Her eyes grew into round saucers. Then they flew over the paper once more, frantically. “It can’t be. Surely, Uncle Atti must have added that somewhere.”
“To make matters worse, he also seems to have misspoken during the actual ceremony. He used my legal name. In the chaos of the moment, none of us noticed. The witnesses did not interrupt because they thought everything was in good order.” He swallowed. “It looks like we’ve been accidentally married. You and I. And it’s legal.”
Viola grew pale. “We’re truly married?”
He dropped on the sofa next to her. “Yes. Heaven help us.”
Viola blinked. Opened her mouth once, twice. Then she did something he’d never expected her to do.
She threw back her head and—laughed.
He stared at her, aghast. “You’re laughing?”
Tears streamed down her face. She held her side. “Uncle Atti made a mistake,” she hiccuped. “And now we’re married. Really. Truly. By accident.” She burst into another bout of laughter.
“I fail to see what is so amusing in this situation,” Sebastian said testily. “I will challenge it. I shall write to Uncle Atti this very hour and insist he exert his influence to obtain an annulment. I am certain it can be done without complication.”
This, of course, was not true. He knew it even as he said it.
He had been a diligent student of Blackstone. Annulments were granted only on the narrowest grounds: lack of consent, a prior existing marriage, or certain canonical impediments. And lack of consent, as the ecclesiastical courts used the term, meant coercion or incapacity. Neither applied here. Both he and Viola had stood for the ceremony with full knowledge of what they were about. They had both agreed to it, despite the initial reluctance.
“The witnesses claim that both of us consented. Possibly,” he added, though he knew it was a stretch, “we might argue a mistake of identity. But even that is unlikely to succeed, since there was no question who either of us was. That was never in dispute.”
“What do we do now?” Viola’s voice was a whisper.
He drew a steadying breath. “At any rate, I would ask you not to concern yourself needlessly. I shall attend to the matter.” It was sufficient that he carried the burden for both of them.
“Needlessly concern myself.” She met his gaze with unnerving directness. “Naturally, I won’t be needlessly concerned. May I ask you something?”
“Please do.”
“I am certain this is merely a mistake that can be fixed easily. It can’t be legal. Uncle Atti will annul it, as you say. But—” There was a strange expression in her eyes. “Would that be truly so terrible if you were married to me?”
Somehow that question took the wind out of his sails.
“I—I,” he floundered. He was momentarily speechless. He jumped up, tugging at his neckcloth. “Of course it would be terrible.”
A stricken look crossed her face so quickly that he wondered whether he’d imagined it.
He waved a hand. “For you. For George.”
“George,” she whispered. “Of course.”
“You want to be married to George,” he clarified.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Of course I do.” She sounded somewhat forlorn.
“We need not inform George of the matter just yet. By the time he receives the letter, it will have all been resolved and set right. He hasn’t written lately, has he?”
She shook her head.
He took another turn around the room. “He hasn’t responded to my letters either. It is likely he doesn’t even know that Nana has passed.”
She watched him with a guarded face, and he did not know what she was thinking.
“Everything will be all right,” he said with the same false heartiness that Uncle Atti had used.
Everything would be all right.
