Page 4 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

She was to become a duchess, after all. Duchesses didn’t go calling on housekeepers and their children.

“My lady,” Sally called, her bright cheerful face blazing with a smile. “Come on now, let me help do you up. We’re almost ready.”

The dress felt foreign to her. It was a dark green, and she knew just enough to know that there was a message in that somewhere, something a little cruel, a little grim. Just like most things that her family did.

But even so it was so much finer than anything she had ever worn that the fabric felt dangerous to touch too much with her hands. She was standing as still as she could manage, her arms held awkwardly at her side so she would not mess up the embroidery somehow and she almost had to laugh at how silly she must look.

All the many little buttons down the back of the dress still had to be done up and she was already so aware of every inch of herself that she dreaded that last little bit of suffocation like it might wring the breath from her lungs.

How could she do this? She had never gone out in society one day in her life, how could she now go from her only home and be enough for a duke to marry? Could she really make it that far or would he look at her in the church and turn his head away like everyone had thought he would that day in the drawing room?

Elizabeth swallowed, her face heating at the reminder.

Why had he looked at her like that? He was so much taller than she had expected, so broad and so striking. He looked as thoughhe was on fire inside, like everything he touched must catch on fire too.

Maybe that was why she felt so hot under her skin when he was close to her, leaning over her -

“All right, Miss,” Mrs. Adams took one of her hands and squeezed it, her smile large and warm just like everything else about her. “It’s perfectly normal for a lady to be nervous on her wedding day. Don’t you worry, you’re only going to better and bigger things.”

“That’s right,” Sally said stoutly. “I’ve heard that the Duke of Westall has twice the money at least that His Grace does. I bet that sticks in his throat and chokes him when he’s trying to sleep!”

Elizabeth bit back a laugh as Mrs. Adams rounded on her daughter, shock on her face. “Sally Adams, you bite your tongue and pray that the good lord didn’t hear you talking so about your betters!”

“I don’t know about my betters,” Sally muttered, almost too low to be heard. “Money doesn’t make a gentleman, you always say.”

“And a fast tongue doesn’t make a well behaved miss, neither,” Mrs. Adams said, wagging her finger comically enough that Elizabeth gave in to a giggle.

“Now, Mother Adams,” Elizabeth said, touching Sally on the arm fondly. “Let’s not quarrel today. I want you all to be glad with me.”

“Of course, my lady,” Mrs. Adams said, her face softening. “Girls now work quickly, I want to see my lady in her finest at last.”

Elizabeth let them finish with her gown, and smiled a little at her friend as Sally went to get her headdress and Mrs. Adams fussed and worried over her hair.

They were so excited for her. They were so sure that this would be the best thing that could have happened for her. They wanted her to have her freedom at last.

“Oh Miss Elizabeth,” Mrs. Adams breathed.

Elizabeth looked at her dearest friend’s mother, the woman who had held her at night when she was a little girl crying about how lonely and cold and dark her rooms were, the woman who had listened to her thoughts and worries, had watched her grow. The only family she had really ever had.

Sally handed her the beautiful silk gloves that felt like a second skin and then led her over to the mirror so that she could look at herself.

The green of the dress was just like his eyes, she thought. It was such a sudden thought that her knees felt weak beneath her. His eyes and how they had bored into her as she stood before him,just an object for him and her father to bicker over - why had they affected her so?

She was pale, the darkness of the gown making her more so and making her eyes look huge in her face. Sally and Annie and Mrs. Adams were clapping their hands and saying how beautiful she was and how happy she would be but all Elizabeth could see in the mirror was a caged bird going to a new cage.

The footman had her bags and was loading them into the carriage and Sally was going to follow after with her own cases, of course. Elizabeth wished desperately they could come to the ceremony and stand with her, but of course that would look strange at a duke’s wedding wouldn’t it?

No one would be happy if she admitted that she saw the housekeeper and her daughters as more her own than her flesh and blood.

“I’ll think of you every day,” Annie whispered fiercely, grabbing her hands and pressing them tight. “And I’ll pray every night for you, Lady Elizabeth, I promise I will.”

“I’ll miss you, Annie,” Elizabeth said softly, ruffling the girl’s hair. “Be careful.”

Mrs. Adams was next, clasping her into an embrace that felt like home and everything that she would be leaving behind and Elizabeth ached to cry and cling and beg her to come too.

“I wish you all the best, my dear,” she said very softly in Elizabeth’s ear. “Be well and be happy, Lady Elizabeth. Have everything that you ever deserved.”

The Duchess of course had not come to see Elizabeth getting ready and neither had Lottie or Rose. They were her half-sisters, she was marrying the Duke of Westall to save them from having to do it and they couldn’t even bother to come and wish her well before the ceremony.

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