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Chapter Twenty-One
Hermione was standing outside of the chapel holding onto a bouquet of roses with shaking hands. She felt she were reliving a day from her past, with Phoebe at one side and her father on the other, though Rufus would not stand still, he was pacing up and down.
The sky overhead was not sunny for their day. It was grey, and the sky bore the same tears that Hermione had shed to cry herself to sleep the night before. They had dried up that morning when Hermione had vowed to herself not to cry anymore about a man she was to marry. She had given both men enough of her tears for one lifetime. From now on, she would pretend not to be hurt by them; she would show resistance and strength.
She and Phoebe cowered away from the rain under the eaves of the chapel on the house estate as they waited for the church organ music to begin. The droplets of rain came down hard, lashing against the cobbles nearby and splattering the hems of their dresses. Rufus walked toward the doors and peered through the smallest of gaps at the congregation.
“Is he there?” Hermione asked, her voice breaking in the middle.
“He’s there,” Rufus said with a smile. Hermione felt the relief course through her though she could not smile. “Thank God!” Rufus said, throwing his hands up to the sky in true gratitude. Hermione squeezed Phoebe’s palm at her side with her free hand, needing her support.
He came. At least there is that. Antony came.
When the organ music began, Rufus beckoned her away from the wall. At first, Hermione didn’t move.
“Do you need me to drag you in there, child?” Rufus asked, the venom and anger clear in his voice. Remembering the bruise that he had left upon her wrist before, Hermione went forward to him. Last night, she had argued with him again, pleading with him not to request money from the Duke. All that had gotten her was a fresh bruise on her wrist. Today of all days, she did not want to suffer such a thing again.
She gingerly looped her arm through his as Phoebe took up a position behind the two of them, and the doors opened. When they walked in, Hermione could feel her arm trembling against her father’s.
Gazing around the room, she observed how stripped back the affair was, with a few friends and family members but none from London, just in case the tale of Hermione’s disgrace caught up with them. At the front of the church, Cordelia sat alone, so excited that she could not sit still in the pew. On the opposite side, the Dowager Duchess looked equally happy.
Hermione lifted her gaze to the front of the church to see Officer Stenham had turned to see her approach, yet Antony had not. He stayed facing forward, looking at the vicar. Unable to see anything but his back, Hermione almost stopped walking down the aisle, yet her father tugged her forward.
When they reached the end, Antony turned to her at last and took her hand proffered to him by her father, though he didn’t lift his gaze to hers. As Phoebe and Rufus took their places in the pew, Antony turned her forward to face the vicar.
For a minute, the organ music continued, giving Hermione a brief minute to speak to Antony without fear of being overheard. “Can you not look at me?” she asked in a whisper. He lifted his eyes to her then.
“You look beautiful,” he said, though the words were not coupled with a smile. There was something bittersweet in the compliment that made Hermione ache all the more.
“You have been avoiding me,” she whispered as the organ music began to reach its closing stretch of the song.
“This is convenience only, remember?” he asked, urging her to take another step forward, so that they were before the altar. His coldness made her lift her chin a little higher, determined not to show weakness to him.
“How could I forget?” she answered him, before turning back to the vicar, just as the music ended.
“Dearly beloved,” the vicar said, holding up the prayer book with both hands as his voice rang around the chapel, “we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”
As the vicar went on, Hermione’s gaze kept slipping toward Antony, but he didn’t look back to her. He kept holding onto her hand though, the whole way through the opening prayer.
“Lady Hermione Rogers, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded Husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?” the vicar addressed Hermione solely. “Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as you both shall live?”
She hesitated. For one thing, she did not wish to promise to ‘obey’ anyone, least of all a man who had decided never to love her, but there was something else in the words that she found overwhelming. As she looked at Antony, he lifted his eyes to her at last, frowning a little at the pause she was making.
She realized she could protect him from her forever by denying marrying him now, but Phoebe would be ruined for it. There was something else too. She wanted to commit herself to this man, to the Antony she had met her first night in Lyme Regis and had been falling for ever since.
“I will,” she said with confidence, committing herself to him for good.
“Now, Antony Stenham, Duke of Benson,” the vicar turned to him. “Wilt thou have this woman to be they wedded Wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
To her surprise, Antony held her gaze throughout the vow being said, never looking away, never flinching, never even blinking. Those blue eyes just stared back at her. He paused too, making her breath hitch. Antony had turned up, unlike her last betrothed, but he could go one step further. He could refuse to marry her in front of the whole congregation.
She bit her lip, waiting for his answer.
“I will,” he said eventually. She let out a shuddery sigh, feeling her hand tremble within his grasp. She should feel comforted by him saying it, she knew she should, but he had already told her he wouldn’t love her, and she knew even the vow he now made before God to love and comfort her couldn’t negate that.
As she turned back to the vicar, giving him her full focus, she rather felt like they were the two figures she had seen that morning being made out of icing by the cook on the wedding cake. They were both there in appearance, molded to look the part, even if his heart wasn’t in it.
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