Belle stared at him, finding that her hands were clasped tight in her lap. If only she could read him, could have any idea of the thoughts that were shuttered up behind those dark green eyes. She had never seen such a colour before, and it reminded her of a forest, thick and forbidding and full of hidden dangers.
“Very well,” he replied, his tone gruff.
True to her word, Belle organised everything, and didn’t even notice when her husband slipped away to leave her with her guests. He did not reappear for dinner, though thankfully she only had to face Violette, Aubrey, and Crecy and her dreadful aunt this time. Lady Russell had retired early with her sister, both of them pleading fatigue, though Belle suspected anything was better than a repeat of this morning’s ordeal, and found she could hardly blame them. The Earl and Countess of Falmouth had a previous engagement, and would be away for a week, at least, before returning for Christmas. After that, they and Lady Russell and Lady Sinclair would return to London.
Belle arranged that Violette entertain Crecy that evening, thus ensuring a temporary escape from any awkward questions on her part, and after assuring her sister that all was well, retreated to her room.
Except that now she had a new room, that belonging to the Marchioness of Winterbourne.
Belle looked around the vast space in awe. It was lavish and opulent, and she wondered what her husband’s mother had been like. The bright red and gold paper was lush and exotic, and the furnishing beyond anything Belle had ever seen. Standing amongst such an obvious display of wealth and excess, Belle felt suddenly more alone than ever in her life before. Her dress seemed cheap and plain against the riches surrounding her, and Belle felt lost in a world that she did not know how to navigate.
She jumped as there was a soft scratching sound against the door, and realised that the maid Violette had arranged for her had come to ready her for bed.
Belle cast a glance at the massive four-poster with its scarlet drapes, and blanched, but bid the maid enter.
She was a small, dark young woman of perhaps eighteen, neat as pin with a perfectly starched white apron, a sweet face and large brown eyes. “Good evening, m’lady,” she said, bobbing a curtsey, the excitement in her eyes very clear. “If it pleases you, Mrs Russell asked me to attend you until you make arrangements for your own lady’s maid.”
Belle looked at the girl and her eager, shining face, and realised she might be saved the horror of some terrifyingly fashionable and snooty dresser as she might have feared. “Have you done this job before ... miss?”
“Oh, Mary if you please, m’lady,” she said, blushing and looking anxious. “Well, I’ve a fair hand for dressing hair, and you won’t find a neater stitch than mine anywhere around Longwold, but ... n-no, I haven’t done it afore,” she admitted as her voice dropped away, clearly thinking Belle would want someone with experience, which was the absolute last thing she desired.
“Well, thank heavens for that,” she replied with a smile as Mary looked perfectly bewildered. “As I have never been a marchioness before, and I have no idea how to go about it. Do you think we might perhaps muddle through together?”
After a brief pause Mary beamed at her, and Belle felt certain she had done the right thing. “You can rely on me, m’lady.”
So it was that Mary helped Belle prepare for her wedding night, looking almost as nervous as Belle herself, until finally, she left her new mistress alone.
Belle sat on the edge of the huge and frankly intimidating bed, perched like a swallow about to take flight. Her hair was brushed and loose about her shoulders, thick blonde waves shimmering in the candlelight. She wore her best nightgown, of simple white cotton, which made her feel a foolish sight in the midst of such splendour. Belle comforted herself with the thought that she must look exactly what she was, a nervous virginal bride on her wedding night. After all, surely that was what her husband would expect and want from her? Yet as the hours ticked by and it grew increasingly late, Belle began to wonder exactly what her new husband did want, as it clearly wasn’t her.
Chapter 17
“Wherein a winter’s night is cold indeed.”
Once he’d escaped the hell of the wedding breakfast, Edward hurried to the stable and paced with ill-concealed impatience as his horse was saddled. What the staff must think of him, running away from his own wedding celebrations, he could hardly imagine. Nothing complimentary to either him or his bride he imagined. One fool actually stepped up to doff his hat and wish him happy before swallowing his words at the look on Edward’s face and scurrying away.
Damn them. Damn them all. Forever judging him, remembering who he had been and what he’d been like and all their hopes for what he would make of Longwold. Sooner or later, they would realise the Marquess of Winterbourne had died in the fields surrounding Waterloo, and the man who had returned was a wraith. He was something neither living nor dead, fit for neither world. He found no joy in living yet he felt no desire to die, not after having fought so hard to survive, but to what end? There was no place that could be called home.
The Dials had been a temporary refuge, but he’d known that he didn’t belong, even through the fog that had held his memories at ransom. But even his childhood home no longer fit him. Everywhere that had once been familiar and reassuring seemed awkward now, unfamiliar, like the memory of a place visited once as a child and seen again through the eyes of an adult. Everything he had once loved and longed to return to was foreign to him. It was almost as if Longwold hadn’t existed to him before; it was a place he had read about in a book, that he had imagined in his mind’s eye, and now the reality didn’t match his expectations. Even the vast castle seemed smaller than he’d expected, and strangely confining, his title a noose around his neck, trapping him and holding him in place.
And now he had a wife, too.
The weight of it, of what had once been familiar, of everything that was expected - it bore down on him, crushing him and pushing at his chest until he couldn’t breathe. The terrifying sense of panic was stealing up on him again, closing cold hands around his throat, and he had to force his hands to his sides to restrain himself from snatching at his cravat and flinging the wretched thing in the dirt.
Once the horse was saddled, he vaulted up without a word and rode hard, finding the track that only he knew into the very heart of the forest that surrounded the castle.
Finding the familiar spot at last, he dismounted, tethered the horse, and jumped down into the small, muddy hole in the ground, careless of his fine clothes.
It was foolish, he knew that.