Page 26 of The Viscount's Diamond Bride
Mama shot her a sharp look. “If you have dabbled in things which you ought to have left alone, Ursula…”
“No, Mama, no! As I said, this is what I overheard from Lady Smythe.”
Mama sniffed. “Well, that silly girl made a love match. Her parents let her do whatever she wished, more fool them.”
“So, I should expect…”
“No,” Mama interrupted sharply, rising suddenly to her feet. “No, Ursula. Expect nothing, do you hear me? You are here to do your duty, which is all. You may think that Lord Sinclair is a good man, and I do hope that he is, but the plain fact is that a man is not to be trusted behind closed doors. Do you understand me?”
Ursula knew, without looking in the mirror, that the blood had drained from her face. She swallowed, nodding wordlessly at her mother.
Mama gave a brief nod, turning away.
“I’m pleased. Matrimony is not a good thing for a woman, my dear. However, it is anecessarything. You do like Lord Sinclair, do you not?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Ursula managed, squeezing her fingers into fists. “I find him… I find him handsome.”
Mama threw a quick, surprised glance over her shoulder.
“Is that so? Well, perhaps you will not have such a miserable time, then. But remember your duty, Ursula. Now, let us speak no more of this horrid topic.”
Without waiting for a reply, Mama turned on her heel and strode out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Ursula sat still for a moment, expecting the maids to be sent back in. After a moment, it was clear that Mama had forgotten to send them in. Letting out a long, ragged sigh, Ursula sank backwards onto the bed, staring up at the canopy above her.
Marital duties. Who would have thought that Mama, of all people, would have such a conversation with me? She looked so relieved to have been spared explaining the details.
Pressing her hands over her face, Ursula found herself recalling the eager, whispered words of Lady Smythe, surrounded by a trio of her closest friends, all agog.
“You will never believe where he touched me next,” Lady Smythe whispered, her pale face reddening. “Oh, girls, it was the most marvellous sensation, I cannot even begin to describe it to you.”
“Do try,” one of her friends urged eagerly.
Lady Smythe giggled, pressing a hand against her mouth.
“I am starting to believe, girls, that there is a reason why so many women are happy to have endless children.”
Ursula found herself imagining Graham, smiling down at her with those cool grey eyes, a sort ofknowinglook behind them. His hands, she recalled, were slender and elegant but not thin and delicate. She placed a hand across her collarbone, palm to bare flesh, and imagined that it washishand.
What will it feel like? Will I be transported, like Lady Smythe, or will I live a life of dogged despair, like Mama?
Is there any way of controlling which outcome I receive?
No answer presented itself. Her blood pounded under her skin, and she began to feel almost breathless.
And then, quite without warning, she heard shuffling and muffled voices outside her room, and the doorknob began to turn.
Red-faced and sweating just a little, Ursula hauled herself upright and onto her feet, seconds before the door opened and the maids came scurrying back in.
Chapter Nine
“Nothing is so painful to the mind as a great and sudden change,” – Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Graham stood quite still at the altar, staring high above the rector’s head at a round, stained glass window set deep in the wall. The window sent flurries of colour down onto the congregation below. When the sun was in full strength, Graham found himself imagining the overflowing colours and light in the church rendering it an ideal location for a matrimonial ceremony.
“How are your nerves?” Jonathan murmured beside him.
“As you’d expect.”
