Then he went up to his own chamber and thought. About warts, drunks, and marriage.

Chapter 25

T he next morning came all too soon. Tess woke up and stared at the canopy over her bed. She thought about running out to the stables and calling for her horse, but where would she go? What would she do?

Marrying Mayne made sense. She would be able to save Annabel’s and Josie’s future marriages. She would be married to a man of substance and worth. She and Mayne would have a civil, friendly, courteous relationship.She got up, shivering a little in the chilly air. Her maid, Gussie, ushered in cans of hot water and a tin bath.

At some point the door popped open. “You simply cannot marry my dearest brother wearing black,” Lady Griselda Willoughby said. “So I’ve brought you one of my gowns. It’s half-mourning and really, quite quite gorgeous.”

Tess looked up, surprised. “Oh, I couldn’t!”

“Of course you can,” Lady Griselda said. “I can’t abide the idea that my brother would marry a crow. I’m sure it’s bad luck.” She thought about saying that the marriage needed every ounce of available luck to succeed and swallowed her words. Instead she bustled about the room. The important thing was that Garret had finally decided to marry. His bout of nerves the previous afternoon was irrelevant and nothing that his bride needed to know about.

She stole a look at Tess. The girl was truly lovely, especially with all that brandy-colored hair tumbling down her back. For a moment Griselda felt envious, then dismissed the emotion. To be envious would imply that she, Griselda, wished to marry, and she didn’t. She had quite enough of the married state when poor, dear Willoughby was alive, thank you very much.

Her maid was throwing the gown over Tess’s head.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down at her low neckline. “Are you certain it’s proper?”

“Of course it’s proper,” Griselda said bracingly. “It’s half-mourning, and I wore it only once, for Lady Granville’s champagne breakfast. That was when we were all mourning for Sir William Ponsby, one of the heroes of Waterloo, you know—or perhaps you don’t, since you were in Scotland.”

“We did know of Waterloo,” Tess said, turning before the glass. The dress was designed in the very height of fashion: low in the bosom, with tiny sleeves that draped from her shoulders. Seed pearls clustered around the bodice and caught the light. “I don’t feel comfortable,” Tess confessed. “It seems odd to show quite so much of my bosom during my wedding.”

Griselda waved at Tess’s maid, and the girl slipped out of the room. Then she sat down on the bed, and said, “Dearest, I’m going to be absolutely frank with you.”

“Yes?” Tess asked.

“My brother is used to making love with the most exquisite women in the ton. He’s had them all, at least all those that are married and available.” She raised her hand. “You equal any of them in beauty and surpass most. The problem is—as I see it—that Garret has never been able to form an attachment to one particular woman.”

“Yet he’s never been married,” Tess said, making certain that she understood the subject of conversation.

“Of course not! And you’re right: that is the important point. The fact that his affairs have lasted only a few days needn’t affect your marriage at all!” Griselda said, beaming at her as if she were a particularly apt student of the marital state.

“Are you implying,” Tess said rather faintly, “that he—that his affairs—”

“Never lasted long,” Griselda said, nodding. “To this point, I do believe that the longest period he’s spent with a single woman has been a matter of a week or two.”

“The musical countess?” Tess asked.

“Less,” Griselda said promptly. “To the best of my knowledge, they had no affair whatsoever. She may have toyed with the idea for a day or so.”

“Goodness,” Tess murmured.

“But it will all be different now that he’s married!” Griselda said, opening the door.

They made their way down the polished mahogany stairs. Brinkley was standing in the hallway. He gave a deep bow on seeing them and swept open the door to the sitting room.

The first person Tess saw was Lucius Felton. He turned about when she entered, and for a moment it was if she froze in the doorway, caught by his black eyes. Then Griselda peered over her shoulder, giving a shrill laugh, and said, “Your bridegroom will be here in a matter of seconds.”

Tess moved into the room and found herself curtsying before the bishop. He was very jovial, and kept pinching her cheek and telling her that his nephew was a lucky fellow indeed.

Tess smiled faintly and tried not to think. Annabel swept into the room, making a grand entrance.

“You are annoyingly lovely,” Tess heard Lady Griselda telling Annabel. They were laughing together.

Lucius was leaving the room, not that Tess was watching him in particular. It was just that he was so—well, somehow, to Tess, his quiet possession was just what she thought a duke ought to be. Or an earl, for that matter.

Not that it mattered.

She heard steps coming down the stairs outside; surely that was Garret.

“That’ll be your husband,” the bishop said in his deep voice. “Good! I’d like to get this ceremony on the way and make our way to breakfast. It’s a pagan thing, running a marriage before a man has even had his porridge.” He laughed, and his belly shook gaily.

The door behind Tess didn’t open.

“I’ll tell them to hurry up,” Griselda said, rushing out into the hall. Tess tried to take a deep breath, but she felt as if Griselda’s dress was too tight to allow her to take in air properly.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Annabel said, slipping her hand under Tess’s arm. “I just wish that Imogen were here. I still can’t believe—”

The door opened, and Tess turned around so sharply that Annabel’s arm fell away from her.

It was Rafe.

“Tess,” he said. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

An odd moment of silence fell over the group.

“I’ll come with you,” Annabel said sharply.

“No,” Tess said, moving toward Rafe. Suddenly she could breathe again. There was no one in the entrance, not Lucius, Griselda, or the Earl of Mayne.

Rafe led her into the library. “I loathe having to tell you such unpleasant news,” he said, looking, indeed, quite unhappy.

“Imogen?” Tess cried.

“No.” A wash of relief swept up her spine. “Then?”

Rafe swept his hand through his hair. “Your bloody bridegroom’s fled.”

“Fled?” She caught back a sudden smile. “That’s not a very complimentary way of phrasing it, Rafe.” She walked over and sat down in a large chair. For the first time in the last four days, she felt calm. As if her scalp were relaxing.

Rafe sat down opposite her. His eyes crinkled at the corners with worry. “If he were here, I would beat the stuffing out of him,” he said, running a hand through his hair again. “If I’d had any idea he would pull a stunt like this, I never would have introduced you to him. No less would I have promoted a match between the two of you!”