Page 54 of A Duchess for his Family

Sophia was standing beside him. That was the difficulty.

Her hand remained in his, small and warm beneath her glove. The faint tremor in her fingers eased after he spoke to her, though he suspected his own composure suffered in the exchange. Her veil softened the line of her profile, but it could not conceal the color in her cheeks or the brightness of her hazel eyes whenever she looked at him.

He had called her remarkably beautiful. It was an inadequate description.

He ought not to have been surprised. Benedict had seen Sophia in ball gowns, morning dresses, wind-tossed beneath an oak tree, and flushed with indignation during a dancing lesson she insisted she did not require. He knew the gentle curve of her smile and the way intelligence sharpened her expression whenever she prepared to contradict him.

Yet today there was something different about the sight of her, and it could not be called a transformation. He would not insult her by imagining silk and pearls had made her worthy of notice. It was the knowledge that she had come to him, that, before God and every person of consequence to them, she was choosing to stand at his side.

Benedict fixed his gaze upon the clergyman and reminded himself why he had done this.

The girls.

This marriage was for Amelia and Marjorie. They needed Sophia’s warmth, her patience, her instinctive understanding of every sorrow they tried to conceal. Rivermere had changed since she entered it. Already, Amelia laughed more freely. Marjorie obeyed slightly more often, though Benedict acknowledged the improvement was too modest for celebration. Sophia would make the house a home for them. That was why he was marrying her. It was practical, necessary, and entirely for the best.

It had nothing to do with the way his attention found her the moment she entered any room. It had nothing to do with the warmth that moved through him when she challenged his instructions with quiet, implacable reason. It also had nothing to do with how often he remembered the feel of her waist beneath his hand or the soft floral scent that lingered after she stepped away.

Those matters were irrelevant. The girls required her. Benedict required only the certainty that they would be cared for and that they would grow beneath the influence of someone gentle where he was stern, someone warm where grief had made him cautious. He was doing this for them.

The clergyman addressed him. Benedict realized, one dreadful second too late, that an answer was expected.

“I will.” His voice emerged steady, though Nathaniel’s faint movement beside him suggested the pause had not gone unnoticed. Sophia’s fingers tightened around his. Benedict glanced down.

She looked as though she was attempting not to smile. He lifted one brow. Her smile appeared anyway. It was small, restrained, and wholly unsuitable to the solemnity of the moment.

Benedict felt the answering movement at the corner of his own mouth and looked forward again before Nathaniel could witness it. The vows continued.

When Sophia spoke, her voice was soft but clear. Benedict listened to every word. She did not hesitate.

That should have relieved him. Instead, the certainty in her voice struck somewhere dangerously near his heart. She promised herself to him with a courage he knew others might overlook because it did not announce itself loudly.

Benedict learned not to overlook it. He had seen Sophia climb toward danger without thinking of herself. He had seen her stand before cruel smiles in crowded rooms and endure what louder spirits might have escaped by causing a scene. He had seen her enter Rivermere with uncertainty and somehow make herself necessary to every person within it, including him.

No, the girls.

He returned firmly to that thought. Amelia and Marjorie sat in the front pew. Amelia’s eyes shone with tears she was too happy to hide. Marjorie looked ready to leap from her seat the instant the ceremony ceased to restrain her.

They were the reason. They had always been the reason.

The ring was placed in Benedict’s hand. For the first time that morning, his fingers were not entirely steady. The gold felt cool and impossibly small against his palm. Sophia removed her glove, and Benedict took her bare hand.

Her skin was warm. He slid the ring onto her finger slowly, aware of the delicate bones beneath his touch and the faint hitch in her breath. His thumb rested for one suspended moment against the inside of her wrist, where her pulse beat quickly beneath the skin.

His own answered it. He released her only because the ceremony required him to.

The clergyman spoke the final words. There was a gentle stirring through the church, a release of breaths and emotion, but Benedict remained still.

Sophia turned toward him.

His wife.

The word entered him with startling force. She looked uncertain for only a moment, as though she too understood that the promises spoken in the last several minutes had altered something larger than names or legal arrangements. Then her gaze softened, and he thought he could see trust shining there.

It was not complete trust. Sophia was too intelligent to grant anything so valuable without care. But there was enough of it to humble him, enough to frighten him.

Benedict intended to give her security, position, and a household in which she would never be overlooked. He meant to provide the girls with affection and Sophia with a place where her kindness had purpose. He had not considered what she might give him. He had not permitted himself to consider it.

Behind them, the organ began. Sound swelled into the ancient church, rich enough to tremble through stone and bone alike. The assembled guests rose. Sunlight caught the pearls in Sophia’s hair as she faced him, her new ring shining upon the hand he still held.