The Wedding

by Edith Layton

  A gown of peach satin with gold brocade to shame an emperor. A blue gown with embroidery so fine she’d rather hang it on her bed than her body, and a green silk gown with silk panniers embellished with citrines and seed pearls. And a gown of sunset yellow silk. She had clothes of such rare subtlety that it seemed to her to be immoral to wear them.

  A person, Dulcie thought glumly, could never feel comfortable in one of those magnificent gowns. At least this person wouldn’t, she thought sadly. Not for the first time she wondered how long she would stay in this house, for surely, beautifully gowned or not, she didn’t belong here.

  She let Annie, her maid, help her into the new blue gown. It was fashionably cut, with a hooped petticoat. The dressmaker said it was casual enough for daytime, although Dulcie thought it would suit an evening at a palace. The silk felt wonderful against her skin, and she wondered how she could ever stop stealing little strokes at it once she was downstairs. What if she spilled something on it? How could she ever replace such a dress? But she stopped worrying about its cost when she glanced in the mirror and saw the amount of breast the dress exposed. It was very low in front, and her new corset, though it was more comfortable than the coarse one she’d had, pushed her breasts up and out in a shocking manner. It made them seem to be trying to peek up out of her gown.

  “I can’t wear this,” she muttered.

  “Ooo, but you look lovely, my lady, truly you do,” her maid said.

  “Well, but… ” Dulcie began to dither. Then she remembered she’d only earned the maid’s respect by being distant and decisive—she’d been copying the earl’s manner for the past week, since she’d been living in the house. It had worked. The household staff might not think any better of her, but they acted as though they did. And that, she supposed sadly, was all that really mattered. It was true the servants were just as respectful of Crispin, who was much more casual with them. But she couldn’t deal with, much less copy, his air of cool command.

  She couldn’t deal with him at all, she thought, nibbling her lower lip. Not since that kiss. All two hundred kisses—the real one and all the others she’d imagined since. That was the only way she could have gotten them, because she’d seldom seen him since that day. Wrede shopped with her and then left her, but she hadn’t even seen her husband. He dined elsewhere, was gone before she was up, and returned home after she went to her room. Marriage, Dulcie thought, might not be bad if it was lived this way. She was still lonely and friendless, but at least no longer frightened—except when she found herself longing to meet up with her distant husband again.

  Dulcie glanced in the mirror and squared her shoulders. When she saw the effect that had on her bodice, all her breath came out again. Having decided to use her new fan to cover her breasts, she snapped it open, squared her shoulders again, and went down to luncheon in her new gown.

  “Voila! Behold!” Wrede said triumphantly when she appeared in the salon.

  Dulcie glanced worriedly at Crispin. He had no expression at all on his handsome face as he stared at her.

  “Very nice,” Crispin finally said, circling Dulcie, looking at her from her carefully arranged curls to her satin-shod feet. “Quite lovely.”

  Dulcie didn’t know what to say, so she curtsied instead, and saw his eyes widen as she dipped down. That was when she decided that the bodice of her gown was perfect, after all. When she rose from her curtsy, her cheeks were as bright as her eyes.

  “You look wonderful. That dress suits our needs perfectly,” Crispin told her. “We’ve gotten a stack of invitations since I announced the marriage. We’ll ignore them, for we will need some time to sort things out. Meanwhile, however, we can’t keep you caged up like a mad mother-in-law in the tower. You have to go out sometime, and we have to be seen together, or there’ll be more talk.”

  “But when it’s over…?” she whispered.

  “When it’s over, it will be over, and you’ll be gone from my circle and well rid of them. But I have to live in my world, Dulcie.”

  It was the first time she’d ever heard him say her name, and it caused her heart to contract. She had to concentrate very hard on whatever else it was that he was saying.

