The Whispered Kiss

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Milord has arranged for very comfortable lodging and meals for you at the inn in town,” Victoria said.

  “You will go to the Grassy Glen in Roanan,” Godfrey explained to Billings. “There you will ask for Stewart. Tell him the Lord of Roanan has sent you. Give him this, and he will see to your every comfort.” Godfrey handed Billings a folded parchment. “And for your trouble,” Godfrey added, handing Billings a velvet purse.

  “But…but I have been paid already,” Billings said.

  “Milord wishes you to go your own way, sir,” Godfrey explained. “Return the coach to Bostchelan, and then use the contents of the purse for your own good pursuits, milord suggests. Perhaps your own stables.”

  Coquette stared at the man called Godfrey. She was confused. She knew Billings worked well with horses; it was why her father kept him on. Yet why would the Lord of Roanan give him, a stranger, such an amount as the obvious weight of the purse attested to? And who was this Lord of Roanan to make so bold as to suggest Billings quit her father for his own pursuits?

  Billings nodded and smiled. He dropped the purse into his coat pocket and turned to Coquette. “All will be well, miss,” he said, smiling a greater smile than Coquette had ever before seen him smile. “All will be well.”

  As quickly as they had arrived, Billings was gone. Coquette watched the coach as it passed through the great rose-covered iron gates of Roanan Manor, leaving her alone and more fearful than she had ever imagined possible.

  “I know you must be tired, miss,” Victoria said.

  Coquette turned to look at Victoria. She and Godfrey seemed to study her quickly from head to toe, but their expressions revealed nothing of their thoughts. “Yes,” Coquette said. “I feel a great fatigue overtaking me suddenly.”

  “I will have Nelson see to the trunk,” Godfrey said to Victoria. She nodded.

  “There will be enough time only for a short rest,” Victoria said, taking Coquette’s hand and leading her up the stone steps, “for the ceremony is to take place at exactly eight.”

  “What?” Coquette asked. “What ceremony?”

  “The marriage ceremony,” Godfrey answered. “You will be legally wed to milord at eight o’clock this evening.”

  “What?” Coquette exclaimed. “Surely you cannot be in earnest!” She stopped. She stood at the very threshold of Roanan Manor House, and she fancied she stood on the edge of a deadly precipice.

  “Milord is away,” Godfrey continued. “I will stand as proxy in his stead.”

  Coquette found herself simultaneously horrified and relieved. To be wed nearly instantly? And with a proxy in place of the man she was to call husband? It terrified her! And yet the man she was to wed was away. This somehow caused her to experience an odd relief from a bit of anxiety.

  “He…the Lord of Roanan is away then?” Coquette asked.

  “Yes, miss,” Godfrey answered.

  “When is he expected to return?” she asked. She felt an unusual sort of joy begin to rise within her. Married by proxy, yet still free of body and mind for a time. It may indeed help her to endure.

  “He returns at midnight,” Victoria said.

  As quickly as her hopes had lifted on wings of respite, they plummeted with more force than before.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” Coquette said. “But if your lord is to return this very night, then why—”

  “It must be done by proxy at eight this night,” Godfrey interrupted. “Milord has set it to be so; therefore it is incontestable. The reasons matter not to any of us.”

  “You cannot possibly be in earnest. You cannot possibly be asking me to—” Coquette began.

  “I ask nothing of you, miss,” Godfrey said. “Incontestable is the will of milord.”

  Coquette placed a hand to her forehead, for it began to ache with a devilish sort of fever and pain.

  “Come. You need rest,” Victoria said, taking Coquette’s arm and pulling her over the threshold into Roanan Manor House.

  The moment she set foot in Roanan Manor House, Coquette’s anxiety increased threefold. Massive it was—rich, elegant, immaculate in every element. Large, intricately woven tapestries lined the walls of the enormous entry hall. At a glance, Coquette immediately thought of Dominique and her fascination with tapestry work, for these tapestries were the finest she had ever seen. Knights battled dragons; princesses stood in waiting at their father’s thrones. Such intricate tapestry Coquette had never imagined.

