Page 17

The ride to the church passed in something of a blur. Anna remembered very little of it afterward — only the flashes of light through the carriage window, the steady and comforting warmth of Rowland beside her, and the way her heart had climbed steadily into her throat with every passing street until she could scarcely breathe around it.

And then she was standing at the front of the church, and Hudson was there before her, dressed in dark clothes that made him look even more imposing, with his expression schooled into the same composed mask she had come to associate with him.

Until she drew close enough to see the small, telling flicker in his dark eyes, the way his gaze moved over her once, slowly, before he caught himself and looked away. Heat filled her cheeks, and she did what she could not to melt on the spot. She could hardly keep her eyes off him, somewhat determined to commit his visuals to memory.

He was truly handsome, and in the light, she could tell his eyes were blue. His shoulders made her wonder how they would feel beneath her touch —

His gaze snapped to her, and she quickly looked away, focusing on the priest instead and hoping he would not notice the blush on her cheeks.

The ceremony itself passed rather quickly; at the end of it, Anna only remembered fragments. She recalled the low and steady timbre of the priest's voice, as he led the procession. She remembered the weight of Hudson's hand as it closed around hers. And even more so, she remembered the particular, charged silence that fell over the church as they came at last to the vows themselves — Anna's voice steadier than she had any right to expect, given the way her pulse hammered beneath her skin, and Hudson's low and certain beside her, though she thought she caught, just once, the faintest hesitation in it, gone before she could be certain it had been there at all.

When their eyes met over the final words, something passed between them that Anna could not name. It was not affection, not yet, but something charged and unsettled all the same, much like a current of understanding running beneath the surface of two people who had agreed to remain strangers to one another, and were likely wondering if that would be a plausible plan to carry out.

Absurdly enough, she thought of every ball she had attended in the past several seasons, every gentleman who had bowed over her hand and made polite, forgettable conversation, every offer she had turned away because none of them had made her feel anything at all beyond mild, courteous boredom. She had been so certain, then, that she would know the right sort of feeling when it arrived — that it would announce itself plainly, the way it seemed to have announced itself to Phoebe later in her marriage, and to Edith as well. She had not imagined it would find her instead as this — charged, unwilling and entirely inconvenient, tangled up with irritation and lingering feelings from an argument with a man who had kidnapped her only days before.

And then it was done. She was a wife. His wife.

There was something much like disbelief within her after the wedding, and the cloud remained throughout the wedding breakfast. The hour passed in a flurry of well-wishes from guests she didn’t really know, and whispers of spite she had chosen to ignore.

Finally, the time came to say goodbye to her siblings.

Anna practically threw herself into their arms, doing her very best not to weep in Phoebe's fierce and lingering embrace. When her sister eventually let her go, Rowland pulled her close and murmured against the crown of her head,

“You are going to miss our morning arguments dreadfully.”

Anna simply laughed wetly and hugged him tighter, tears slipping free despite her best efforts to hold them back.

“My precious little sister,” Rowland said, his own voice rough with something he would never in a hundred years admit to. “You will always have a home with us, Anna. Whatever happens. Do not forget that.”

“I will not,” she promised, and meant it entirely.

“Write to us as soon as you’ve settled in,” Phoebe told her as they walked her out to the front where her husband’s — what a strange thing to think, that she had a husband now, dear Lord — carriage was waiting with him beside it.

“I will,” Anna nodded. “Farewell.”

Her siblings let her go and she felt their eyes on her as she walked over to Hudson who held out a hand to help her into the carriage. She felt too drained to consider refusing, so she graciously accepted and allowed him to guide her inside, casting one final glance at her family before the carriage rolled away.

The Wolvesley estate, when the carriage delivered her there at last, was grander than she had remembered. Then again, given the time she had left and the terror within her as she recalled what she had been through, she supposed she had not really looked at it.

The gardens were stunningly lush and green, with colorful flowers littered around, and she was somewhat distracted by the view that she failed to see that a handful of people had been waiting at the entrance until the duke cleared his throat.

“Welcome to the Wolvesley estate, Duchess,” Hudson said as she shifted her gaze to the people she surmised might be staff members with a bashful staff. “These are the keepers of my household and grounds and they will be in charge of caring for you henceforth.”

He gestures at an elderly woman with kind eyes,

“This is Miss Hill, the housekeeper.”

The housekeeper curtsied. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace. Welcome.”

A man who seemed a few years older than the housekeeper bowed to her next and the duke said,

“Mr. Oliver is the butler of the estate.”

To the last two, a man and a young woman who looked about Anna’s age, he tilted his head in their direction.

“Jacques and Linda, the cook and your lady’s maid. If you need anything, feel free to inform them. A tour of the estate will be given to you when you are ready, and you will likely meet the rest of the staff then as well.” The duke added with a slight glance.

“You'll find your way about soon enough, Your Grace,” Mrs. Hill told her gently. “It is a great deal to take in all at once, I'm sure, but the staff are glad to have a mistress in the house again.”