Page 6 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 6

I n the four days since she’d promenaded in the park and been told she had a week before she was to become responsible for three little girls, Persephone had narrowed her focus to a short list of tasks.

First, she convinced herself that everything was going to be just fine.

She’d done moderately well on this point, as it happened. The duke had informed her that he’d be busy in the days preceding the wedding, with some business manner that he’d alluded to only vaguely (but which Persephone assumed concerned Underworld), so there was no time for her to meet the triplets before the wedding.

Even so, Persephone was reasonably certain things would be just fine. In her work at the village school, she’d hugged away tears and wiped sticky fingers. She’d learned that there was a time for sternness and a time for softness. She wasn’t afraid of three little girls.

And, she insistently told herself, she wasn’t afraid of babies, either. And therefore she should not be afraid of this whole heir business. Women managed it every day. Her own mother had managed it, and Baroness Fielton was not precisely the model of maternal sanguinity.

Which brought Persephone to her second point of focus.

Trying to corral her mother on the matter of Persephone’s wedding dress.

“Mother,” Persephone said, nearly begging, “you cannot reject this modiste. The wedding is in three days .”

“Yes,” her mother said, her nose in the air, “and in three days you are going to be a duchess.” She said this part loudly, just in case one or two people in London hadn’t yet heard the news. “No cut-rate modiste shall do for my daughter, the duchess .”

Persephone shot an apologetic look toward the proprietress, who looked rightfully offended at being called cut-rate. The woman sniffed at Persephone, too.

That was fair enough, she supposed.

But Persephone had bigger problems than the woman’s hurt feelings at the moment.

“Mother,” she said again, even more insistently. “There is no time . If we don’t make a choice, I shall have to be married in the gown I wore to my debut.”

Her mother gasped. “But everyone has already seen that gown!”

“That’s true,” Persephone said sympathetically. More to the point, Persephone had grown into her curves in the intervening years between eighteen and two and twenty. If the laces on her debut gown closed, it would be a miracle so grand that they’d send out an archbishop to sanctify it. But better not to complicate issues for her mother.

“So,” she prodded. “Let’s order something here, now, and have done with it.”

They did not order the gown.

When they arrived back at their dark, gloomy house—as they were now only lighting fires in the rooms that strictly needed it, to save a few extra pennies—Persephone felt near tears. She was going to have to get married in the dark, practical frock she’d worn to Underworld at this rate.

At least there would be a sort of poetry to it, she thought miserably.

An unassuming carriage was parked across the way from Persephone’s front door; as she and her mother disembarked, a footman leapt down from the conveyance and lifted a large box from its interior.

The footman turned, and Persephone recognized his livery. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

He was, of course, a messenger from the Duke of Nighthall.

“Miss Lovell,” the man said with an absolutely correct bow, “I’ve a parcel for you; His Grace the duke sends his respects.”

He didn’t need to say which duke. Persephone wondered what it must feel like, to cast that sort of shadow.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, reaching for the package. The man hesitated.

“I’ve been instructed to deliver it inside for you,” he said in that bashful sort of way servants used when refusing a noble because another, more powerful noble had given then a contradictory order. It was an uncomfortable scene for everyone.

And so Persephone let the man in, even though she didn’t want to, even though she cringed at the idea that this man might report back to his employer that the townhouse had become even more barren and grim in the past week, as more of the family’s possessions had been sold.

Instead, she held her head high and led him to the breakfast room, because it was one of the places that still had furniture. If the footman felt that this was an odd location, he didn’t let it show. He merely placed the box where she indicated, bowed again, and left.

Persephone stared at the box and it stared back at her. She was almost nervous to open it.

“What is it?” her mother asked, tugging at Persephone’s elbow like a child begging their mother for a sweet. “What did he send you?”

Persephone shoved down a sigh, just like she’d shoved down a thousand other sighs at her mother’s antics this past week. There was no point in protesting or demurring or trying to control her mother’s behavior. Persephone had sold herself to the duke in exchange for her family’s security. She couldn’t go back on her bargain now.

