Feeling hot and sick, Isabella stared down at the gravel until she heard the sound of approaching hooves. She looked up to see the man who had let them into the estate, Mr Maguire, drawing up on horseback. He had no doubt ridden back from the gate.
“Well, it looks as if we are all here,” the Minister said and rubbed his hands together hard as if it were a cold day.
Isabella fixed the Minister with a stare and realized that he was nervous. Whether he was nervous of sacrificing a young woman as he must surely know he was about to, or nervous to be in the company of the monster, Isabella could not say. Either way, she found she could not care for his feelings.
“Yes, yes. The time has come,” her father said as if he was trying to coax his guests into dinner rather than forcing his own daughter towards the worst day of her life.
“Right … well …” With a last look at Isabella, the Minister turned his back and dashed inside the small chapel.
When next she saw him, he was already in position at the top end of a small aisle. No doubt he was ready to hear their hasty vows.
The Earl held out his arm for her to take, but she did not take it. Isabella looked at him with every ounce of the hatred she felt for the man. If there were one good thing to come out of this day, it would be that she would no longer be under his control.
Yes, she would be under the control of the monster, but at least she could turn her back on her father forever. She could turn her back on her entire family and the Upperton Estate, never to set eyes on it again.
Turning to look away from him, Isabella marched up the aisle. She could hear her father’s footsteps as he hurried to keep up, doing what he could to maintain appearances. But maintain them for whose sake? After all, there was hardly anybody there.
Besides her father, Mr Maguire, and the Minister, there was only the bride and groom themselves. What did she care what any of them thought?
Isabella felt suddenly defiant, almost brave. She strode towards the Duke fearlessly. She stared at his back as he looked resolutely towards the front of the little chapel, neither looking left nor right. Obviously, he did not care about the appearance of his bride. But clearly, he did not care about her personality either or, indeed, any little detail of her.
Of course, Isabella felt certain that her sudden flash of anger-fueled bravery could only exist whilst the Duke looked ahead of him.
As she stood at his side, her veil was already away from her face. As she had climbed out of the carriage, Isabella had not bothered to pull it over her maiden cheeks. Perhaps that was something that her mother might have attended to, had she deigned to go with them and see her only daughter married.
Isabella brazenly turned her head to look at the Duke. He was a good deal taller than she, that much she could almost feel as they stood side-by-side. His hair was a dark ash brown, thick and smooth. And, although she knew him to be eighteen years her senior, his fine, olive coloured skin seemed to proclaim otherwise.
For a moment, Isabella stood in some confusion. Was this the Duke of Coldwell? Was this the monster of the stories that she and Esme had shared, had terrified each other with when they were little?
Surely there must be some mistake. The man who stood at her side, still resolutely staring towards the front of the chapel, was a most handsome man indeed. He had a very strong face in profile, and she could see that his eyes were rather a beautiful green. He had thick brows which were dark, giving him an almost Mediterranean look.
If this was, indeed, the ruined Duke, a man who kept to the walls of his mansion perpetually, then his skin must be naturally dark.
As Isabella studied him quite shamelessly, she thought it an odd musing. What did it matter how he looked? She did not want to marry a stranger, and that was all.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness …” the Minister began without so much as the singing of a hymn to make this anything like a real wedding ceremony.
Isabella barely listened, and twice the Minister had to prompt her to make her responses when giving her vows. She did not want to hear it; she did not want to listen as her individuality was ripped away from her, only to be replaced with the lifelong title of wife. The monster’s wife.
Again, she looked to her side at the man she was marrying and wondered how it could be that his face was so handsome. As far as she could tell, he was not a monster at all.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.” She was vaguely aware that the seal had most definitely been set upon her own fate.
She turned to scowl at the Minister. The shameful man knew exactly what he had done.
“You may kiss your bride, Your Grace,” the Minister said, finally confirming for her that she had, indeed, married the Duke of Coldwell.
For a moment, the Duke did not move. He stood still as he had done throughout the ceremony, still staring at some far-off point in the distance. In the end, Isabella heard the Duke nervously clear his throat as he finally turned to face his wife.
At that moment, when she saw him face on for the first time, Isabella almost screamed. She had not been expecting him to be scarred after all. She had expected the right side of his face to be as smooth and as handsome as the left.
But she did not scream, she could not. The idea that this man was about to kiss her was more than she could stand and, with a deepening sense of panic and her breaths coming harder and harder, spots appeared before her eyes.
Isabella tried to blink, tried to stay upright but, in the end, she could not. Blackness overtook her, and she was unconscious before she hit the flagstones of the chapel floor.
Chapter 4
When she finally awoke, it was to find herself laying in a large and comfortable bed. Her head was throbbing horribly, and she had no idea where she was.
