family and estate that we do it, and I challenge you to find any man, yourself excluded, who would marry for the sheer thrill of it.”

Freddy put an extra bit of energy into his boot polishing. “You have no heart in you,” he muttered, just loud enough for Henry to hear.

Henry ignored him, and sat to put on his wig. He was thankful that the hot, itchy things were passing from style. He planned to abolish them entirely from his wardrobe, along with hair powder, just as soon as his own financial well-being was not so dependent upon the opinions of others.

If his father were not already dead, he reflected for not the first time, he would be sorely tempted to kill him himself for the mess the man had made of the family’s fortunes.

His one meeting with Eleanor had done little to endear her to him. Or him to her, he imagined. After her vow to make his life miserable, she had proceeded to dig her vicious little tongue into his shame at selling his title for a bride’s riches. It had taken every ounce of self-control to keep his anger from showing, for he had refused to let her provoke him into a reaction. If he controlled himself, he controlled the situation. He had learned that lesson by observing its opposite in his father, and had made it his guiding principle.

He tried to tell himself now that Eleanor had been tense, had been herself embarrassed at being a tool for her father’s attempts to enter the nobility. There might be a kind woman somewhere under the acid, who would make a passable mother to their children. All he asked for himself was that she behave with civility in public.

He checked the time on his pocket watch. Eleanor should have received the bridal gift he had sent her by now. Had she sneered?

He glanced at Freddy’s mournful face, and his lips tightened imperceptibly. The luxury of sentiment was not his to indulge. Eleanor was suitable in the only respects that mattered: She was rich and young enough to bear his heirs.

When Elle climbed into the carriage that would take her to the church, she wore around her neck the earl of Allsbrook’s bridal gift, her fingers straying to it at every opportunity. Mrs. Moore had scoffed at its value, remarking that such a small amount of gold, and such minor gems as amber and jade, were hardly befitting a future countess. Elle heartily disagreed, although she did not argue with Mrs. Moore. Instead she insisted upon wearing the filigreed necklace that did not sparkle or shine, but rather glowed with a soft warmth that brought out the green and rich brown in Elle’s eyes.

Marianne had firmly secured the wig to Elle’s head, yet with every movement it felt as if it would topple to the ground. Elle had never liked the “big hair” look, and powder and flowers did nothing to improve the style. The dress, however, with its tight bodice and sleeves, and skirt that poofed into a gauzy bell over the bustle beneath, was all that she could hope for. The wide sash around her newly slender waist was tinted a pale gold, as were the ribbons on her silk shoes, complementing the lace. The rest of the dress was cream in color, chosen no doubt for the soft effect it had upon her redhead’s complexion. The only element she could have wished different was the airy scarf that was piled in high folds over her bosom, making her look something like a pouter pigeon and obscuring the lovely necklace.

The carriage started with a soft jolt, rolling slowly away from the house. Mrs. Moore and Marianne accompanied
her, the one to see to her emotional well-being, the other to repair any last minute imperfections in her appearance. Elle looked back at the house, newly astonished at its size, and wondered how the lawns were kept so neatly trimmed without benefit of a lawnmower.

The carriage passed under the shade of tall trees that lined the drive to the front gate, then turned onto the road and into sunlight. Open fields interspersed with pockets of woodland made up the scenery they passed through, and Elle drank it in with avid eyes. She had always wanted to see England and was not going to miss out on this chance to see what she could of it.

The distant, familiar barking of a dog brought her eyes to the crest of a hill, and her fingers gripped the window embrasure when she saw the white shape that was flying down the slope towards the carriage. For a moment she thought she was imagining things, then was certain of it when the boy she thought she saw chasing after Tatiana disappeared in a flash of sunlight. The joyous baying of her dog begged to differ.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop the carriage!” She leaned out the window, yelling at the driver. “Stop! Stop!” Marianne and Mrs. Moore erupted into babbles of concern, but Elle ignored them. The carriage finally slowed to a halt, and after several frustrating moments of fumbling, Elle released the catch on the door and fell to the ground outside. She had forgotten her clothes and their inhibition to her movement. She didn’t care, though, as she rolled over and pushed herself up in the dust, her wig now definitely awry, one ribbon streaming down over her shoulder.

“Tatiana! Here, girl! Tatiana!” she cried. Tatiana’s white ears lay flat against her head as she ran even faster, tongue lolling in a wide-open, joyful grin. Elle crawled a few feet into the field, then spread her arms as Tatiana barreled into her, her wet tongue slopping all over Elle’s carefully made-up face. Elle felt tears start in her eyes,
hanging on her lashes and washing the primitive mascara onto her cheeks.