She opened the box and sucked in a breath.

The deep green of the fabric was the most beautiful, sumptuous thing she’d ever seen. She snatched off her gloves and ran her fingers over the fabric, scarcely daring to touch it fully, less she muss it somehow. The silk glided against her fingers like water.

“It’s a dress,” she said. She lifted the garment carefully from the box, then held it in front of her. She would have to fully don it to be certain, but… It was clearly just her size.

“It matches your eyes,” her mother said, startling Persephone. She was right, of course, though Persephone, not spending much time looking at her own eyes, wouldn’t have noticed it so quickly, if she’d noticed it at all. “How romantic . Oh, that duke of yours must be simply smitten, Persephone. Nobody sends a dress like that otherwise.”

Persephone wasn’t so sure. As she laid the dress delicately back in its box and carried it upstairs so she could consult a looking glass, she thought that the duke likely had entirely different intentions.

After all, he wasn’t smitten . He’d come outright and said he wanted a broodmare and a helpmeet for a wife. And that was fine; it truly was. There were far worse reasons to marry than to provide a stable family structure for children in need. The duke had shown himself a kind man by caring about such things for his nieces.

But sending this dress felt like a dual slap. First, because it reminded her how very much he was not marrying her for her person, or anything about herself except that she’d been there and was capable of carrying a child. Second, because it was a reminder that he knew she didn’t have anything suitable to wear.

Because, she assumed, he didn’t want her to embarrass him.

But, oh God, what a beautiful way he’d chosen to torture her with this knowledge. For the dress was undeniably the most beautiful thing that Persephone had ever seen, not to mention the finest thing she’d ever owned. Each stitch was precise and perfect, each inch of silk clearly chosen with a keen eye.

“Look how lovely,” her mother cooed.

It was lovely. It was .

But it was also so…plain. Persephone would never have chosen something so sedate for herself, something without ornament, nor even a hint of her personality. She feared that she was marrying a man who expected a wife that was like this dress: pretty, high-quality, and utterly boring.

Something overtook her as she looked in the mirror, almost as if now that one of her concerns had been managed, she could turn to some new focus. She had to turn to some new focus, otherwise she would end up consumed with the whole bit about the…heirs.

Again, she felt that churning feeling in her stomach, the one that felt less terrible than it ought.

“It’s a perfect dress,” the baroness sighed happily.

Persephone was already full of plans, her mind racing and her fingers itching.

“Not yet,” she told her mother. “But it will be.”

“I have to say, I am on the side of those who are simply astonished that you were the next member of the family to find himself on this side of the aisle,” Ezra Swifton, the Marquess of Featherston and Hugh’s cousin commented mildly while Hugh ignored him.

Not that being ignored had ever deterred Ezra. He was the only one of the extended Lightholder clan not to have lost his father in the fire that had killed three of the previous generation’s dukes. Hugh wouldn’t have wished that pain on anyone, let alone a kinsman, but he sometimes wondered if Ezra’s ebullience came from not laboring under the same responsibilities as did Hugh and his two other cousins, Xander, the Duke of Godwin and the head of the family, and Aaron Warson, the Duke of Redcliff.

“You might want to try to look a little more cheerful, there, Hugh, old fellow,” Ezra said, entirely unbothered by Hugh’s silence. “The aunts are giving you looks .”

Despite himself, Hugh dared a glance over at where his mother, Miriam, sat with his aunts Dinah, Sophia, and Peace. It was his Aunt Dinah’s probing look that discomfited him the most; she had been his late father’s sister, and the resemblance between them was strong.

More to the point, the four women were Society matrons, which meant that matrimonial gossip was their bread and butter. If Hugh showed even a flicker of unease about his impending nuptials, the whole family would be talking about nothing else for weeks.

And he didn’t have doubts. He had chosen right with Miss Lovell—with Persephone. He knew it.

