Page 41 of Married to the Icy Duke (Duke Wars #3)

T he next person who asks me if I am feeling nervous, Isaac thought sourly, will get punched in the face.

On cue, the rector came breezing up to his position, beaming all around. He saved an especially wide smile for the groom-to-be.

“Your Grace!” he burbled cheerily. “Not long to go now. Tell me, are you feeling anxious?”

Isaac curled his fingers into tight fists. He supposed he could not hit the rector. Not without enduring some fairly serious consequences.

“I am not,” he responded, tight-lipped, “and I am not sure why a man or woman ought to be nervous on their wedding day. Have they not thought the matter through beforehand? Fools like that deserve to be nervous.”

The rector chuckled, placing his Bible on the low podium and flicking through the pages. He seemed entirely unaware of how close he had come to receiving a broken nose.

“Marriage is a serious business,” he responded.

“Believe me, Your Grace. I have been officiating marriage ceremonies for over four decades. I’ve seen all varieties of bride and groom.

And for the most part, I’ve seen how their marriages turn out.

I’ve seen grooms white with fear. I’ve watched brides sprint for the exit.

Some of them actually make it, too. But out of all of them, the only ones who ended up being truly, inescapably unhappy were one particular type of bride and groom. Can you guess which type?”

Isaac sighed. “I am sure you are about to tell me.”

“So I am. The brides and grooms who found the most singular unhappiness always seemed to be the ones who were not nervous. The ones who didn’t understand what they were doing, the gravity of it all.”

The rector glanced up over his wire-rimmed spectacles, fixing Isaac with a strangely intense stare.

“So, I shall ask you again, Your Grace,” he continued, his fingers stilling on the pages of his Bible. “Are you afraid?”

Isaac was saved from responding by a commotion rippling through the congregation. People gasped and whispered, shifting on their seats and twisting to look back at the closed church doors. At that moment, the door inched open, and Thalia came scurrying along the aisle.

She headed straight to the front pew, where Sybella had saved seats for her and for Gabriel, who would, of course, escort his sister down the aisle.

Tommy sat between his aunt and his nurse, all dressed up in his finest clothes.

The little boy was beaming with excitement, and Isaac felt a surprisingly powerful urge to snatch him up in his arms.

“Aha, here she comes,” the rector breezed, beaming. “I do so love a wedding.”

Tristan was Isaac’s best man, of course. He fidgeted by Isaac’s side, constantly checking and re-checking the rings, which were safe in his waistcoat pocket.

A hush fell over the congregation. Tension mounted in Isaac’s chest, winding around his innards. It was the strangest feeling, and one he had not counted upon.

It was not nerves. He was Isaac Cecil, Duke of Arkley, a key member of the Ton’s Devils. He was not nervous .

The doors opened, and everybody craned their necks to see, including the rector.

Isaac did not allow himself to turn around. It was nothing personal, of course, only that he did not want to gawk at his bride like some blushing groom.

That, he reminded himself fiercely, was not the arrangement.

And Charlotte had been extremely clear as to what she wanted their arrangement to be, hadn’t she?

I want to see her.

The thought took root in his mind and would not be denied.

Clenching his jaw, Isaac kept his eyes fixed on the distant stone wall behind the rector’s podium.

He could sense looks from those around him—the rector, of course, as well as Tristan, and perhaps a furious glare from Sybella—all wondering why he did not turn and look at her.

Whispers echoed through the church. He heard slow footsteps approach—Gabriel and Charlotte, arm in arm. When he sensed her just behind him, Isaac finally, finally allowed himself to turn.

His mouth dried up at once. He found himself rooted in place, unable to move.

Isaac had already seen the dress, of course, but it was so much different here and now than it had been at the modiste’s.

Charlotte was glowing. Almost literally, as the church was poorly lit, her skin seemed to glow in the gloom. Her hair, sleek and glossy, was done up in a complex style, with ringlets falling over her neck. The stray locks seemed to invite him to reach out and touch them, to touch her .

He imagined himself running his fingertips over the creamy curve of her neck, shifting the ringlets aside to place his palm over the soft skin there. He imagined letting his fingers run lower, lower and lower to where the swell of her bosom was exposed by the low neckline.

He swallowed thickly, trying desperately to work moisture into his mouth.