  “Your manor house, milady,” Godfrey said, bowing low and gesturing Victoria and Coquette should now precede him.

  “Your rooms are on the second floor, miss,” Victoria explained, lifting her skirts as she began to climb the strong set of stairs to Coquette’s right. “You may rest for two hours, and then I will come to help you prepare for the ceremony.”

  Coquette swallowed hard as she followed the woman up the staircase.

  “I have not come prepared to wed,” Coquette confessed.

  “Were the conditions not explained to you?” Victoria asked, pausing in her ascent of the stairs. She looked over her shoulder to Coquette and asked, “Yet you knew—”

  “I mean to say, my father seemed assured I should travel but lightly. I have only a small trunk and brought no dress so elegant as to be appropriate for a marriage ceremony,” Coquette explained. Oh, how she wished in that moment she had argued with her father. How she wished she would have filled her larger trunk with dresses and underthings. To arrive so lacking was humiliating and seemed so entirely assuming.

  Victoria smiled and waved her hand in a gesture of trivial concern. “Oh, that has all been taken care of, miss,” she said. “New gowns, including one for the ceremony, were delivered this morning, as well as every personal necessity imaginable. Your entire trousseau is arrived and ready for you.” She paused, turned back to Coquette, and added in a whisper, “Including a selection of new nightdresses of such delicate elegance as to be envied by the fairies.”

  Coquette gasped and felt the color drain from her face. She felt her knees threaten to give way beneath her. In fact, she must have visibly weakened, for she felt Godfrey’s hand at her elbow as support. To contemplate marrying a man she had never met, a beast of a man who would threaten to kill over a bloom—it terrified her. Yet to contemplate the intimate duties of a wife nearly set her heart to stilling forever.

  “Come now,” Victoria said, taking Coquette’s hand and leading her up the few remaining stairs. “After a little rest, all will not seem so overwhelming as it does now.”

  But as Victoria opened the doors to the grandest bedchamber Coquette had ever seen, Coquette felt certain consciousness would be lost to her. A stranger! To wed a stranger! To be owned by him, to be at the mercy of his will—in those moments she nearly wished for a faint of death to bring her reprieve from it all.

  “Thank you, Godfrey,” Victoria said. It was his prompt to leave, and he did, with haste.

  “Now then,” Victoria said, pulling Coquette into the room and closing the doors behind her, “these are your personal chambers. This is your bedchamber—to the left your sitting room and to the right your bathing chamber.”

  Coquette stood in horrified awe. The room in which she stood was lavish, drenched in red velvets, silver, and crystal. Along the hearth mantel, candles burned warm and beautiful from within crystal bowls or silver holders, and the soft aroma of lavender scented the room. The bed was large, comfortable in appearance, and covered in red velvet and white linen. It beckoned to Coquette’s fatigued mind and body like an illusive dream.

  “Here now,” Victoria said. “I shall help you to undress, and you may rest awhile. It will do you good.” Coquette was tired, astonished, frightened, and overcome with anxiety. She stood, allowing the woman to unfasten her dress.

  Once Victoria had helped Coquette out of her traveling clothes and into a light linen nightgown, she gently folded the bed linens back.

  “Now, you sleep awhile, miss,” she said. “Rest and…and try
to settle your anxieties. I can see they trouble you.”

  “I have never even set eyes on your lord, ma’am,” Coquette whispered, tears welling in her eyes. “I am frightened, in truth. To marry a man I have never seen? To marry he who threatened my father so—who would demand I succumb to his will as payment for a flower? A flower that has been dying since the moment it was plucked?”

  Victoria smiled, and Coquette felt somewhat reassured. The woman had such a maternal look about her countenance. It was comforting in a small measure. She reached out and brushed a lock of hair from Coquette’s cheek.

  “Would it…would it help in the least of it were I to tell you the Lord of Roanan is the handsomest of men? Like a prince from some child’s fairy tale, he is that handsome. Does it give you any easement of mind?”