“Ha! I got you to look,” Ezra said smugly.

“Please shut up,” Hugh told his cousin.

“No, I shan’t,” Ezra retorted easily. “You asked me to stand up with you. Part of my duties are distraction, so that you do not become overwrought with nerves while you wait for your bride. I shan’t be derelict.”

Hugh was as devoid of nerves as any groom could be. Persephone would arrive. He had a contract that would leave her father ruined if she didn’t.

Besides, she didn’t seem the type.

No, Ezra was just being annoying because he was Ezra, and that was what he did.

“I changed my mind,” he told his younger cousin. Hugh might not be the most playful of the Lightholder cousins, might not have learned the lightness and charm that seemed to come so easily to so many of his family members. But he could give Ezra a hard time. The man invited it at every turn, after all. “I’m replacing you with Aaron.”

Normally, Hugh would have gone to Xander first, as they were closer in age. But he’d been reluctant to bother his cousin so soon after the birth of his first child, a daughter named Cornelia.

Ezra looked scandalized. “You’re not replacing me with Aaron ,” he said. “He will frighten off your little bride.”

That was…a fair criticism. Hugh might be a bit on the somber side, but Aaron, with his scars and his scruff and his scowl… He was fearsome indeed.

“Fine,” Hugh said. “But only if you stop talking.”

Ezra let out a very overblown sigh, but he didn’t protest verbally. Hugh decided this was good enough.

The Lightholders had shown up en masse for the event, as they always did for matters of family. Hugh’s side of the church was crowded with aunts, cousins, and nieces—he’d not yet been blessed with a nephew. The triplets sat quietly with Daphne near the back; Hugh’s sister was under strict orders if any of the girls (as if they didn’t know which of the sisters would be the culprit) got too fidgety and disrupted the service. Jeremy Swifton, Ezra’s father and the Duke of Rutley, sat slightly apart from everyone else.

But not so apart as Baroness Fielton, who was the only person seated on Persephone’s side of the church at all. The baron himself would be leading Persephone down the aisle, which left his wife alone.

Persephone didn’t even have an attendant. The thought sent a curious pang through Hugh. It seemed unreasonable that someone so brave and kind wouldn’t have friends.

But then again, he supposed she had been raised in the country and had only come to London for the Seasons. Such was not a fine opportunity to make friends, necessarily, as the young women were put in competition with one another for matches. And the baron’s behavior wouldn’t help, as it would lead others to distance themselves from his insolvency, as though such a thing were contagious.

Still, he found he disliked it. He worried that she would…feel slighted.

It was a fantastically strange feeling, so he decided to disregard it, particularly as muttering in the church indicated that his bride was about to enter.

He squared his shoulders, determined to look the part of the respectable duke, and waited for his bride.

Persephone entered the sanctuary like a breath of air.

Hugh had not taken particular note of it before—had not allowed himself to take note, as it was not the important matter before him, not at all—but she really was very beautiful. He had chosen well with the dress he’d sent her after gossip (courtesy of his eternally competent cousin Catherine) had spread that Baroness Fielton had insulted half the modistes in the ton . The lines were flattering, the color matched her eyes perfectly and set off her complexion to great effect, and…

And there were little flowers all along the sleeves and hems. Those had not been there when he’d ordered the gown. He never would have chosen something so…delicate. Pretty. It was a detail that took the dress from fine—well-made, expensive, high-quality—to a thing of beauty.

Something about those flowers set his chest to clenching. He feared this sudden unease had reached his face when Persephone approached him, not quite meeting his eyes, as she said a tiny, “Your Grace.”

He cleared his throat. He owed her decency, even if he could offer no more than that.

“Persephone,” he said.

At the sound of her given name, her gaze flew up to his, wide and innocent, for a fleeting moment. And then she looked away again, leaving Hugh with the uncomfortable sense that he’d somehow erred terribly.

All through the ceremony he kept his eyes on those flowers, carefully stitched by, he suspected, the very hand he held in his.