Page 9 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

‘R eady?’ trilled Lady Staromchor.

Lady Norbury, Daphne corrected silently as she sat before the looking glass and avoided her own eye. It had been a year now, and still she found it a challenge to remember that her father’s new wife—his only wife—had to be addressed as such.

Daphne met her stepmother’s eye. ‘Y-yes.’

No . No! she wanted to cry out. No, I am not ready. I thought this day would never come, and yet time has raced by, and I don’t know how to slow this day down. I need it to slow down.

‘Are you…nervous? Excited? Can you believe it’s come so fast?’ Lady Norbury said a little awkwardly, dropping onto Daphne’s bed without asking.

‘No,’ Daphne admitted, with complete honesty this time as she reached up to touch one of the delicate flowers that had been woven into her hair. ‘No, I cannot.’

Four weeks had felt like an inordinate amount of time when Prince Christoph—her future husband—had suggested it. Four weeks until their wedding. Daphne had agreed. Perhaps she should have requested four months. Or four years.

‘Remember my wedding day to your dear papa,’ Lady Norbury was saying with misty eyes.

As though it had not been around a twelvemonth, Daphne thought with a wry smile that she quickly stifled.

‘Marrying the person you love,’ Lady Norbury said dreamily. ‘What a wonderful day.’

Daphne swallowed.

I need your dowry.

Prince Christoph had been very clear—which was all to the good, Daphne told herself sternly as she pulled at one of the flowers in her hair, attempting to straighten it.

The last thing she needed was to enter a marriage without complete understanding.

It was good, was it not, that they understood each other?

That she and Prince Christoph would not hope for something they could not have?

‘A happy occasion indeed,’ Lady Norbury said with a sigh.

Daphne remembered to reply just in time to prevent awkwardness. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, very happy.’

She would have been happier, she wanted to say, her tongue biting down on her lip to prevent her from saying it, if she had been permitted to have her friends help her prepare.

She was not one for company, not as a general rule, but the absence of Gwen, Rilla and Sylvia felt like a weight upon her shoulders.

Having them here, laughing and jesting, teasing her about the wedding night and squabbling over which necklace the bride should wear? That at least would have revived her spirits somewhat.

‘I imagine you wish to be alone,’ said Lady Norbury quietly.

Daphne started, turning on her seat to look at her stepmother. Had she offended? Had her silence been taken as rudeness? Should she have said…?

‘I will leave you to your thoughts for a few minutes before the carriages are ready,’ said Lady Norbury, rising from Daphne’s bed and smiling. ‘It won’t be long.’

The door shut behind her before Daphne could say anything. Not that there was much to say. Her wedding day was here. Within a few hours, she would be…

Oh, goodness. Princess Daphne? Surely not? But then Daphne had not considered her future title; that had seemed the least interesting part of marrying Prince Christoph, a man she had seen but once a week since the engagement. So, thrice only.

Would he be kind? Would he be gentle? Would he really hold her to that pronouncement made when they had shared afternoon tea? We will live very separate lives. Do you understand me, Miss Smith?

Daphne did not need to look into the looking glass to know her cheeks would be a brilliant scarlet-red.

The burn upon them felt akin to the time she had fallen asleep on the Wallflower Academy lawn while reading a book.

Her forearms and nose had peeled in the end, the angry, burned skin leaving behind a pale delicacy which Miss Pike had labelled ‘porcelain’, then forbidden her from ever going out into the sun again.

The Wallflower Academy. It was all she knew of the world, really.

Oh, it was not that the world frightened her—one could not be afraid of something one did not know or understand.

This was supposed to be a happy time, the moments just before her wedding.

But she sat here alone, in the Wallflower Academy.

Her father had apparently not thought it fit to have her married from his own house.

That, or he had not thought about it at all.

Barely moving an inch, Daphne carefully removed half of the ostentatious flowers her stepmother had placed in her hair. They were not her. They would attract attention, the very last thing she wanted. Her stomach contracted painfully. Though, today, of all days…

‘Daphne Smith, are you ready?’ barked Miss Pike from the doorway.

Daphne started so violently, she almost fell off her chair. ‘Y-yes, I’m…’

‘The carriage is waiting, and presumably your groom is too,’ said the Pike with a raised eyebrow. ‘I thought you wished to be married.’

Swallowing hard, Daphne managed to prevent the inside thought from spilling out: I thought I did, too.