  “What good is beauty in a man’s features of face when his heart is as black as the devil’s?” Coquette asked.

  “Then ease your mind,” Victoria told her, taking her hand and leading her to the bed, “for his heart is not so black as that.”

  Coquette climbed onto the bed. It did feel good to rest her head on a pillow, let her body settle at last. She looked up, her heart momentarily lifted by the elaborate mural on the ceiling. The scene was breathtaking: tree branches heavy-laden with blossoms and birds caused her to sigh as she gazed upon it.

  “Rest now, miss,” Victoria said. “I will call for you at seven that you may prepare for the ceremony.”

  “How is it I am expected to sleep with all that is before me?” Coquette asked, even as her eyelids grew too heavy to remain open.

  “Rest now, miss. All will be well,” Victoria said as she closed the doors behind her.

  “What good is a handsome face when the blackest heart is in the bosom?” Coquette mumbled as her eyes closed, her mind drifting into the oblivion of tormented sleep.

  

  “Now, milady,” the curate continued, “your name here…in your own hand.”

  Coquette watched as if from a dream as her own hand penned her name on the parchment. The witnesses to the marriage, a Lord Dickerson and his first-man, strangers to Coquette, had already left the room. Godfrey had moved to the back of the great hall the moment the verbal ceremony was ended, and the curate asked that Coquette pen her name on the marriage document. In the brief course of a few moments, Coquette’s feet were set on a different path. She was Milady, mistress of the Roanan Manor, legally wedded wife of the dark Lord of Roanan.

  “Upon his return, his lordship must pen his name as well,” the curate said to Godfrey.

  “He returns this night,” Godfrey said. “And it will be done before any other thing precedes it.”

  “Very well,” the curate said. “Congratulations, milady. I hope you will feel at ease to call upon me at any time.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “I take my leave then,” the curate said, nodding first to Coquette, then to Godfrey, and then to Victoria.

  “It is legally binding, is it not? Legal and legitimate?” Coquette asked with haste. “Though milord was not present…it is still a legal marriage to milord?”

  The curate turned, smiling with understanding compassion. “It is, milady. It is incontestable, for his lordship’s first-man, who stood as proxy in his lordship’s stead, is in possession of his lordship’s written will. Even if his lordship should neglect the marriage document, the ceremony is as legally binding as any other—legal in the eyes of God and the land.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Coquette said, lacing her fingers to try and steady her trembling hands.

  “Good evening then, milady,” the curate said.

  Coquette listened to his footsteps echoing through the great hall as he departed. Farther and farther away they sounded, until there was no resonance to tell the curate had ever been there.

  Coquette looked to Victoria to find her smiling—a sweet, pleased sort of smile, as if the best union in all the world had only just taken place.

  “I feel it is too strange,” Coquette said, “to be married to another when it was Godfrey who stood with me.”

  “Yes,” Victoria said. “I will admit it is unconventional, in the least. But as milord’s will, it is—”

  “Incontestable,” Coquette interrupted. “I am beginning to understand—anything milord puts down as his will is incontestable.”

  “It is true,” Victoria said, still smiling the proud smile of a mother who has only just seen her daughter wed.

  “You are Lady of Roanan now, milady,” Godfrey said. “And I bid you good night.”

  “Good night, sir,” Coquette said. “And…and I thank you…for your kindness to me.”

  Coquette watched as a slight frown puckered Godfrey’s brow.

  “You’re welcome, milady,” he said with a nod. “Victoria,” he said, nodding at her as well before turning on his heels and taking his leave.

  “He is fiercely loyal to milord, is he not?” Coquette thought aloud.

  “As we all are,” Victoria said. “Now let’s spirit you away. You must prepare to meet your husband, for he will come to you this night when he has returned to Roanan Manor.”

  “Madam, I cannot!” Coquette cried in a whisper as tears filled her eyes. “I cannot possibly…I can hardly muster the courage to meet him, let alone allow myself to…to succumb to his will. I cannot!”