  “Look you, Dulcie,” he went on, “I can’t become famous for having married a recluse or a monster of some kind. Not even once upon a time, in my foolish youth,” he said, watching her face to read her reaction to his words there. “I showed you to them. It was a mistake, but now I have to make good on it. A divorce will be bad enough, but a mysterious hidden wife would be a mark I’d never be able to erase. Secrecy breeds suspicion and horror stories. I know these people. They’ll put three humps on your back and give you a tail if we don’t take you out for a public viewing soon. They saw you only briefly, when you were terrified and badly dressed. This time you’ll still be terrified, but very well dressed.”

  When she didn’t smile, he went on, “You won’t have to get to know them intimately. That would only make it harder when you leave.”

  “I don’t want to know them intimately!” Dulcie protested.

  “Good. Because you won’t go to teas and women’s socials either. But I do have to show you off, if only for a little while. You must see that. Then I can say you’re a victim to headaches, or whatever other fashionable ailment you like. After that, all we’ll have to do is produce you for occasions of state until you’re free to go about your own life again.”

  His clear eyes searched her face, and she nodded. She did see his reasoning, although she wished she didn’t. He offered her his arm so they could go in to luncheon. As they walked to the dining room, he told Wrede, “I thought we’d go to several house parties this Saturday night.”

  “Good thinking,” Wrede said. “I suggest the Rivingtons’ and the Dumonts’, certainly. Rivington made his money recently, and so he has no airs. The Dumonts are social climbers and can’t afford to offend anyone. And the Wildes’, too, of course. He married a miller’s daughter, but he has so much money they’re accepted almost everywhere.”

  It wasn’t what Dulcie wanted, but she could see the necessity of it. She even began to enjoy the idea. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her anyway, and so far each new thing she’d dreaded had turned out very nicely. Crispin himself, for example. He’d frightened her near to death the night of the ball, and now he only frightened and confused her with longings she shouldn’t have. And even Wrede was treating her well. The luxury of being a viscountess was no small thing either. Perhaps moving in exalted circles would turn out to be a dizzying pleasure, she thought with her natural resiliency. But first she had to prove she could manage it.

  She managed luncheon very well. As the men discussed which invitations to accept and which to ignore, she had the time to take great care with her meal. Not a speck of the oysters, baked fish, roast beef, or jugged fowl went anywhere but into her mouth. Her gown was spared the soup, the sauces, and the wine as well. Her fear of stains made her eat sparingly, as did her tight new corset. Still, she got through the entire meal without mishap and was proud of herself.

  But when a footman brought Crispin a note as coffee was being poured, a bite of buttery fritter went slithering down her chin to her chest.

  She dabbed, blotted, and sponged, and hoped they thought her distress was because of the spill. But that was the least of her worries now. She had recognized the note. Such letters had been arriving with regularity. She saw them on the table near the front door each day when she went out, each evening when she came in. All were for him. She’d come to know that handwriting, that parchment paper, but most of all, she knew the pungent aroma of jasmine emanating from it. The lady must bathe her whole house in it, Dulcie thought bitterly, as she scrubbed the butter deeper into her silken gown.

  Crispin finished scanning the note. “Excuse me,” he said. He put his napkin down, rose, and quickly left the table and the room.

  “Perhaps,” Wrede said carefully, avoiding Dulcie’s eye, “there’s a fire.”

&nb
sp; *

  “Charlotte, what are you doing here? Why must you see me now?” Crispin asked when he saw her waiting for him in his study.

  “Fie! What a greeting,” Charlotte said. She plied her fan and flounced across the room to him, her swaying skirts eloquent testimony to her irritation. “I had to see you, my dear,” she said, her fan now rigid and furled as she clenched it tight, “whatever the cost to my reputation.”

  “Oh. Well, I can’t see the cost,” Crispin said, relaxing, “since I saw both your maid and your poor old auntie in the sitting room as I passed it just now. I think there were a few footmen belonging to you in the hall, too. It’s not likely that even such a bad man as I could get up to much serious defiling with your army camped in my house, is it?”

  She snapped the fan against her palm. “I’m not supposed to be alone with you.”