With that sense of dread that one gets when waking in a strange place, Isabella determined not to open her eyes fully and, instead, simply peered through the tiniest gap. She did not want anybody present to know that she had awoken, at least not until she had her bearings and her memories intact once more.
When she realized that she was alone in the room, Isabella let her eyes fly wide open. She tried to sit up in the bed, despite the throbbing pain. She reached up to touch the back of her head and could feel a pronounced lump there. She must have hit her head surely, or been hit.
Slowly, her memories began to glide back in.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she said, remembering everything with such a sense of desolation.
She was a married woman; that much she knew. And she had not married the handsome man with the green eyes and the dark skin. No, she truly had been married away to the monster.
With a shudder, she recalled the sight which had finally made her succumb to unconsciousness. Once again, beads of cold perspiration erupted on her back as she remembered the sight she would never forget.
When the Duke had turned to face her in the chapel, the ruination of the right side of his face was plain. The skin was a mixture of angry red and purple with raised lines of silvery white, shiny skin. He had been burned; that much was clear.
The burn had taken almost all that side of his face, and she could see that it would continue down his neck, somewhere beneath his smart necktie. Perhaps the scarring had taken all that side of his body, there was no way of knowing.
His hair seemed largely intact on that side, barring a small, shiny patch of skin by his left temple. Apart from that, the only other part of that side of his face still intact, still as it ought to have been, was his other eye. It stood out starkly, beautiful and green, against the dark and angry skin of his face.
Isabella remembered that in those last moments before the world grew dark, she had stared into those green eyes, and they had fixed her with such a look of pain that she could not bear it.
The door to the chamber opened suddenly, and Isabella gasped.
“Who are you?” she said in a high-pitched voice which gave her away for being almost overcome with fear.
“My name is Kitty Smith, Your Grace. My master sent me in to take care of you,” the woman said and closed the door behind her before walking into the room.
Kitty Smith was an extraordinarily thin woman in late middle age. Her silvery gray hair was pulled back into a harsh bun at the back of her head and her dark gown covered by a brilliant white apron silently informed Isabella that Kitty was a maid.
“Your Grace?” Isabella said, sounding startled.
“You are the Duchess of Coldwell now, Your Grace.” Despite having a thin, almost gaunt face, Kitty Smith’s smile was full of warmth.
“Oh yes, of course,” Isabella said absentmindedly. “But I do not want to be called Your Grace.”
“There is no other way for me to address you, not respectfully.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true.” Isabella tried again to sit up in the bed. “I just feel that I am never to hear my name spoken aloud again. But perhaps a prisoner does not need to hear her own name. Perhaps she does not need to be reminded of the person she once was.”
“You must not see yourself as a prisoner.” Kitty Smith hurried over to the bed and hastily rearranged the pillows before helping Isabella to sit up a little straighter and lean against them.
“Forgive me. I am being melancholy. I ought not to have said such a thing before you,” Isabella said apologetically.
“Not at all, Your Grace,” Kitty said kindly. “I daresay it can be an unsettling thing to become suddenly married.”
“Married to a man one has never met before.” Isabella knew she was saying too much, especially to a maid, but she felt she had no choice.
She did not know where she was within the walls of Coldwell Hall. The mansion had looked immense from the outside, almost like a castle, and she thought she could have been anywhere. She could have been behind any of the windows that she had seen from the outside or a hundred more that were undoubtedly around the back.
It was a thing that she could hardly have worked out, given that the heavy brocade curtains were firmly closed. Despite the fact that two large oil lamps lit the room very well indeed, Isabella had the impression that it was not full night outside. Perhaps she had not been unconscious for very long at all.
“How long have I been here?” Isabella said, keen to change the subject.
“Some three or four hours, Your Grace. And you have been unconscious for that whole time. You must have hit your head very hard indeed, although the physician says that you will recover completely; he is sure of it.”
“Oh, I shall live,” Isabella said, making it sound like a terrible prospect.
“Oh, Your Grace.” The older woman’s eyes showed most plainly that she felt terribly sorry for Isabella. “You must not think like that.”
“Forgive me, but I feel so very lost.”
“It is understandable, but you will soon grow used to it. Coldwell Hall is a beautiful place, a wonderful home for you.”
“This room certainly seems very nice, Kitty.” Isabella fought hard to make ordinary conversation. “Not at all what I had expected.”
The room was very large and the immense four-poster bed its central feature. The bed was ornately made and wider than any place she had ever slept in her life.
She could not quite discern the colour of the walls by the light of the oil lamps but thought that they were of a light hue. No doubt, in the daytime, the room seemed very light and bright indeed, especially when the curtains were pulled back from what promised to be very large windows.
