As though it were his own original idea.
“During the month of the banns,” Her Grace said, one finger tapping against her lips as she frowned in thought—and glanced once, sharply, at the duke—“there will be time to send out invitations to every relative and friend and acquaintance in England. Every guest room here will be filled and every room at every inn for miles around. There will be all those mouths to feed for several days and all those people to be entertained. And there will still be the expectation of a ball and a wedding breakfast.”
Ralph sat back in his chair and did not even try to contribute to the conversation. It seemed to him that his grandmother had it well in hand. He caught the eye of Miss Muirhead—Miss Chloe Muirhead. He did consider for a moment winking at her and was sorry he had not done so a moment later when she pursed her lips slightly and he realized that she understood too. Her hands had disappeared from sight and he could not tell if she had uncrossed her fingers.
He thought of her as she had looked on the bank of the river earlier while he had picked his way to the middle of it to find her a stone that would be a good bouncer—though, come to think of it, what the devil had possessed him to do something so impulsive? He would have felt like a prize ass if he had slipped and got a thorough dunking, especially if he had also gone sailing away over the falls. She had looked anxious and prunish. She had been almost vibrating with the urge to scold him. And he had found himself almost liking her.
And why, after all, should he not? He had no strong feelings for her and never would. But if she was to be his wife, if they were to spend the rest of their days, not to mention their nights, in almost constant proximity to each other, if they were to share children and their upbringing, then surely it would be better to like her than not.
“If Berwick has brought a special license with him,” the duke said, “why wait a whole month? Why wait a week? Why go to the bother of inviting a houseful of guests merely so that they can keep us awake at night with their dancing and carousing and eat us out of house and home? Why wait a day?”
“You think Ralph should speak to the Reverend Marlowe as soon as we have done with the toasts, then, Worthingham?” the duchess said. “I do think that is a very good idea. And Ralph can surely be persuaded or he would not have gone to the trouble of bringing a license. Chloe, my dear, what do you think? Perhaps a wedding outfit and bride clothes and parties and guests are important to you, and you, after all, are the bride.”
Ralph watched his betrothed close her eyes for a moment, the only sign that she was not fully composed. Her hands, all fingers uncrossed, had moved to her lap and looked perfectly relaxed.
“I have no wish for any of those things, Your Grace,” she said. “I will be perfectly happy to marry the Earl of Berwick tomorrow if it can be arranged.”
And her eyes came to rest upon him and widened slightly as though the reality of it all was only beginning to hit her.
As it was him.
Soon she was going to be almost as familiar to him as his own image in the glass. What was it going to feel like—not being alone? It was his essential aloneness that had been the worst of his afflictions after he had been brought home from the Peninsula, for he had not been alone since before he went off to school at the age of twelve, and even then there had been his sisters and his parents. Gradually over the years following his return, of course, he had formed the deep attachment to his six fellow Survivors. He loved and trusted them totally. But he had never made the mistake of believing that they could fill the emptiness at the core of his being.
He was alone and would forever be so. Somehow he had made a friend of his aloneness. Now marriage was going to threaten that. There was going to be a woman—this woman—always in his life, even in his bed. He did, as it happened, find her sexually appealing, but that might be small consolation for the loss of privacy he was going to have to endure.
The prospect was chilling.
And tomorrow it would begin.
His grandfather cleared his throat and raised his glass to propose a toast.
* * *
Chloe had one outfit that was both new and reasonably fashionable, since she had bought it just last year in London. She had never worn it. It was a walking dress of pale spring green with long, close-fitting sleeves, a deep ruff for a collar, a high waist, and a slightly flared skirt. There was a matching small-brimmed bonnet, which curved high at the back to accommodate the bulk of her hair. It was unadorned except for the dull gold satin ribbon that secured it beneath her chin. She had soft shoes and gloves to match the ribbon.
She had almost not brought the outfit with her to Manville Court, but she had reminded herself that she was going to be staying indefinitely with a duchess and might possibly find herself attending an event requiring a greater-than-usual formality of dress. She had not expected that event to be her wedding.
She was a bride, she thought as she checked her appearance in the long mirror in her room. She was satisfied with what she saw. The duchess had insisted upon sending her own maid to assist her, and Miss Bunker had created intricate curls at the back of her head before placing the bonnet just so over them. She had tied the ribbon in a soft bow close to Chloe’s left ear. The dress looked both pretty and elegant and surely showed off her slender figure to advantage.
All of which satisfactory facts did not still the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach. The next time she stood here, perhaps an hour or two from now, to remove her bonnet before luncheon, she would be a married lady. She would be Chloe Stockwood, Countess of Berwick—if something disastrous did not happen to stop the proceedings, that was. If someone did not dash into the chapel to declare an insurmountable impediment to their marriage during that dreaded pause in every wedding service after the clergyman had posed the question.