  He walked to the door and began to open it. She called, “No!” and when he turned to look at her, she said, more quietly, “No. You’re right. My reputation is safe—for the moment. It’s the future I’m worried about. That’s why I’ve come here. Crispin,” she said, all artifice gone from her expression, even her fan hanging from her wrist, forgotten, “you won’t call on me, so I have come to you.”

  “How would it look for a newly married man to be seen visiting your house alone?” he asked bitterly.

  “Yes, just so,” she said, “but you haven’t even answered my letters.”

  “I had nothing to answer yet,” he said.

  “That’s why I’m here now,” she said. “It’s been ten days since we heard you were married. You told me all might not be what it seemed. I’ve waited to see what it was. I don’t care to look a fool. Or to be one. Even Prendergast can be put off for only so long. What’s going to happen? To put it plainly, sir: have I a reason to wait longer?”

  She was dressed all in yellow today, like the spring sunshine spilling through the window behind her. She wore a crushed yellow velvet gown with blond silk panniers studded with tiny rosebuds worked in gold thread. Her hair was lightly powdered, and a pert little yellow hat sat tilted atop it. It suited her blond loveliness. Such colors wouldn’t do for Dulcie he mused, she needed warmer hues. He blinked, realizing he was thinking about Dulcie instead of being struck by Charlotte’s beauty. Even being a mock husband was changing him.

  That thought made him know what he had to say. “I couldn’t ask you to wait,” he said sadly, “even if I wanted to. It would be wrong of me. I have no right to you,” he said, taking her little gloved hand in his. “I can’t even tell you the how and why of it, because that would be unfair to someone else.”

  Her blue eyes searched his, and he knew he owed her more. “Charlotte,” he went on, choosing his words carefully, searching his own heart and his mind, trying to walk the thin line between honor and desire. “I’ll admit that I hoped to revive our engagement when I restored my fortune. But I can’t do that now. Here is truth: I am married. You know what that means,” he said, and saw her eyes flicker. “Yes,” he said. “Legally wed. And so although you said you might consider me after you’d produced an heir for your legal husband, I’m sorry but I can’t say the same to you. It’s not my way—or yours, is it? When the shoe is on the other foot, that is.”

  “It’s entirely different for women,” she said, her nostrils flaring.

  “No,” he said quietly, “it isn’t—not really.”

  “I see,” she said. “Revenge, is it?” She spun around, prepared to march away from him.

  “No,” he said, keeping hold of her hand so she couldn’t leave. “You don’t see. I did understand your decision. I regretted it, but I wouldn’t let you make a sacrifice, remember?”

  She fell still, remembering how she hadn’t tried to make any sacrifice. Still, they had been engaged and so his was the greater fault. She might have ended the engagement, but he was the one who had married. Her decision might have seemed cold-blooded, but she’d had no other choice. His actions seemed deliberate and cold-hearted.

  “Charlotte, let me tell you what I can,” he said despairingly. “I didn’t enter into this marriage for any of the usual reasons. All I can say is that if it’s at all possible, I’ll renounce it. As will my wife. She has no fault in this, but it’s a tangle, believe me. We’re investigating all possibilities now, all possible ways out. It might be accomplished, but it may be later rather than sooner. Or it may never happen. I just can’t say. I can’t ask you to wait, either. I won’t do that to you.”

  “Don’t you want me to wait for you?” she asked.

  “Charlotte,” he sighed, “don’t ask me to say what you know I shouldn’t.”

  “Ah, ‘shouldn’t,’” she said wisely, “is far better than `can’t.’”

  “Think what you will,” he said, “only please don’t discuss this with anyone. I’m not thin-skinned, but I hope you’ll keep this to yourself. I owe you an explanation, but I owe nothing to anyone else. And I don’t want Dulcie to be the subject of cruel gossip.”

  “Dulcie, is it?” Charlotte said angrily, “and you don’t want her to be the subject of cruel gossip? My dear, do you want to walk on water too? The poor thing is shot through already. I daresay there’s no rumor foul or bizarre enough not to have been whispered by now. Everyone is talking about her.”

  “I was afraid of that,” he said. “I plan to introduce her soon, take her around, so people can see for themselves that she’s just an innocent girl.”