  “You can,” Victoria said, taking Coquette’s shoulders in her hands. “He is your husband in the eyes of the land and in the eyes of God. It is your duty and his right and as such is—”

  “Incontestable,” Coquette said. “Yet I do not even know who this man is! How can this have happened? How can it be I am here, a prisoner, my life in ruin? How can this be for me when my father and sisters are safe and happy in Bostchelan? What grievous sin of my own commission finds me in such circumstance?”

  “None,” Victoria said then. “And yet, wounded as you see your destiny and life to be, perhaps divinity’s involvement lands you here.”

  “Perhaps divinity’s abandonment lands me here,” Coquette said, brushing the tears from her cheeks.

  Victoria sighed the breathy sigh of disappointment, yet Coquette cared not. It was not Victoria who must endure a loveless marriage with a dark and cruel stranger.

  “Let us prepare now, milady,” Victoria said. “In fewer than four hours, milord will return. You must ready yourself both mind and body.”

  Taking Coquette’s hand, Victoria led her up the staircase. Coquette followed, with visions of being led to the guillotine, of the executioner’s ax, foremost in her mind as she was led.

  At last, Victoria stopped before two great oak doors across the hall from Coquette’s chambers. Coquette tried to still her trembling body as she watched Victoria grasp the latch to the Lord of Roanan’s chambers.

  “Milord’s chambers,” she said as she opened the doors. “At times, he has the most unorganized of habits, but I have readied the rooms myself for your wedding night.”

  Crimson, white, and silver dominated the colors of the linens and furnishings. The large bedposts boasted at least seven feet in height and were hung with heavy, sophisticated draperies. The furniture was heavy, well made of oak, with crimson pillows and elaborate needlework. These chambers belonged to a great man, a titled man. It was further obvious by the enormous hearth, in which burned an orange-flamed fire, and the thick, long-wicked candles on the mantle. The scents of leather, peppermint, and cedar hung in the air, and Coquette was rather surprised at the pleasing fragrance of the blend.

  The sun had set long ago, and the fire in the hearth and candles throughout the room cast shadows on the ceiling and walls. Coquette looked up to the ceiling, curious as to whether the Lord of Roanan gazed upon the same serene painted scene she had gazed upon in her own chambers. Yet she was not surprised to see a very different mural embellishing the ceiling of the Lord of Roanan’s chamber. There, overhead, was such a sight as she could never have imagined—a meadow, pasture, or some other lovely grassy place spre
ad over the space above her head and in its center a lone lion lounging on a rock. Strong, content, and dominant—that was its countenance, and Coquette wondered, amidst all the beauty of the grasses, where was the lair of such a beautiful and kingly beast?

  Slowly, her eyes drifted from the beautiful painting on the ceiling to the massive bed drenched in crimson and then to the hearth where the flames of the fire licked within like a fearsome beast. She realized then, she stood in it—at Victoria’s lead, Coquette had stepped into the lion’s lair.

  “I have chosen the loveliest of your nightdresses for…for this occasion,” Victoria said. Coquetted startled from her thoughts as Victoria tugged on her hand and led her to the bed. There, spread like a ribbon of sweet cream across the crimson of the bedding, was the most beautiful, delicately ethereal nightdress Coquette had ever seen. As white as winter’s first snow, the nightdress dazzled Coquette’s imagination—how divine such a gown would feel against her tired flesh! What respite could she find in sleeping in such soft, feathery-light fabric!

  Yet in the next breath, fear washed over her as a raging, sea-driven storm. This was to be her wedding night! Oh, how her body trembled with angst and fear—how her mind burned with disbelief and trepidation.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” Victoria asked. She was smiling at the nightdress, yet her smile faded as she looked to Coquette. “Are you well, milady?”

  “Not at all well, I’m afraid,” Coquette whispered.

  Victoria frowned and then nodded. “There is time to rest, milady,” she said. “Milord is nothing if not perpetually prompt. He bid us he would return at midnight; then return at midnight he will—and not a moment before. There is time for you to eat and to rest. I think there would be wisdom in doing both.”