Page 21 of Not a Chance in Hell (The Chances #6)

May 1, 1840

“A bsolutely not.” Lilianna spoke as decidedly as she could manage, but that did not appear to matter.

“But—”

“I said, absolutely not , and I meant it,” said Lilianna steadfastly, glancing at her mother for support.

Her mother shrugged. “It is a l-lovely idea, Lil.”

“It is entirely unpractical,” she pointed out, smoothing her gown with shaking fingers as the carriage rattled along. “Of all days to suggest such a thing.”

“But this is a day that you will surely wish to remember for the rest of your life!” Evelyn said with wide eyes, seated opposite her in the carriage. “If anything, this is the perfect day!”

“I don’t know why you are fighting with her on this,” Frank said conversationally to their cousin. “You know what she’s like—ouch!”

Lilianna had not intended to hit her sister quite that hard, but the London streets were cobbled and jerked the carriage about something dreadful.

Still. It had ceased the debate, at least for a few moments.

That was all she needed: a few minutes to gather her thoughts. This was, after all, an important day. Perhaps one of the most important of her life. Lilianna did not want to spend it hounded by family.

“I just think a portrait of you in this gown, your hair just so, the light exquisite at this time of year,” said Evelyn with a sigh, looking wistfully out of the window. “I honestly cannot think of a good reason why you should say no .”

Lilianna rolled her eyes. “Because I am getting married today, Evelyn—I don’t have time to sit for a portrait!”

The day had finally come. Arthur had stated just yesterday that it was never going to arrive at this rate because the weeks had appeared to lengthen ahead of them, preventing them from getting closer. Lilianna had pointed out that days were always one single length, and it was his own longing that was getting in the way.

He had replied, she was almost sure. Precisely what he had said, she could not recall. She had been too busy kissing him at the time.

Her mother sighed wistfully. “And th-there’s the church. You know—”

“‘Your father and I got married here,’” chorused Lilianna and Frank.

Lilianna gave her sister a grin. “How many times have we heard the story?”

“About a million times,” said Frank with a groan. “And, worse luck, now I will have to steel myself to hear about yours over and over again.”

“I don’t s-see wh-why that would be s-so arduous.” Their mama smiled as the carriage slowed to a halt. “It w-was a b-beautiful d-day, and—”

“Tell me at the wedding breakfast, Aunt Florence,” said Evelyn kindly as the carriage door was opened by a smiling footman. “As it appears I won’t be permitted the opportunity to draw today.”

“You could find another model,” Lilianna pointed out as she stepped out of the carriage onto the pavement, her heart hammering.

Well, here she was. Outside the church. The church where she would become Lilianna Nelson, Countess of Taernsby.

It did not feel real. It would not feel real until she saw Arthur. Only when she could be absolutely certain he was here, and the last few weeks had not been a complete figment of her imagination, could she relax.

“Skirts are most inconvenient,” Frank was saying behind her. “I long for the day I can wear trousers in public.”

“ F-Frank !”

“Well, honestly!”

“You know,” Evelyn said in a quiet voice as Lilianna stared up at the church, “I could paint you , Frank.”

Lilianna turned to see her sister’s slackened jaw.

“Me? You don’t want to paint me .”

“I want to paint someone new, that’s all I know, and I am finding it almost impossible to find someone willing to sit and model for me,” said her cousin with a sigh, helping Lilianna’s mother out of the carriage, where the marquess accepted the waiting footman’s hand. “Please, Frank, what do you say?”

Lilianna laughed again at the look of horror on her sister’s face.

“Sit? Without moving, for hours and hours, without my notebook?”

“Oh, I will let you keep a notebook if it helps,” said Evelyn, her eyes bright. “But you won’t be able to move.”

“Never,” declared Frank.

Evelyn nudged her in the arm. “You are most disobliging, you know.”

“Yes, I get that a lot, now I come to think about it,” said Frank vaguely. “Honestly, Mama, this ribbon in my hair is most—”

“It’s impossible, I give up!” their cousin said over Frank’s words. “I will never find a model.”

The church door was thrown open by footmen, revealing Lilianna’s father, who grinned and offered her his arm. “I thought I heard Frank. Lil, you’re early.”

“‘Early’?”

“On time, that is,” her father amended, drawing her hand through the crook of his arm. “Didn’t I tell you that the tradition is that the bride is always late?”

