To her relief, the ceremony was to be a quiet one. Lord Burnley had promised a general celebration when the baby was born. Even so, someone, the vicar and his wife she assumed, had decked the doorway with garlands, and Fredericks, who waited outside, appeared incongruously carnivalesque, with bright posies on his hat and in his buttonhole.
She paused in the doorway and swayed as the sickly smell of hothouse flowers hit her. Her vision faded, and nausea, thick and sour, rose in her throat.
Laura grabbed her arm, holding her upright. “Diana, are you well? Do you want to sit down?”
And delay this awful encounter? No, if she did this, she did it now.
“It’s just the flowers,” she said, panting through her mouth and fighting dizziness.
She pulled away from Laura and took a shaky step inside. Another. Into the cold gloom of the parish church. A deep breath. The haze receded, and her eyes adjusted. Down at the far end of the aisle, Lord Burnley stood before the vicar. Next to Burnley was a soberly dressed older man she didn’t know. Some parliamentary acquaintance, she supposed.
The overwhelming perfume still cloyed
, but her stomach subsided to a mild rocking rather than a violent heave. The prospect of bringing up her meager breakfast in the nave was too humiliating.
As so often before, pride came to her rescue.
She’d arrived at this pass through her own actions. She refused to faint or cry or cower. She’d confront her bleak destiny with head held high and steadfast heart.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Laura asked at her side. “Lord Burnley won’t mind waiting while you gather yourself.”
“I’m ready,” she said, just as she’d said at the house.
It was still a lie.
She raised her chin, straightened her spine, and took a pace of spurious confidence. Behind her, Laura and Fredericks fell into line. They formed a de facto train as she walked down the uneven flagstones toward the altar. And her bridegroom.
What happened held a terrible inexorability. As if forces she couldn’t control moved her. Once she’d set these events in motion by offering herself to Ashcroft, she’d put herself on the path to this moment.
Around her, the church was hushed and nearly empty. She felt the weight of a thousand watching ghosts in the still air. Not hostile ghosts, but ghosts who whispered that good could never come from a union forged in misery and deceit.
No music accompanied her procession. She was glad. This ceremony was perjury enough without adding the trappings of joy.
Burnley turned to watch. He was beautifully dressed in a black coat she hadn’t seen before. He must have had it made for the wedding. The finery only emphasized the exhaustion in his face. In spite of his best efforts, he looked ill and infirm. Although the sharp green eyes were alight. He knew he’d won, against her, against Lord Ashcroft, against his unknown distant cousin, against the whole world.
And he wasn’t a man to wear victory lightly.
A gloating smile, the image of the one he’d worn when he told Ashcroft about his parentage, twisted his thin lips. It was clear he basked in unalloyed joy as all his plans came to fruition.
The world was ordered on his terms and would stay that way.
Diana bit back the acrid reflections. She was as guilty as Burnley. More so.
Laura took her prayer book from her and sat in the front pew. Gossip would spread when it became known Diana’s father hadn’t attended her wedding. A scattering of people formed the congregation. Long-serving staff from the house, mainly. All of them as familiar to Diana as family.
Their expressions indicated the range of responses she’d already received to her betrothal. Shock. Jealousy. Resentment. Sentimental pleasure. Curiosity. Bewilderment. Neither Marsham nor the wider world would ever accept her as the marchioness. Her humble birth would always be held against her.
Her child would triumph. Her child would hold the title unchallenged and receive all respect and duty owed to the marquess. Surely she’d learn to find satisfaction in that knowledge.
Raising her bonneted head, she stared blankly at the man she was about to marry. One of his hands rested on his stick. The other stretched out to take hers as she mounted the short flight of steps to the altar.
Neither of them wore gloves. Burnley’s skin was dry, scaly. She was reminded of a lizard or some other cold and reptilian creature.
She bit back a shudder and turned with Burnley toward the vicar. The kindly old face was lined with concern as he surveyed Diana and her incongruous bridegroom. Like everyone at Cranston Abbey, he relied on the marquess for his livelihood. He wouldn’t speak against the match, whatever he might think privately.
The service started. She didn’t listen. Instead, she let herself drift in a dark sea of chaos. The only reality was that what she did secured her child’s future.
Odd to think that until she’d fallen pregnant, she hadn’t considered that she and Ashcroft created a new individual. What a foolish, shallow creature she’d been when she entered into this scheme. How she deserved to pay in years of misery.