Page 11 of Tamed By her Duke

Grace ignored this, instead focusing on the other two.

“So your argument,” she summarized, “is that you’re worried about my marriage because Ididn’thave a scandalous alleyway embrace?”

“No,” Emily allowed.

“Yes,” Diana declared. “Though hallways are also permissible.”

Suddenly Grace was chuckling. Oh, they were sodreadful, these wonderful, marvelous friends of hers. Her laughter set off theirs, and soon she was being pulled from her vanity seat and into an embrace.

“Thank you for your concern,” she said, her words muffled by half of Diana’s shoulder and a length of Frances’ arm. “You are all incorrigible, but you are utter dears, and I adore you.”

“We love you, too,” Emily said, her height putting her head atop Grace’s. “And we will always look out for you. So while we hope that you are right about this duke of yours, we will be there if it turns out that things are not as you hoped.”

“Montgomery is big, but I bet Andrew could thrash him,” Diana said. “Andrew is forever complaining that he never gets to spar properly, ever since he returned from that backwater in Canada where he lived for a while. He’d love to do it, I’m sure.”

“Violence aside,” Frances interrupted, “we shall all look out for one another. No matter what. That’s what friends are for, aren’t they?”

Grace merely nodded, her throat suddenly too thick with tears to say anything else.

Caleb stood at the back of the church, hands clasped behind his back, and tried to ignore the twittering of the little English birdsas they fluttered around. Apparently, the wedding of a duke to a different duke’s daughter was enough to bring out half the city, even if Caleb had—he could admit it—essentially purchased the girl from her father.

Well, no. The Duke of Graham had paid Caleb to take the girl, he supposed, given her rather significant dowry. But there was evidently some concern about the girl’s virtue, her reputation in tatters or whatever nonsense English aristocrats called it when their girls had dropped out of a chaperone’s sight for more than three minutes.

So, Graham had wanted the girl married off, to quell gossip. Caleb had wanted a wife. So, what if he was accepting a bride sight unseen? She didn’t need to be beautiful. In fact, an ugly woman might be preferable, given Caleb’s own questionable looks. She might not be as repulsed by him, if she hadn’t planned on being wed to a handsome man before her reputation had gotten so scuffed.

The only thing Caleb had paid for was the special license—which was highway bloody robbery, if you asked him. Given his druthers, he’d have whisked the girl to Scotland, where they could have been married over an anvil, without all the pomp and circumstance, but this had been Graham’s one stipulation: that the lass be wed in London, where everyone could see.

Despite the inconvenience of this—and the way Caleb chafed at being manipulated by the other duke—he’d agreed. It was still the most convenient way he would find himself a wife.

And that was what mattered. Convenience. Accomplishing his goals and then getting the hell out of London.

It didn’t matter if these uptight Londoners disliked his stature and his scowl, of if the ladies kept sniffing in his direction and the gentlemen frowning, as if it was Caleb’s job to hold his face in a manner appealing to their wives. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t getting married in his plaid, as he would have done if he’d been home in Scotland. It didn’t matter the identity of the girl.

Except suddenly, it did.

For the doors opened in the back of the church and his bride entered. And it was her. The woman from the ball. The intriguing one who’d smirked at him, laughed about his height, and then fled.

Experience had told Caleb that surprises were nearly always bad. This, he decided, was very probably bad.

For one, she wasnotugly. No, she was chestnut-haired and bright eyed, her cheeks pleasantly rosy in a way that suggested the flush was natural, not rouge. She was rather too pale, but all these well-bred ladies were taught to see the sun as their mortal enemy, so he couldn’t fault her for that, he supposed.

For another, she looked like she, too, felt this whole wedding was an inauspicious mess. Before she walked toward him, her arm held tightly in her father’s grasp, she paused, sucked in a breath, and squared her shoulders, as if summoning the courage to go on.

Worst of all, as she approached, she did not once look him in the eye. Not as the vicar droned on from the “dearly beloveds” all the way through to when he turned to Caleb for the vows.

“Caleb Gulliver,” the ancient man intoned, “wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Wilt though love her, comfort her, honor her, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as you both shall live?”

Caleb felt as though he could commit to approximately half of these. He intended to honor her and be faithful, to be sure. He certainly wouldn’t put her out should she fall ill. The loving and comforting parts, however, were entirely out of the question. He supposed they could see how things went, for living together. They’d do so until he had an heir, at least.

Despite his misgivings about all the vows demanded, Caleb responded as was expected.

“I will.”

“And you, Grace Miller, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as you both shall live?”

Finally, during the priest’s recitation of her vows, Grace’s eyes flicked, however briefly, to Caleb’s face. He stiffened. Had she looked at him during the “obey and serve” bit or the “love” bit? If she intended to rebel against wifely obedience, that was one thing—he didn’t plan to be around her enough to give many orders, in any case.

But if she’d looked up during the part about love… Well. She would be sorely disappointed. He had no intention of there being love between them, nor, honestly, even affection. This was merely an arrangement that benefitted them both. She’d get an escape from scandal; he’d get an heir.

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