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Mrs. Thyme cast her an appalled look.

“One of the facts that we don’t care to think about,” Blanche clarified. “It doesn’t make it less true. If someone is mocking you, imagine her naked. Or him.”

“That is not the action of a lady,” Mrs. Thyme said, clearly appalled.

Stella laughed. “I can do that.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

A few weeks later, polite society crowded into a cathedral to watch a woman in spectacles walk down the aisle toward the most handsome and most eligible man in London.

Lillian Thyme could scarcely believe it. After all the anguish and fear she’d experienced since her sister died, her orphaned niece—her short, freckled niece, spectacles and all—was marrying a duke.

Lillian kept reeling between joy and terror, unable to stop herself from worrying that people would be unkind. From the first moment she met her mute, plump little niece, she had silently promised her sister that she would do her very best to marry Stella to a good man.

But she never expected a duke.

Even now, the nave was crammed with whispering women entertaining themselves by coming up with more and more fanciful reasons why the Duke of Huntington was stooping to marry Stella.

According to Mr. Thyme, the betting book at White’s was coming down hard on the idea that His Grace had lost all his money, but the claim that Stella had managed to compromise him was a strong contender. Lillian had overheard Lydia Pettigrew suggesting that Stella’s rounded figure concealed a ducal heir on the way.

She rarely gave set-downs, but she had swept down on the tittering group like an avenging fury.

As Stella entered the cathedral on Mr. Thyme’s arm, everyone rose, turning to gawk. Her gown was fashioned from thick, pale pink silk. It draped low, tightly clinging to her bosom before falling to the ground. A cape of gold lace hung from her shoulders and swept behind her. Her hair was caught up with gold pins that glinted in the light from the cathedral’s chandeliers.

Lillian couldn’t help smiling. Her niece was beautiful.

“Look at the groom,” the Duke of Trent said quietly to his wife. As Stella’s dearest friend, the duchess and her husband sat in the front pew beside Lillian. “That’s the way I looked at you, terrified you would run away before I could claim you.”

Merry, as Stella called her, chuckled and reached up to kiss her husband’s cheek, which made Lillian think about how quickly the world was changing. The rules that she grew up with didn’t seem to apply any longer. She could scarcely believe that her own niece regularly addressed a duchess by her first name.

Her mother would have been horrified had anyone offered such an affront, but these days even Lillian caught herself thinking of the Duchess of Trent as Merry.

The Duke of Huntington—Silvester—was known throughout society for his pleasing manner: his easy flow of language, agreeable address, self-possession, and charm. Now he wore an intent expression that Lillian had never seen on his face, paired with a tension that made his body look twice as large as normal.

To her mind, he was already unfashionably big. Thankfully, her husband was slight and hardly taller than she. Mr. Thyme bowed to His Grace and left his niece at the altar, returning to sit at Lillian’s right.

When the duke said his vows, his voice was not a sophisticated drawl, but deep and almost rough, his eyes fixed on Stella’s face.

It wasn’t until the new couple were walking back down the aisle together that Lillian again saw the duke she recognized, a gallant, sophisticated man sauntering along, smiling at all the guests.

“He is keeping an arm around her,” Merry observed.

The Duke of Trent looked down at his wife with a smile. “I was just as relieved walking you back down the aisle. I had been terrified that you would run out of the church screaming.”

Merry leaned into his side, beaming up at him. “Instead, I created a scandal by kissing you.”

He dropped a kiss on her nose. “Exactly what I hoped for from my American Duchess.”

Lillian pretended not to notice. Manners may be changing, but she would never countenance such an exhibition of inelegant breeding.

All the wedding guests emerged from the shadowy cathedral into bright sunlight, to find the new duchess laughing as her lace cape billowed in a light breeze.

Instead of the ducal barouche, footmen in velvet were leading forward a snow-white horse that had to be seventeen hands tall at least. It had been fitted with a saddle of silver leather with velvet trim and silver tassels, its reins shining in the sun.

Stella was giggling so hard that she dropped her bouquet of flowers in the street. Lillian couldn’t help sighing when the duke placed Stella carefully on the saddle and vaulted up behind her. It was like a fairy tale: all she could have wished for her niece.

Stella’s lace cape caught under her husband’s leg, and His Grace plucked it free, tossing it to a footman. Her hairpins fell out, and red ringlets spilled down her shoulders. Normally, Lillian would have shuddered at her niece’s disarray, but all around her, guests were remarking on Stella’s delightful hair.