“Late? We have a schedule to keep to,” said Lilianna with a smile that was braver than she felt. Now that the church door was open and she could see the congregation…

All here to see her wed. To see her marry the Earl of Taernsby, rake that he was.

Assuming he had arrived…

Lilianna gripped her father’s arm. “Papa, he—he is here, isn’t he?”

John Chance, Marquess of Aylesbury, grinned. “He arrived three hours ago. Something about wanting to make sure that even if you turned up ridiculously early, you would know he was determined to marry you. Load of nonsense, if you ask me.”

Her gaze had been flickering across the myriad of guests as he spoke and her father’s words faded into the background as her eyes finally alighted on the man she had been longing to see.

Arthur .

He was standing right at the front of the nave, wearing a smart coat and what appeared to be—oh. Forget-me-nots, in his buttonhole.

Lilianna’s pulse skipped a beat and she stepped forward the instant the organ started.

Well, what is the point in waiting?

The aisle appeared to be at least three times longer than she remembered when they had met with the vicar a week ago, but eventually, she and her father reached the front.

Her papa was grinning as he stood beside Arthur. “Told you she’d be here early.”

“I never doubted her,” muttered Arthur with a wink for Lilianna.

After considering for a moment whether or not to be offended, Lilianna decided not to be. There was a very winning charm in her future husband’s eye and this was the moment that she had longed for over the last—what, days? Weeks?

Sometimes, it felt like months. Like her whole life had been consumed by this man who had entirely surprised her and made her feel… feel special. Wanted. Loved. Cared for. In ways she had never known before.

As though he would fight the world just to stand by her side.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God…”

Lilianna started as her father pulled her a step to the side.

“Who gives this woman?” the vicar asked.

“I do,” said her Papa in a clear voice. He grinned, squeezing his daughter’s hand as she was amazed to see tears in his eyes, then lifted her hand to place it on Arthur’s arm.

Lilianna blinked back tears of her own. “You are ridiculous, Papa.”

“Always was, always will be,” he said gruffly. He turned to Arthur. “And you—if you ever hurt her, I swear to—”

“Yes, th-thank you, d-dear,” said his wife swiftly, pulling him away.

Lilianna swallowed a laugh. Even at her wedding, it was her mother who was truly in charge.

Someone squeezed her hand, and this time, heat flooded her core and made her gasp. She looked up.

Arthur was looking as though he would quite like to pull her behind one of the church’s large pillars and do something most disgraceful to her. But he was also looking at her like…

Like his whole world had just stepped into the church. Like he had been incomplete before her hand was resting on his arm. Like he would fight anyone, her father included, to keep her.

Lilianna could not help but laugh. “Hello.”

“I said, when we first met, that I supposed we would just have to get married,” Arthur said seriously under his breath as the vicar’s words droned on. “And I meant it.”

A shiver rippled up Lilianna’s spine. “And I called you a dog and told you to unhand me at once.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that we’re here.”

The temptation to lean up and kiss him firmly on the mouth was overwhelming, but Lilianna was interrupted by her father agreeing to something. Before she had truly readied herself, before she could have imagined it would be that time already, they were speaking their vows.

“I, Lilianna Gwendolyn Florence Chance, take you…”

The entirety of the way through her vow, Lilianna did not take her eyes away from Arthur. Then it was his turn. There he stood, proudly declaring in a church that he would forsake all others and love her, all the days of their lives.

“In the presence of God I make this vow,” Arthur said with a wink.

Lilianna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Honestly, he was such—

There were gasps, and cries of astonishment, and laughter from her brothers and Lilianna could not think.

It was difficult to think, after all, when one’s new husband had scandalized everyone in Society by pulling her into his arms right there by the altar and kissing her senseless.

For a moment, Lilianna lost herself in the kiss. Flutters were aching within her and she felt whole, right with the world standing here in Arthur’s arms. Her hands crept up to his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer, and—

The kiss ended. She blinked up with hazy eyes and saw him smile ruefully.

“Ah,” Arthur muttered. “I suppose everyone is going to be stunned?”

