Page 4 of A Widow for the Earl (The Gentlemen’s Club #5)

What? she dared to mouth, causing Sebastian to frown at her for a moment.

She had forgotten she was in the middle of her wedding ceremony.

“Apologies,” she mumbled under her breath. “I thought my cousin was trying to say something to me.”

Sebastian’s frown lingered, his hold on her hands tightening as if to say, Behave yourself.

Across the chapel, Vincent shook his head, as if he was thinking the exact same thing. He did not lower his gaze, that same cold intensity glinting within his eyes.

Just then, to her surprise, he mouthed something back.

She squinted, trying to make it out.

Moving his lips more slowly, nodding his head subtly toward the altar, she realized with a jolt of panic what he was saying: Your turn.

“Miss Johnson?” the reverend rasped impatiently. “Miss Johnson, are you listening?”

Beatrice cleared her throat. “Yes, Reverend. My apologies. I felt a little faint for a moment there.” She steadied herself. “Could you repeat that?”

“No, Miss Johnson, you are supposed to repeat after me,” the reverend said, looking down his nose at her with the same measure of disapproval that she had been served four times already that morning.

Putting on a smile, Beatrice flashed the reverend a cold look of her own. “I need you to repeat what you said so I can repeat it,” she said, speaking slowly, as she might to an idiot. “If you would be so kind.”

The rest of the wedding passed by in a blur of words that she did not mean and resented saying, going through the motions until she found herself back outside the chapel, wearing the ill-fitting mantle of her fourth name: not Miss Johnson, not Lady Albany, not Lady Brinkley, but now Beatrice Hartley, Viscountess of Wycliffe.

“I wish you well,” her father said, as he passed by on his way to his carriage.

Beatrice’s heart swelled a little, only to deflate when she realized he was talking to Sebastian and not her.

“Thank you,” Sebastian replied, tipping his hat to Henry.

Her father was not the only one to leave in a hurry, for there was to be no celebration of the union.

“I did not see the point,” Sebastian explained flatly, as he shook hands with the departing guests, accepting their well wishes.

Meanwhile, Beatrice’s friends embraced her warmly, urging her to write, reassuring her that all would be well, before they too got into their carriages and pulled away from that unfamiliar estate.

Only Vincent offered no word, just his steady disapproval.

Until she and Sebastian were the only two who remained, standing outside the gate of the small churchyard, complete and utter strangers.

Beatrice awoke with a jolt, rubbing the sleep from her eyes; she had not meant to fall asleep in the guest chambers that were now her own. Her bleary gaze fell on the empty glass of fortified wine that she had used to steady her nerves about the wedding night, cursing its potent gifts.

What time is it? She squinted until her eyes found the clock on the mantelpiece, startled by the hour. It was just past three o’clock in the morning. She had not merely dozed off; she had been asleep for four hours.

“Has he knocked for me?” she whispered to the darkened room, illuminated solely by moonlight that faded in and out as it hid behind rolling rainclouds.

She groaned as she got up off the comfortable chaise-longue that had lulled her to sleep along with the wine and the crackling fire that had since dimmed to embers.

The floorboards were cold against her bare soles, her wedding gown rustling as she padded over to the door.

No lady’s maid had come to prepare her, her nightdress still lying on the bed where she had left it.

“Why has no one bothered me?” she asked, dread prickling down the nape of her neck, pursued by a shudder.

Maybe, the household wanted to let me rest. Maybe, Sebastian does not want to disturb me tonight, after such a tiring day.

She clung to that uneasy hope as she opened the chamber door and slipped out into the hallway, counting the doors on the left until she reached the one that Sebastian had pointed out as his.

It was hard to believe that, on her first wedding night to Lord Albany, she had been relieved when her husband did not come to her bedchamber. Now, she would have given anything to be disturbed by her third husband, to settle her soaring anxiety.

She knocked lightly.

“Lord Wycliffe?” she whispered, her heart beating so hard that it seemed to be bouncing all the way up her throat, blocking any air from finding her lungs. “Sebastian?”

She knocked again, pressing her ear to the door, listening for any sounds of life in the room beyond. Silence echoed back.

He likely fell asleep too. All will be well. It is not possible for it to happen three times. It is not. By all probability and possibility, it is not.

Hand shaking, she grabbed the brass doorknob and turned it, while every instinct begged her not to enter, not to look.

“Sebastian?” she repeated, stepping into the bedchamber.

The room was steeped in darkness, thicker than the dark of her own chambers, the drapes pulled tight. The fire looked like it had died hours ago, a stub of a candle melted all the way down.

Wishing she had thought to bring a lantern from her own room, she crept blindly across the room, her arms outstretched as she felt her way toward the windows. She jumped at the brush of brocade against her fingertips, hurrying to draw the drapes back.

In the weak light of the night world, she braced herself with a few deep breaths and turned to search the room for her husband. It took half a second to find the shape of him, tucked beneath the coverlets, his back to her.

“Sebastian? Are you asleep?” She approached nervously, extending a trembling hand to shake him by the shoulder. “Sebastian?”

He did not move, prompting her to shake him harder, calling his name all the while.

Putting all of her strength into pulling him down onto his back, she leaped backward and clamped a hand over her mouth to swallow the scream that tried to escape.

Glassy eyes stared vacantly upward, her husband’s stern mouth slightly parted as if death had been a surprise, his chest completely still.

“Sebastian?” she said weakly, her knees wobbling, knowing full well that he was gone.

She was a widow for the third time… and she would be lucky if society did not hang her for it. Indeed, they would need no further excuse to begin their witch hunt.

To lose one husband is a tragedy, to lose a second is careless, but to lose a third… what else can that be but a curse?