Page 35 of His Illegitimate Duchess

Elizabeth spent most of the night in deep conversation with God, begging for guidance and answers, for some indication that what she was doing was right, asking for a sign.

She wondered what her purpose in life was and how this marriage would help her fulfil it.

She considered Lady Burnham’s advice and mourned the quiet life in Wexcombe she would not get to live (although she still avoided thinking about the wounded and betrayed look in Oliver’s eyes).

Just before the light of dawn crept into her room, Elizabeth’s jumbled thoughts culminated in a decision: to make the best of the hand she’d been dealt.

Why not do my best to be a proper duchess? She thought.

It was not the title (nor the life) she would have chosen for herself, but she would cope, like she always had.

After all, what had she done after Father’s passing? Had she cried or despaired the way her mother did?

No. Elizabeth had gone out with Mary and secured employment for herself, so she’d be able to supplement the meagre income her selfish father had imagined two women in London would be able to comfortably live on.

Elizabeth could honestly say that she blamed her father for everything. It was easy, convenient, and appropriate. Every difficulty in her life could be traced back to him and his indulgence of his base impulses. She angrily hit her pillow, telling herself it needed adjusting.

Elizabeth then threw off the covers, got up, and started pacing her room, her dejected and self-loathing mood from earlier in the evening completely gone now. What in Heaven’s name had he been thinking!?

She felt the familiar rage welling up inside of her, threatening to tear her body up at its seams. She silently cursed her parents, her brother, and her future husband Colin Talbot, devil take him!

Elizabeth had never had the feeling that Talbot was trying to seduce her. Maybe she was naive, but he didn’t seem the sort to seek out inexperienced girls at balls and ruin them.

He probably has an array of married or widowed women to choose from , she thought, the very idea infuriating her for some reason. So why has he put us both in this position? He must have been desperate to talk to me again and had forgotten himself. Elizabeth’s heart softened a bit.

She had missed their easy friendship as well.

And now Nicholas was forcing them into matrimony. She had no illusions about what Talbot thought about her social standing, and she knew he’d resisted marrying far more appropriate young ladies before her.

Would her groom show up foxed and desperate, with her brother leading him like a jailer? She shuddered at the image, mortified.

She didn’t want that for Colin.

How strange, she thought, that I already think of him by his name. What will it be like when we…?

Her cheeks burned as she thought of everything Mary had told her about the relations between men and women, and the bits she’d seen walking through certain parts of London. She guiltily realised that she’d hardly wondered about these things regarding Oliver.

She was, however, too worried to feel embarrassed.

She remembered Talbot telling her about his belief that having mistresses was a prerogative of his kind.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. Was it just to put demands of fidelity on a man who was entering this matrimony under duress?

Was she being sentenced to life with a man like her father?

Colin is nothing like him, she consoled herself. He had been direct and honest with her from the first time he’d accosted her on the street. Never did he call her by a title he didn’t believe she merited, nor did he ever soften his opinions to appease her. That would have to be enough for her.

Even the note in which he informed me of the special licence was haughty, and so like him.

Elizabeth smiled at the thought.

He would be discreet during possible infidelities and careful not to father children outside of their marriage; he'd almost told her as much himself.

Then she thought about her father. Why hadn't he been more careful about not getting her mother with child?

She jerked herself away from the thought and went to the washbasin to prepare for the day. There was so much to be done. First, she’d order a bath.

*

When her brother and her future husband showed up at her door at exactly 8 o’clock that morning, accompanied by Mister Arthur Pratt and a still sleepy priest, Elizabeth’s first impulse was to tease Talbot and ask him whether he was unable to convince the Archbishop to perform the ceremony, but then she froze.

He probably would have, she thought. He’d have a grand, duke-worthy wedding in St. George’s, led by the Archbishop, with a bride like Lady Helena at his side.

Elizabeth felt hot shame colouring her cheeks as she remembered what she had overheard him say about her.

She didn’t know what she was ashamed of – her parents?

Her upbringing? In a way, she knew that she had done nothing that merited shame, and yet there it was, plain as day to her, and probably everyone around her. Unworthy.

She glanced at her brother for the first time since the men had entered the room she was in, only to find his gaze already on her, looking sad and soft somehow.

She averted her eyes, remembering how his accusations had cut her the night before.

She’d never known pain like it. Perhaps it hurt more because she had tried so hard.

She had always believed her father had dealt her the biggest blow of her life, but her brother, her second chance at a family, had managed to outdo him. For him, she wasn’t a sister, but an easy woman’s daughter who was incapable of acting differently from her mother.

The very mother who, to Elizabeth’s absolute mortification, had to be introduced to her future husband as Miss Williams. She was now sitting next to her, looking happy and proud, and, to Lizzie, absolutely delusional about what this wedding was.

Mary had taken it upon herself to handle the preparations with the rest of the household, as well as retrieve Lizzie's almost finished dress from Miss Euphemia’s yesterday. This morning, it was miraculously completed and was waiting for Elizabeth in her dressing room.

Mary had given her a tight hug and done a beautiful job with her hair, but Elizabeth couldn’t appreciate any of it. The dress she was wearing had been ordered for her wedding to another man. The banns for which would still be read the following Sunday unless someone remembered to cancel them.

This was not the entrance into peaceful, respectable living that Elizabeth had been working towards. She could only imagine the gossip that had already started spreading about her. Her nose started stinging, and she took deep breaths to stop herself from crying.

Nicholas sat down next to her.

“I know this isn’t what you had planned for your wedding day, but it is for the best,” he told her.

Elizabeth bit her own teeth. She didn’t want to look at him. She suddenly remembered that the house they were sitting in had belonged to his mistress, and she was hit by a wave of revulsion.

Perhaps he ought to examine whether he is similar to our father after all, she thought bitterly.

“Lizzie,” he tried again, his tone imploring this time. “I-”

“We're ready, Hawkins,” her future husband interrupted, glancing between the two of them with a frown.

Elizabeth silently thanked God that Talbot hadn’t witnessed Nicholas’s rebuke of her last night. What would one think of a woman whose own brother insulted her like that?

She stood up and accepted the hand Talbot had offered her. She had yet to say anything. She glanced at Talbot’s face and his still somewhat swollen lip. He didn’t seem angry or foxed. He looked… calm.

She nodded at Robert, who was standing at the door of the drawing room, and he went to fetch the others. When she saw Mister Ed, Mrs. Barlow, Jane, and Mary filing into the room, she couldn’t help but start crying.

The priest recited the familiar words, asked them to vow to love and honour each other, and to forsake all others, but Elizabeth was hearing none of it.

She never let a sob escape past her lips, but her vision was clouded by the tears.

The whole front of her dress was wet. Talbot was squeezing her hand painfully hard, but she couldn’t stop the shaking of her shoulders.

She did manage to utter I will in the required place, and after the witnesses signed, was relieved to hear that her luggage was already in Talbot’s carriage and that they would be leaving for Norwich posthaste.

The emotional strain combined with the sleepless night had caught up to her, and now that the deed was done, she was close to collapsing.

Her people were hugging her and wishing her well, and saying goodbye.

Her husband (her astonishment at that fact briefly managed to break through the thick fog in her mind) helped her into the carriage, where she promptly divested herself of her bonnet and her gloves, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.