Lilianna glanced to her right. There sat her parents, her mother beaming and her father frowning. There was Frank, and Evelyn, her two bridesmaids: the latter sighing with happiness and the former rolling her eyes. Her brothers were there, glowering at Arthur as though he had committed a crime. The rest of the Chance family sat behind them, their faces alternating between shock, hilarity, confusion, and disbelief. The only friendly face missing was Olive, who was confined to her birthing bed, the baby likely days away.

“ Stunned is one word for it,” Lilianna said, pulling herself regretfully from his arms and trying not to notice how her cheeks burned. “Ah. Vicar.”

The clergyman who had married them moments ago was as red as she felt. “I-I have never—not in all my days. Not ever have I—”

“I suppose not,” said Arthur cheerfully. “But then I never did things the easy way.”

No, none of our journey has been easy , thought Lilianna contritely as they stood and listened to the flustered vicar attempt to give their wedding sermon. Arthur had pursued her for her childbearing and she had resisted him as she had resisted so many other gentlemen.

And he had crept under her defenses and made her love him.

Most disobligingly.

It took approximately an age for the wedding service to finish, but finally, Lilianna was slipping her hand into Arthur’s, his fingers gripping hers tightly, and they were walking down the aisle to sighs and shakes of heads from their guests.

“You can’t please everyone, I see,” Lilianna said darkly.

“There’s only one person I want to please,” Arthur growled as they stepped outside the church.

“ Arthur !”

She did not really put up much of a fight. Why bother, when she was being kissed so thoroughly by the man she loved?

The marquess shouted. “Taernsby, put her down!”

“You are not winning over my father, you know.” Lilianna grinned happily.

Arthur sighed, rolling his eyes in a dramatic manner. “I married you, didn’t I?”

She hit him, quite hard, on the chest.

“Ouch—Lilianna!”

“Well, that’s what you get,” she said cheerfully as their guests started to pour out of the church, chattering away. The gossip of their kiss in the church—in church!—would have circulated the whole of Society… what, by lunchtime tomorrow?

“Come here,” Arthur said quietly.

For a moment, she thought he was going to attempt another kiss. Not that she would have been averse to that, necessarily.

Instead, Arthur pulled her around the church, away from the happy chattering guests. His fingers were warm on hers, the growing spring sunshine only adding to the fire within her.

He was hers. And she was his.

“Look, I have to tell you something,” said Arthur as they halted on the opposite side of the church to the open door.

And Lilianna’s heart broke.

Oh, it was so unfair. Why did this have to happen—and on her wedding day, of all days! What could he possibly have to tell her now?

“Are you ready to hear it?” Arthur said softly, stepping so close to her, she could feel his breath on her skin.

Lilianna nodded, eyes determinedly not tearing up as she—

“I am devastatingly in love with you, Lilianna Nelson,” said Arthur with a wicked smile.

Her lips parted. “You complete ass!”

He stopped her mouth with a kiss and she resisted at first, furious at him, hating how easily he had twisted her emotions.

The instinct faded as soon as it had come. There was nothing like being held in his arms, nothing like his scent, the heat of him, the ardor that poured from his lips onto hers. Lilianna clung to him, his hands swiftly moving around her waist to hold her close.

“Your face,” he teased, brushing kisses down her jaw to her ear.

“Your head on a spike, that’s what it would have been,” Lilianna said darkly—or at least, as darkly as she could manage while being ravished in such a glorious manner.

Arthur chuckled. “You think I’d be so foolish as to try to keep a single secret from you?”

“I know how foolish you are, so don’t pretend… Oh…”

It was difficult to speak. Speaking was not the sort of thing one could easily manage when one’s delectable husband’s hands were doing that to her buttocks.

“God, I want to get you home and peel all these layers off and—”

“We have a wedding breakfast to host,” Lilianna reminded him as strongly as she could manage.

And the memory that there were several hundred people still pouring out of the church and likely as not waiting for them at her parents’ home made her step back.

The growl in Arthur’s throat resonated deeply within her, but she forced herself to be firm. “No— no , Arthur. We’ll have years—years and years—to enjoy one another. Today is about celebrating with family.”

Arthur’s face split into a grin. “Years and years. I like the sound of that.”

Lilianna returned his smile as she slipped her hand in his. “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of each other?”

And he looked at her as though she were the center of the world, and perhaps she was. Perhaps the two of them together were the focal point for all life in the world, and Lilianna would not have been surprised.

“You and I?” Arthur quipped with a snort. “Not a chance in hell.”