Page 6 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

She was never alone with Dudley.

She never dared.

He caught her wrist before she could move to get down from the coach, ignoring the need for a hand to dismount in her rush to depart. “Now, sister. Stay a moment, there’s just one more thing I want to say to you.”

“I cannot tarry,” Elizabeth said, swallowing as she heard how pale and faint her voice was in her own ears. “I must get to the church.”

He leaned close, his voice lowering, a smile on his face as their father came over to help her down. “It’s just this, dearest. If your husband should happen to be an Othello, or perhaps a Herakles and tear you limb from limb I want you to remember and be glad in the fact that we, your family, will be happy to avenge you.”

His teeth were bared, barely even a smile, and she felt cold all over, numb and trembling as her father handed her down from the carriage and towards the church.

CHAPTER 3

“..and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment…” the curate intoned, his tiny round body quivering with excitement as he read from the Book of Common Prayer. “...if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined…”

Elizabeth tried as hard as she could to listen to each word. She could feel the beat of her pulse hammering under the delicate skin of her neck, the heat of the gazes of her family burning into her back.

Perhaps in another life she would have been able to stand here with Mrs. Adams at her side giving her away and Sally and Annie in the little chapel, smiles splitting their faces. Instead, the Duchess and Duke of Rosenburg were there, stiff and still as they listened to the ceremony, each step burned into her mind from the single lesson she had been given.

It had clearlyburnedher father’s wife to be in the same room as her for even that long but they wouldn’t want their preciousreputation to be sullied by rumors of a ruined wedding day, and if there was one thing the Duchess cared about more fiercely than anything else it was the safety of her children from more Wilkins blades.

“Wilt thou have this woman,” the chaplain said, turning to the Duke of Westall. He was standing next to her, his tall frame dwarfing hers. She could almost feel the heat from his body and her own skin felt flushed.

She couldn’tthink.

“...so long as ye both shall live?”

The Duke didn’t look at her, his eyes on the Chaplain, his face serious. “I will.”

The Chaplain then turned his attention to Elizabeth and she felt her flush grow hotter as she tried desperately to concentrate. The mixture of fear and anxiety and awareness ofhimwhirling in her mind. Any mistake would be picked apart for months, any slip…

He had finished speaking, Elizabeth realized and said, “I will,” as carefully as she could, hoping she had not taken too long.

“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” the chaplain asked, looking in broad satisfaction towards the others in the chapel.

There was no pause, though Elizabeth had almost expected there to be one. No one pointed out that she didn’t belong to them or with them so they couldn’t give her away. Her father didn’t turn up his nose or scowl. He stepped forwards instead and said ‘I do’ as though it was something he was pleased about.

That remained with Elizabeth as the ceremony continued. He looked pleased with her for once, and yet he was marrying her to his biggest enemy.

The Minister was reaching for her hand now, giving it to the Duke, putting her hand into his large, scarred one. “Plight your troth, my dear,” he said encouragingly to Elizabeth as though maybe he knew how anxious she was.

She swallowed and had to read the words, but that didn’t seem to cause a stir. She said she would take him as her husband as though she had a choice in the matter, that she would hold to him in sickness and in health, that she gave him her troth before God and this holy man who had kind eyes in his tiny old face.

The Duke let go of her hand and Elizabeth glanced cautiously up at him, and wondered if he had imagined this day, who he had imagined at the altar with him. His expression was still serious as he received the ring from the Minister and placed it on her fourth finger.

“With this ring I thee wed,” the Duke said in a low, thrumming voice. “And with my body I thee worship.”

They said more, but Elizabeth couldn’t hear any of the words. Her part was done. She was married. And she was filled with the thoughts of this tall strong man worshiping her with his body.

“Oh Selina, do pass me some more chocolate!”

“I shall not until you’ve had more buns to fortify yourself with, my dear, you shall not subsist entirely on chocolate.”

“It’s a special day,” Diana, the younger of her two new sisters-in-law, formed a mock pout as she appealed to the elder. Clearly practiced at puppy dog eyes there was still none of the spoiled pettishness that underlay everything Elizabeth’s own sisters did. “It is indeed, but that is no excuse to sup your breakfast only,” Selina said, moving to pile buns onto her younger sister’s plate. “I shall bring you another cup to drink but only when you have finished something more substantial.”

Elizabethenviedthem their free laughter and jostling. She could barely bring herself to move, she was sat so close to the Duke - herhusband- that moving made her all the more aware of his presence. Her plate had on it a few pieces of fruit and a little bit of cake and of that she had not eaten any.

The wedding ceremony had been bad enough but the madness of the breakfast was quickly making her feel suffocated, hemmed on one side by Dudley and on the other by the new man she belonged to, the man who would decide her whole existence soon.

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