“I look like a woman wearing a borrowed dress to a wedding she did not choose.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.” Eleanor handed her the shawl—Rosamund’s own, the thin one, the only one—and straightened the collar with a small, precise adjustment that contained more tenderness than the gesture had any right to hold. “Your mother would be proud of you.”
Rosamund turned away before her face could betray her. She pressed her palm flat against the wall—the same wall, the same cold plaster—and breathed once through the tightness in her chest.
“She would be horrified,” Rosamund whispered. “She would be horrified that I am marryinghim.”
“She would be proud,” Eleanor repeated, quieter now, “that you would do anything—even this—to keep Clara safe. That is love. Rosa. And your mother understood love better than anyone I have ever known.”
The silence between them held the weight of everything they could not say and did not need to. Outside, the morning had brightened without permission, and the street below was filling with the ordinary noises of a city that did not know or care that a woman in a borrowed dress was about to walk out of a crumbling townhouse and into a life she had never imagined and could not yet fathom.
From the next room came the creak of bedsprings, a yawn, and then a small, sleep-roughened voice.
“Rosa? Why is Eleanor here? Is it Saturday?”
Rosamund wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand—quickly, before Clara could see—and crossed to the door.
“Get dressed, darling. We are going to church.”
“On aWednesday?”
“On a Wednesday.” She leaned against the door frame and watched her sister sit up in bed, hair wild, the rag doll wedged under one arm, blinking at the morning with the bewildered optimism of a child who had not yet learned to dread what new days could bring. “Wear your good stockings. The ones without the holes.”
Clara considered this with the gravity the instruction deserved. “I don’t have ones without holes.”
“Then wear the ones with the fewest.” Rosamund managed a smile. It was not false. It was simply built on foundations that could not bear much weight. “Eleanor will help you. I need a moment.”
She stepped into the corridor and closed the door. The hallway was narrow, dim, smelling of damp plaster and cold tea and every morning she had spent in this house choosing between coal and bread. She pressed her back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling—the same crack she had traced through the dark hours, the jagged line that ran from window to door like a fissure in the surface of a life that had been fracturing for years.
In an hour, a carriage would arrive. She pressed her palms flat against the wall behind her and breathed.
From behind the door—muffled and warm—she could hear Eleanor’s voice, patient and amused, negotiating with Clara about the strategic hierarchy of stocking holes. And Clara’s laughter rising above it, bright and careless and utterly unaware of what this morning held.
That sound. That was what she was doing this for.
That sound.
Rosamund straightened. She smoothed the borrowed ivory, pressed her mother’s face to the back of her mind where it could sustain her without breaking her, and went to collect her sister.
Outside, the first carriage wheels turned onto their street.
CHAPTER 7
The chapel was small. Rosamund did not know what she had expected—something vast, perhaps, something proportioned to the name she was about to take, with marble columns and gilt and the crushing grandeur that seemed to follow Tristan Rathbourne like weather. Instead, the building sat on a quiet Mayfair street, built of pale stone that the morning light touched gently, as though even the sun understood that what was about to happen here required softness rather than spectacle.
Four witnesses occupied the front pews. A clergyman stood near the altar with his prayer book already open. A single arrangement of white flowers had been placed on the chancel rail—simple, unshowy, chosen by someone who understood that excess would have been an insult to the woman walking through the door.
And at the altar, Tristan.
He stood proudly, his lips a thin line. Dark wool, no ornamentation, his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was fixed on the middle distance, seeing nothing, or seeing too much and refusing to let it register. Rosamund couldn’t help but wonder if this was as difficult for him as it was for her. And again, she wondered about his true motivations. What if… She swallowed. What if he wanted more than she was willing to give?
Then he looked at her.
Rosamund felt the impact of it in her chest, her heart fluttering in a treacherous way. Something in his eyes was… intimidating, was the only word she could think of. She suddenly felt quite uncomfortable in the simple dress and hair. As though even her wedding attire was telling the truth:I come to you with nothing, and you know why.
His gaze moved over her slowly. It caught on the lace at her collar. Dropped to the hands clasped at her waist. Rose again to her face, where it stayed a fraction longer than control should have permitted. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly and she wondered.
Was he satisfied with his bride? Or disappointed by his sacrifice?
