She stood just beyond in the alcove, already fully dressed in ivory silk that fell in structured, elegant folds around her frame, the fabric catching the dim light as she breathed steadily, trying to keep herself anchored.
Her dark chestnut hair had been pinned into soft waves beneath a simple veil, and her gray-blue eyes remained fixed on the doors ahead. She expected to be terrified, but more than anything, she felt a strong desire for the day to be done with.
She was being looked at as if she had been chosen by the Duke under mysterious circumstances, and though they would eventually have to accept her position, she remained under scrutiny until then.
Behind her, the final adjustments had already been made. There was nothing left to fix, nothing left to delay, and the time had almost come for her to walk down the aisle. The guests had taken their seats, whispering among themselves. She strained to hear them, but all she could catch was a general murmur.
“I do not know if I can do this,” she sighed.
“It is rather late for that,” Eleanor chuckled, adjusting her veil.
“Not the marriage. I mean the ceremony with so many people watching. It will be so… well, you both got such small and intimate ceremonies, while I am going to be surrounded.”
“Like wolves around a rabbit,” Margaret mused. “But you will be fine. If you want my advice, you should enjoy it, for it will be over before you know it.”
Anne wished that her friends knew the truth. All she had told them was that the Duke had bought her horse and that she had agreed to be his wife. They knew nothing of what her mother had done, and if she had her way, they never would. It was too shameful.
The alcove felt smaller with all three of them in it because of everything unspoken hanging between them.
Margaret stepped behind Anne and carefully adjusted her hair. “If you keep standing there like that, people are going to assume you have already decided to run.”
“I have not decided to run,” Anne said immediately, though her voice was tighter than she intended.
“You have,” Margaret replied lightly, stepping back to inspect her handiwork. “You are simply debating whether to run toward him or away from him.”
“That is not helpful,” Anne muttered.
“It is distracting you, at least.”
Eleanor laughed softly. “She is right in one respect,” she said, tilting her head slightly as she studied Anne. “You will have to go in one direction, although you are not frightened enough torun. You are thinking too much for that.”
Anne exhaled slowly, forcing her hands to remain still at her sides. “There is nothing to think about anymore. The decision was made.”
Margaret arched a brow. “By whom?”
“By me. I am not desperate enough to marry a man unless I want to.”
Eleanor did not immediately respond. Instead, she studied her for a long moment, as though measuring the weight behind the answer rather than the answer itself.
“What you want and need are not the same thing. Come now, Anne. We know that you would not have chosen this if it were not necessary.”
“But I did! I wanted to stay with my horse, and there is nothing more to it.”
“Do you promise?”
Margaret gave a small sigh. “Eleanor, do not start interrogating her right before she walks down the aisle.”
“I am not interrogating her,” Eleanor protested. “I am trying to understand what has happened.”
“That is worse,” Margaret muttered under her breath.
“There is nothing to understand,” Anne insisted. “This is not a complicated matter at all. It is a practical match, precisely the sort that dozens of ladies have every year. We cannot all have love matches like you two.”
She did not mean to sound bitter, but she did anyway.
“That is what people say when they are trying to survive it,” Margaret replied gently.
A brief silence settled between them, broken only by the distant sound of voices from the chapel. Anne briefly balled her fists against her skirt before she forced them to relax.