“Is it not, Your Grace?”
“No, I suppose I had not imagined that Coldwell Hall would be so well looked after. You see, I had this idea that it would be …” She paused, seeing a look of sadness on Kitty’s face. “Sorry, you must forgive me. I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”
“You need not apologize, Your Grace,” Kitty said. “I am sure that you would not be the only person in the county to think that Coldwell Hall was an old ruin of a place, sinister and decrepit.”
“In truth, that is precisely what I had thought.” Isabella was too exhausted to find some way of successfully denying it. “And there is, of course, much unusual talk of Coldwell Hall and its master about the county. I suppose it is unavoidable, given that the Duke would seem to be something of a recluse.”
“He was never a recluse by choice, Your Grace,” Kitty went on sadly. “But merely circumstances.”
“Yes, I am quite sure.”
“He is a good man, really he is. I know that he is not easy to look upon in the beginning, but you soon come to forget it all.”
“Surely not!” Isabella regretted her words immediately. “I mean, forgive me, but the Duke’s disfigurement is so very extensive.”
“It is, but I promise you there will come a day when you will look at him and not even see it. You have only to give him a chance, and that is all.” There was wisdom in Kitty’s thin, lined face, and it gave Isabella a feeling of safety.
However, despite her polite smiles and nods, Isabella could not for a moment imagine ever looking upon that face and not seeing the scars. How could one look upon such devastation and not see it?
For a moment, Isabella was almost overcome with the desire to find out exactly what had happened to the Duke of Coldwell. She almost asked the maid outright before stopping herself, knowing that her curiosity at such a time was truly inappropriate.
“Have you worked here at Coldwell Hall for a long time, Kitty?” Once again, Isabella deftly changed the subject.
“Longer than I care to remember, Your Grace.” Kitty chuckled as she made her way to a great mahogany dresser and opened one of the drawers. “I have been here more than thirty years since His Grace was nothing but a boy.”
“Then you must be very happy here, Kitty.”
“I could not imagine being more settled anywhere else. But perhaps that is because I do not know anything else anymore. I was but one and twenty when I first came here as lady’s maid to the last Duchess, His Grace’s mother.”
“You had done well to have such a position by that age, Kitty.”
“I had always wanted to be a lady’s maid; to fix a fine lady’s hair and attend to her wardrobe. When I first came to Coldwell Hall, it was my dream come true.” She turned from the dresser holding an immaculately white nightgown.
She seemed to have drifted off into thoughts of the past, to the days when she was a busy lady’s maid to a fine Duchess.
“How wonderful,” Isabella said as she tried to find some normality in the conversation.
“But it has been more than eighteen years since I have been able to undertake my old duties,” Kitty spoke sadly.
“I am terribly sorry.” Isabella realized that that must surely have been when the old Duchess had died.
Of course, she did not think she ought to ask for any further details until she had come to know Kitty Smith a little better. She was still so very out of sorts and most uncomfortable to be living in Coldwell Hall that she did not want to alienate her potential ally.
“Perhaps when you come to think about your own lady’s maid, Your Grace, you might consider me?” Kitty said a little shyly. “I realize that I am not a young woman anymore, but I have kept myself well informed of the current fashions and hairstyles.”
“I should be very pleased, Kitty,” Isabella said genuinely. “After all, you have done much to put me at my ease on a most difficult day.”
“I know it is difficult for you, Your Grace.” Kitty laid the beautiful nightgown out over the foot of the bed. “But things will settle down, I promise you. All will be well.”
As Kitty spoke, Isabella could feel her warmth. It was almost as if everything truly would be well, despite the fact that Isabella could see no evidence of it.
“Kitty, is my father still here?” The sudden thought made Isabella sit bolt upright, her pillows tumbling left and right behind her and her head throbbing painfully.
“I am afraid he is not, Your Grace,” Kitty said, and
Isabella could see the hint of disapproval in the woman’s eyes. It was disapproval that made Isabella warm to her all the more.
“If I were to hazard a guess, Kitty, I would say that my father was already stepping back into his carriage as I lay unconscious on the flagstones of the chapel.” Isabella heard the bitterness.
“I could not say, Your Grace. The Duke and Mr Maguire brought you straight over to the hall. His Grace carried you himself.” Kitty smiled as if the idea was most romantic. “And then he sent immediately for the physician. There was much hustle and bustle, and I cannot say that I saw your father in the hall at any point.”
“Quite so; my own experience tells me that I ought not to have assumed that he would have waited long enough to discover if I was even to live.” Isabella’s voice faltered, and she felt suddenly tearful and extremely sorry for herself.
A Damsel for the Mysterious Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 29