  “An innocent girl?” Charlotte asked, her eyes wide.

  “It’s true,” he said in exasperation. “I do intend to take her out in society to put an end to the gossip.”

  “Where is your head, my dear?” Charlotte asked.

  “I don’t mean to make her a sensation,” he said, “only to show the world she is not one. Secrets are poisonous. If I keep her a secret, the gossip will grow. If I show her to the world and she seems unexceptionable, they’ll grow bored with us.”

  It was true, and Charlotte knew it. The girl was a pauper, but she was lovely. Put her in fashionable clothes and she would be acceptable, too. If it was all a mistake, as he claimed, then it would seem less so the longer she stayed at his side. But Charlotte couldn’t admit any of this, even to herself. It was ridiculous for her to fear another female, so instead, she laughed.

  “Take her into society to kill the gossip?” she asked. “Why not pour oil on the fire while you are at it? My dear, they’ll tear her apart. If you take her to the opera, even the singers will fall silent to gape at her and whisper. Everyone—everyone—thinks she’s an adventuress of the lowest sort. If you adored her, if it were a case of wild passion, it might be different. Scandalous, of course, but different. Everyone understands passion, although they decry it. But your face on the night of your ball, Crispin! We wondered if you’d slay her before the evening was out!

  “You’re a nobleman; she’s an obscure commoner. Everyone believes she has trapped you by some foul means. Everyone knows Wrede has been taking her to dressmakers and milliners, spending your fortune on fine feathers for her. We put that down to her avarice. But now you say that you plan to show her off! You are mistaken if you think that finery will stem the tide of gossip. Only time will do that. Maybe in a dozen years or so, people will stop talking, but until then you’d best keep her locked up here, for her own good. It hardly matters to me,” she said, although it did. Locked up wasn’t half of what she wanted for the girl who claimed to be Crispin’s wife. Charlotte would have liked to see the wench at the bottom of the Thames. But if there was one thing Charlotte knew, it was men. If she attacked the girl, no matter how richly she deserved it, Crispin would feel obligated to defend her.

  Charlotte sighed. “Were I in her place, I could fend off the jests, but I doubt she can,” she said. “And as for us, I will wait, Crispin. But not forever.”

  She gazed at him. Tall, strong, and intelligent, he was beyond handsome, he was elegant. Charlotte was accustomed to getting whatever she wanted. It was inco
nceivable that she would not this time too. When Crispin had nothing, she’d been willing to let him go because he had become something she didn’t want anymore. But now he had everything again, and she would have him as husband. She never doubted it for a moment, despite this bizarre situation. She suspected that he’d been trying to make her jealous and had somehow been caught in a trap of his own devising. He was doubtless suffering now, but he had shocked and insulted her, and there was nothing wrong with a little retaliation.

  She stood on tiptoe and pressed a light kiss on his lean cheek. “Do as you will, my dear. I can survive it. But, Crispin,” she said, turning to look at him as she put her hand on the doorknob, “I don’t know if we can.”

  She sailed out into the hall and out the door, her skirt bouncing lightly with her steps, leaving him staring after her.

  Crispin paused outside the dining room where Dulcie sat in her new gown. She looked bewitching in it, but had been so unsure of herself he hadn’t known whether to grin or frown when he saw her bobble her curtsy. Damned if the girl didn’t always catch him between laughing and yelling. And damned if that was what he’d expected of his wife.

  He sighed. His wife. He still couldn’t believe it. The woman he had thought to marry had just flounced out of his house to meet another man who might become her husband while Crispin’s wife sat in his dining room still frantically blotting the front of her new dress.

  She looked up at him with hope and fear as he entered the dining room. He thought he’d never seen anyone so apprehensive.

  Wrede merely sat watching the two of them with hooded eyes.

  “The weather is clearing,” Crispin said, as he took his seat. “It’s been a while since I’ve been home. Forget about Saturday night and London Society. We’re going to the countryside. We leave for Darnley Hall tomorrow.”