Her father looked stern when she and the Pike descended the staircase. ‘We’re late.’

‘Being late is part of being a bride,’ soothed Miss Pike in a conciliatory tone. ‘It is to be expected.’

‘Will he expect it, though? Being from Niedernlein, I mean—not being an Englishman,’ snorted Lord Norbury. ‘Well, we’ll have to see. Ready, Daphne?’

He did not wait for a reply, stomping out of the hall onto the drive, with his wife in his wake. Daphne stepped forward to join them but was halted by a hand on her arm.

‘Do not disgrace me, Daphne Smith,’ said Miss Pike sternly, something that almost looked like tears in her eyes. ‘You are the greatest product of the Wallflower Academy and you are about to marry a prince. Do not disgrace me. Or yourself.’

With that, she released her.

Daphne almost stumbled, her momentum off-balance. The words from the Pike ringing in her mind, lungs constricted and pulse hammering in her ears, she walked out of the Wallflower Academy for the last time and into the carriage that was waiting for her.

‘How exciting! I’ve never had a daughter to marry off,’ Lady Norbury said into the awkward silence of the carriage. ‘Is it not wonderful, William?’

‘Yes, it’s very nice,’ said Daphne’s father stiffly.

He did not meet Daphne’s eye. In a way, she did not want him to. He had been a distant father all her life. Perhaps it was only right that he was a distant father on her wedding day.

By the time they arrived outside the church, bells pealing and bystanders gawping, Daphne was not entirely sure whether she would be able to stand. Standing was for people whose legs worked.

‘Ready?’ said her father gruffly.

What was there to say? Daphne thought, her throat drying as her inside thoughts attempted to push their way through her lungs, up her chest and out of her mouth.

No, I’m not ready. But I don’t want to stay at the Wallflower Academy either. I don’t want my life to remain the same. I don’t know what I want, and I suppose I don’t have much of a choice, but I’m not ready.

‘Ready,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll find my seat!’ said her stepmother, breaking the moment as she half-stepped, half-fell from the carriage door. ‘I’ll see you at the altar!’

Guffawing at her own jest, she disappeared into the church. For just a moment when the doors opened, Daphne caught a glimpse inside. People; more people than she had ever seen together in one building. There were rows and rows of them, hats, bonnets, shawls, pelisses, spencers, feathers and…

‘Daphne.’

She jumped. Her father had descended from the carriage and proffered his arm. Evidently he expected her to take it.

Daphne swallowed: swallowed down her panic, her fear, her dislike of attention; her frustration that she had planned not a jot of the wedding; her confusion as to why her father would own her so publicly, and about the reserve in the presence of the man she was about to marry; and her desperation quietly to be with her friends, allowing their chatter to wash over her.

I’m not ready.

She took her father’s hand.

The walk up the aisle was the longest walk she had ever taken. It was a miracle, Daphne thought, as her pulse thrummed louder and louder, that she did not trip over her own feet as she went.

The whispering did not help. It rippled through the large church as she walked up the nave, following her but also spreading out and blossoming through the congregation.

Not all of it was whispering, either.

‘A prince, marrying that quiet thing…’

‘Huge dowry—even I’d marry her for that!’

‘Never knew the Earl of Norbury had a daughter… Why did he hide her away?’

Try as she might, Daphne could not ignore them. The voices were getting louder, bolder, but that might be the echoes, or her own mind magnifying…

And there he was.

Coming to an abrupt halt, for she had not looked where they were going, Daphne’s breath caught in her throat as she looked into Prince Christoph Augustus Heinrich Maximus Anton Philip von Auberheiser’s dark eyes.

He was very handsome. And he was pleasant, in a way, with a calm temperament.

He was also distant and untrusting, but that did not make him in turn untrustworthy.

There was a great deal of pain in his expression when he did not think anyone was looking.

Daphne could not stop seeing it, now she had noticed it.

And there was no cruelty in him. He had made no harsh remarks about her person, her personality or her parentage. Which made him unusual in itself.

Daphne attempted to smile. Prince Christoph gave a taut smile, accompanied with a nod. He glanced at the church doors, as though checking to see if any other prospective brides might decide to turn up. It was not a very cheering thought.

‘We apologise for our lateness, Your Royal Highness,’ began Lord Norbury in an undertone.

‘It is of no matter,’ said Prince Christoph curtly. His attention snapped back to Daphne. ‘You are here. That is all that is important.’