Page 10 of A Duchess Disciplined (Dukes of Dominance #1)
CHAPTER 9
I f anyone had cared to ask William, his marriage to Lady Catherine would have been the quietest marriage in all of Britain. They would have said their vows before the local clergyman, and that would have been sufficient.
The only other aspect of marriage that William would have insisted upon was the wedding night, but he would not have it said that he had done nothing for his bride. In the two weeks since securing Lady Catherine as his promised bride, William had ensured that Verdant Chapel was splendidly decorated, and he had insisted on having a special menu made for the day—something he hardly ever cared about.
He had even directed the staff to clean and furnish the duchess’s chambers for their new occupant. The rooms had been left mostly untouched since his mother’s passing, but he insisted that they not only be cleaned but also made somewhat in line with the present fashion.
Now, he sat at the wedding breakfast, silently counting the hours until he would be married. William supposed that Lady Catherine’s siblings would be hesitant to depart quickly, but he would make it as apparent as he could that they were not to linger. Lady Catherine would have new duties, and it would not do for her to neglect them for overly long.
“Good morning,” Lady Catherine said, seated beside her brother.
“Good morning,” William replied.
Lady Catherine’s wedding gown was quite lovely. It was a white muslin garment, embellished with white embroidery and tiny, glittering pearls that shone in the sunlight. The design was clearly the work of a gifted seamstress, for the dress’s bodice perfectly cradled Lady Catherine’s perfect, white breasts. He feigned nonchalance as he ate his toast and its generous coating of orange marmalade. Inside him was an inferno. He ached to touch those breasts, just as he had two weeks before. William wanted nothing more than to tear that gown from her shoulders, to see that brilliant flush cover her face, and hear her shocked, feminine gasps.
“It is a nice morning for a wedding,” Reeds said in a paltry attempt to make conversation.
“Yes,” William agreed.
“The place is quite nice, too,” Lady Bridget said. “I can see the chapel outside my chamber’s window, and it looks so beautiful during the midday sun when it strikes the stone. It looks like something from a fairy tale.”
“Fairies do not exist,” Hester said. “And fairy tales are created for children. How would you know what it looks like?”
Lady Bridget blinked, appearing taken aback. “I—I suppose I have imagined it as such,” the lady stammered.
William hid a small smile. Few people understood Hester’s sharp wit and odd sense of humor. She made people uncomfortable, as he often did, but, while Williams’s behavior was often—in his own mind—dominant and aggressive, Hester’s was sly and logical.
“It would be nice if fairies existed,” Hannah said, “like Queen Titania, of course. Not the mischievous variety.”
The mention of Shakespeare’s Queen Titania seemed to earn Hannah a friend, for Lady Bridget’s face brightened at once.
“We used to hunt for fairies,” Lady Dorothy said, smiling. “Do you remember that?”
Reeds grinned. “Yes. I remember someone —” He shot an obvious look in Lady Catherine’s direction. “—always insisting that she had seen fairies in trees or in bushes, and being the indulgent brother that I am, I was always forced to look.”
If Reeds had been less indulgent, maybe he would have a proper younger sister. William took a sip of his coffee, his eyes flitting toward Lady Catherine. She ate some of her eggs, and he watched her delicate jaw move as she chewed her food. Then, she swallowed, and his attention drifted to her white, swan-like neck.
He imagined those coral lips swollen and red from kisses and her wide eyes fixed solely on him with that same sense of confusion and pleasure that he had seen just weeks before.
After the wedding, he would see that look once again—and likely many times after it. Perhaps he ought not to complain, for if Reeds had given him a proper bride, the marriage bed might have been significantly less pleasant than it was bound to be with her .
“I remember,” Lady Catherine said. “I knew that you did not believe me, but I insisted that I saw fairies in increasingly absurd places. I wanted to see if you would continue to look for them or if you would correct me someday. You never did.”
“No,” Reeds replied.
“I remember only a little of that,” Lady Bridget said. “I think.”
“You would have been very young,” Lady Dorothy said. “I would be surprised if you remembered anything at all.”
“But what of you?” Lady Catherine asked, inclining her head towards Hester and Hannah. “What do you do with your days here?”
This might produce something interesting.
“Besides lessons, you mean?” Hester asked. “I quite enjoy walking in the gardens and sketching the plants around Verdant Castle. Sometimes, it is also enjoyable to take the boat onto the lake, for there are often fish swimming about.”
Hannah wrinkled her nose, as she often did when the lake was mentioned. She detested anything dirty and preferred to avoid the lake and the forest that lined the property. With some coaxing, Hannah would tolerate a stroll through the gardens, but she would become vexed if dirt stained her slippers or the hem of her gown.