It did not seem that Charlotte had noticed his stare.

She was looking up at her brother, who smiled encouragingly, pressed a kiss to her temple, and turned towards his pew.

Pausing, he threw a baleful, warning glance at Isaac.

Hurt my sister, the glance no doubt meant, and I’ll make you sorry.

Then he was gone, and it was just Charlotte and Isaac standing alone before the rector.

Now Charlotte looked up at him, drawing one ruby-red lip between her teeth. There was anxiety in her eyes; he could read it clearly. In the silence that followed, Isaac quite clearly heard Tommy whisper loudly to Sybella: “Pretty.”

His throat tightened again. Tommy was improving day by day; there was no denying it. The rector was now smiling fondly at the little boy.

He doesn’t understand the gravity of it, Isaac thought dizzily. He merely thinks that it’s sweet. He doesn’t understand what this means—that Tommy has spoken aloud in front of all these people.

Charlotte understood, though. She sucked in a breath, glancing first at Tommy, then up at Isaac, eyes wide.

There was no time to discuss it, of course. The rector cleared his throat grandly, beaming around at the congregation.

“Pretty, indeed,” Isaac murmured, and the rector heard the comment. He chuckled, shaking his head.

“I could choose no better word myself, Your Grace. A bride is most pretty on her wedding day. Now, to the ceremony. Brothers and sisters, we are here today to view the joining of this man and this woman, before God …”

He began his well-rehearsed sermon, and Isaac let his mind slip away. His mind did not go far, however, pulled as if by magnetism to the woman beside him.

Charlotte was so close, so close he could almost touch her. He wanted to touch her so badly. It was like an ache deep inside, an internal battle he was losing at a rapid pace.

I am not going to be able to do it, he realized, in a giddy rush. She wants a cold, bloodless marriage. A marriage of convenience.

I do not think I can hold up my end of the bargain.

The sermon seemed to fly by at breakneck speed until, in the blink of an eye, the rector urged them to stand and face each other.

“Do you, Lord Isaac Cecil, Duke of Arkley, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do,” Isaac intoned, his voice deep and ringing out in the silent church. The rector nodded approvingly and turned to Charlotte.

“And do you, Lady Charlotte Harding, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Her response, when it came, was a breathless, fluting thing.

“I do.”

The rector closed the Bible with a gentle snap and took a step back.

“Then I gladly pronounce you husband and wife. Your Grace, you may kiss the bride.”

When he had thought over this moment at home, Isaac had imagined pressing a demure, chaste kiss to Charlotte’s cheek. It seemed the best choice.

However, he found himself stepping forward, curling his fingers under her chin. Her eyes widened when they met his, her pupils blown wide with what could have been desire.

He met her lips hungrily, pressing her against him as though that simple contact could ever be enough.

I will never have had enough of this woman, he thought dizzily.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled that this was their wedding day, and that an entire congregation was watching him kiss his new bride. With an effort that was almost painful, Isaac pulled away.

Charlotte’s eyes were huge, her lips ever so slightly redder than before. She almost trembled when he took her hand, the two of them turning automatically to face the congregation.

Applause broke out, but Isaac barely heard it. He could think only of the woman beside him.

His duchess. His wife.

Charlotte .

Charlotte’s head was reeling. The journey from the church to Isaac’s house, where the wedding breakfast would be held, had gone by in a flash. It seemed that at one moment, she was there, and now she was here, and she was not entirely sure what to do next.

I’m married, she thought, over and over again. I’m married to him. He kissed me so hard in front of all those people—our wedding guests!—that I thought I might faint.

What was worse, I was so disappointed when he stopped kissing me.

The good thing about managing one’s wedding guests was that it neatly dampened any desire she might have felt. Her chest had been burning when she left the church, an ache plunging down the length of her body so intensely that her knees almost buckled.

After greeting a dozen or so burbling old ladies and gentlemen, all offering the most ridiculous advice regarding marriage, however, the desire had mostly disappeared.

So had her husband. He had melted away into the overcrowded ballroom almost as soon as they’d entered, leaving Charlotte to her friends and guests. She could not decide whether she was relieved or disappointed.

“The trick is,” the Dowager Abbington was saying, “to keep your humors cool .”

“My humors?” Charlotte managed. “I don’t believe …”