“Here, Tatiana, be careful; I have to get married in a few minutes,” she chided, but there was no reproof in her voice.

“Eleanor, what in God’s name are you doing?” came her mother’s distressed cry.

“Miss, miss, your hair! We’re going to be late, oh please, miss, let go of that dog,” Marianne wailed, stumbling from the carriage.

“I won’t let her go,” Elle stated, pressing her forehead against Tatiana’s. “She’s coming with us.”

“Eleanor Margaret, return to this carriage this instant. You are not bringing that dog with you.”

Elle turned and glared into the carriage, where Mrs. Moore sat appalled. “Oh, yes I am, and if you try to stop me I won’t marry the earl.”

“Insolence! Do you dare to threaten your own mother?”

“You know I do. You said yourself you know better than to argue when I have my mind set.” She held Mrs. Moore’s eyes with the strength of her determination, backed by her bottomless love for Tatiana, and the older woman slowly gave way, her cheeks flushed in anger.

“I vow, Eleanor, I think I shall be pleased to be rid of you. Let the earl handle your willful nature, and good luck to him.”

Elle untied the gold sash around her waist, then made a leash of it and led Tatiana back to the carriage. She wasn’t taking any chance of losing her again, and anyone who didn’t like it could stuff it. They could think her irrational or crazy, she didn’t care. Tatiana was the only living creature in this entire world who knew who she was, and that was not a bond she took lightly.

The remainder of the ride was chaos. Tatiana bounded from seat to seat, panted drool onto an angry Mrs. Moore, waved her tail in Marianne’s annoyed face, and took
every chance to bark at animals out the window. Marianne did her best to rearrange Elle’s coiffure, tacking the ribbon back into place and struggling to resecure the roses. She used a handkerchief to try to wipe away the smudges beneath Elle’s eyes, and brushed vigorously at the dirt marring the dress. Upon arrival at the small village church Elle was almost presentable.

Mr. Moore was waiting for them, pacing impatiently in front of the church. His frown deepened when Elle emerged from the carriage with leash in hand.

“She refuses to part with the dog,” Mrs. Moore complained to her husband, passing the problem onto more assertive shoulders. “She claims she will not marry the earl if she has to part from the beast.”

Mr. Moore narrowed his eyes at his daughter. “I am calling your bluff this time, my girl. If you think to delay this over a dog, you had better think again. You want it with you? Then bring it. You are getting married either way.”

Elle smiled in relief. This formidable man, with the scowl etched so ferociously upon his brow, was not putting up a fight. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

There was some fussing and delay in the front of the church, as people took their places, and then the organ started up in an unfamiliar hymn. Louise walked slowly down the aisle, and then it was Elle’s turn, Mr. Moore on one side, Tatiana heeling nicely on the other. At least Tatiana’s fur matched the occasion, Elle thought, and the sash leash made a decorative touch.

The scene had a sense of unreality about it, and her eyes were having trouble focusing on the guests sitting in the pews. Her heart was pounding under those layers of cloth and corsetting, and she realized with detached bemusement that she was light-headed from excitement and too little oxygen. She wondered if she was about to faint.

She felt the brush of Tatiana against her leg and was
reassured. All would be well. Those fairy people had heard her, and she’d be home by this evening, with the memory of a wedding in which she was finally the bride. Her eyes cleared, and she gazed blissfully up to the altar, where her bridegroom awaited.

Henry watched his bride and father-in-law approach, and could not for the life of him decide what to make of the spectacle. The woman had brought a dog with her, into a church, to take part in a sacred ceremony. Mr. Moore looked uncharacteristically bewildered, Eleanor serene, and the dog obliviously happy. He did not know if he should be insulted or amused. It was a lovely dog, but if he had been a more devout man he might easily have called off the ceremony until its removal.

He watched Eleanor’s face, and saw the moment when her eyes cleared of their glazed serenity. Her eyes met his in consternated surprise, then darted around, looking for someone or something that she could not find. Her eyes came back to his, and he could swear that he saw fear in them. Fear, and a displeased recognition. Well, what had she been expecting?

Eleanor had been expecting an old man. She had not, most definitely not, been expecting the obnoxiously self-composed man who’d caught her spying. This man, with his wicked black eyebrows and intense dark eyes, embarrassed her down to her silk-clad toes. She suddenly felt small and vulnerable under all her finery.