“I prefer embroidery,” Hannah said. “Besides, flowers made of thread last forever, whilst the ones in the gardens wilt and die.”
“That is what makes them beautiful,” Hester argued.
Hannah shook her head and glanced at William, as though she expected him to deliver the final verdict and end their little debate.
“Both are beautiful in different ways,” Lady Catherine said. “Perhaps the fleeting nature of flowers is why we wish to embroider them so often. We want to take that fleeting beauty with us always.”
William grunted. It was an acceptable answer, but it sounded very unlike Lady Catherine. Perhaps this was her attempt to be a proper Duchess of Sarsen. He supposed that he ought to be pleased she was taking her role seriously, yet he found himself waiting—and wanting—for Lady Catherine to inevitably earn the correction that she so clearly needed.
* * *
Following the wedding breakfast, they walked to the church together in a mostly silent procession. Mostly because he heard Lady Dorothy and Lady Catherine engaged in a whispered conversation. He could not decipher the exact words exchanged between them, but Lady Dorothy sounded worried.
William hauled open the doors and entered the chapel. It was not a particularly impressive building, more suited for the common people who had once lived on the estate hundreds of years before. Now, the church was seldom attended.
Only his eccentric great-great-grandfather, with his unrivaled passion for history, had kept the church from falling entirely into disrepair. William had made further efforts to ensure that the place was prepared for his bride. Bouquets of white roses and trailing ivy were spread throughout the chapel, lending a little color to the otherwise gray and dismal stone.
The vicar, an aged man who always behaved as though he was a mouse only a hairsbreadth away from a cat’s angry paw, jumped and bowed so quickly that the old man nearly toppled over. “Your Grace!” he exclaimed.
William nodded curtly. “I am here with my bride. I trust that you are ready to perform the marriage rites?”
“Yes, of course, Your Grace.”
The sooner the ceremony began, the sooner it would end. William was not a romantic man, and he had always found weddings to be needlessly long affairs. Besides, what mattered was receiving the bride at the end, not everything that came before it.
Perhaps what happened after the wedding matters, too. William glanced at Lady Catherine, his eyes lingering on her full bosom and slowly sweeping down over her delicate curves, hidden by those full skirts and layers of fabric. Soon, he would see that all stripped away and cast aside. He wondered if she would still be brazen then.
The Leedway siblings seated themselves in the empty pew on the right. Hester and Hannah took their position on the left. William rolled back his shoulders and fixed his attention on Lady Catherine’s face. She stood across from him, her gaze calm and unreadable.
The vicar produced The Common Book of Prayers and opened it. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God…”
Most regrettably, the vicar’s voice did nothing to alleviate the length of the ceremony, for his voice was dull and flat. Halfway through the proceedings, the man paused and retrieved his spectacles. Lady Catherine smiled serenely, while William grew hot with impatience.
“If any man can show just cause, for why these two shall not be wed, let him speak now or forever hold his peace,” the vicar said.
There was a pause of silence and a heaviness in the air. Lady Catherine’s eyes darted in the direction of her brother and sisters, and her calm, unreadable composure wavered for just an instant. William clenched his jaw.
He was so close to having his bride and a feminine presence for his sisters, a woman who could guide them into society and later marriages. William would not accept a refusal then. If Lady Catherine or Reeds did anything to prevent this union?—
The moment passed before William could continue the line of thought, and the vicar resumed speaking. At last, the vicar reached the only part of the sermon that mattered. “Will you, William Richards, Duke of Sarsen, take this woman Lady Catherine Leedway to have and to hold as your lawfully wedded wife?”
Lady Catherine exhaled softly, her eyes wide and her lips trembling. The vicar asked some more things—the usual questions about cherishing her and forsaking all others—that fell away to a faint hum, like the sound of a bee flitting to a flower.
She was beautiful. She was everything he could ask for, everything he had been promised, and some things that he had not been. Lady Catherine could be the duchess he wanted.
“I do,” William said.
Lady Catherine audibly gulped, and her breath quickened. William watched her body as the vicar repeated the same questions to her. This was the last moment that she might feasibly escape. Once they were wed, she would be his forever.
“I do,” she said.
William smirked, wondering how long it would be before Lady Catherine wanted to test the promise to obey him as her lawfully wedded husband. A feeling of victory surged through him, like lightning crashing into a tree. He had his wife and duchess! Here was a woman to be a guardian to his sisters and to produce his heirs. It had all been so easy in the end.
Reeds stood. This was the part of the ceremony where he was to give his sister away. William tried not to look too satisfied, but there was a small, smug part of him that wanted to remind the other man of just how frustrating he had made this process and all for nothing. Lady Catherine was now his , the Duchess of Sarsen, in the eyes of God and everyone present.
William had won, as he always did.