“Here, let me help you up.”
She hooked a hand under his arm and helped him up to his feet.
“Is this my room?” he asked, marveling at the door in front of him.
“It is.” She pushed it open and helped him inside.
The candles in his room had flickered out as well, and she pulled him over to the bed, wondering if she was going to have to helphim into his nightclothes as well. But the moment Niles fell onto the bed, he rolled over and, in a moment, was asleep again.
Violet sighed. Surely, he was better than her father, but he was still rather useless. For the first time since her meeting with the Duke, she felt a flicker of relief.
I’m going to be married to a man who can actually protect me.
After her father, and now Niles, the thought was appealing.
Perhaps it won’t be such a bad marriage, after all.
Chapter Three
“Ihope you like a party,” the Duke of Attorton said as he greeted Violet in the foyer of the church, “because I’m afraid that our wedding has become one.”
“How is that possible?” she asked, squinting up at him to try and ascertain if he was being serious or not. “The vicar would hardly allow a church to become raucous with celebrations.”
“Wouldn’t he?” The Duke tilted his head to the side, a wicked smile playing on his lips. “I am a duke, after all, and he cannot deny my desires.”
“Even a duke doesn’t have free rein,” Violet argued, refusing to smile at her husband’s effrontery.
The Duke’s laughter was drowned out by an exuberant cheer from inside the church, and Violet turned towards the chapel, her stomach lurching.
He wasn’t serious, was he? Is our wedding really a fête?
A week had passed since the pair had decided to marry, and what a week it had been. The Duke had been working overtime to obtain a special license, and just yesterday, he had finally done so. Violet had appreciated this, even if it had been disconcerting to find herself planning an impromptu wedding.
Best not to waste any more time, the Duke had said,seeing as how everyone knows your father has escaped from prison, and the whole ton seems to agree on his vengeful nature.
By now, quite a number of people had declined to attend the wedding. She assumed they were afraid of her father taking revenge on them if they were seen supporting a marriage he would undoubtedly oppose, and she couldn’t entirely blame them.
The rest of her preparations had been minimal. Her mother had given her the wedding dress she’d gotten married in, and Violet had made all the adjustments to it herself, as most of the modistes in London were swamped with orders from young debutantes and couldn’t prepare a rushed order.
“It’s bad luck to get married in Mother’s dress,” Rosalie had told her when she’d first tried on the dress. “Their marriage was a disaster! And it is so out of fashion!”
And yet it’s still prettier than anything I’ve ever owned.
“I don’t believe in such superstitions,” Violet had assured her, and it was true.
She also didn’t care about having a new dress for her wedding. It was frivolous and unnecessary.
However, as she stood in the chapel now, next to her soon-to-be-husband, she did wonder if perhaps she should have chosen a different dress. Knowing that the one she was wearing had been her mother’s dredged up painful memories. Her childhood hadn’t been the easiest. Until earlier this Season, she hadn’t seen her mother in ten years. And life with their father had been an endless nightmare of threats, screaming, criticism, and bullying.
“I wish my sister was here,” she said suddenly, not looking at James.
Iris would know what to say to make me feel better.
“Iris,” he said, understanding her at once. “I wish we could have waited for them, but if that were possible, this wedding would not have been necessary.” After a few minutes he added, “I never thought I’d get married, but on the few occasions when I did consider it, I always assumed Phineas would be here to keep me from getting cold feet.”
Violet fixed him with an intrigued look. “And now? Do you have cold feet?”
James grinned. “Not in the slightest.” He held out his arm, and she took it. “Let us get married, shall we?”
