Page 14 of My Demanding Duke

“Tall, dark, and unfathomably rich, you mean?” Josie chuckled, “I don’t think I’d object—though I wouldn’t have the energy in me, for one so young as he.”

Anna blushed, which caused Josie to exclaim in despair.

“Oh, don’t look so frightened my dear,” she whispered, pulling Anna into a brief hug. “It won’t be so bad. Not that I’d have any knowledge of it, but men like the duke are said to be very gentle when it comes to those matters.”

Anna almost laughed at the idea of anyone describing the Duke of Falconbridge as a gentle lover. Even a girl as green as she knew of his reputation. Funnier still, she thought as she squeezed Josie hard, was the scene she and her lady’s maid painted. Josie had as much experience in love making as Anna. Her advice on the matrimonial bed was a definite case of the blind leading the blind—right into the wolf’s den.

Josie was prevented from offering any further words of wisdom, as the sound of knocking on the front door indicated that their guests had begun to arrive.

“Lawks! Look at me all teary-eyed, when I haven’t yet finished dressing your hair,” Josie cried.

She sprang into action, neatly pinning the last of Anna’s hair, before pulling a few tendrils free to frame her face.

“Pretty as a picture,” Josie declared, once finished, “Oh, if only your mother was here to see you.”

Josie’s tear-stained cheeks quelled the dry retort on the tip of her tongue. If Anna’s mother was still alive they wouldn’t be here, dressing Anna for a marriage she had been sold into.

“I wonder if father will be here to witness the joyous union?” Anna replied, in a bid to change the subject. Talk of her mother was too painful to bear at the best of times and today was most certainly not the best of times.

Anna’s question on her father’s whereabouts was soon answered by Lady Limehouse who knocked on the door to alert the pair that it was near time to begin.

“I will escort you down, child,” the viscountess said, after declaring Anna the most beautiful bride she had ever seen.

For a moment, Anna refused to meet the viscountess’ eye. Shame coursed through her body as she realised the truth; her father had not been found and would miss his only child’s wedding.

Lady Limehouse waited nervously, expecting Anna to question Lord Mosley’s absence. However, she could not bring herself to do so, for that would be an acknowledgement of the hurt she felt.

“How kind you are, my lady,” Anna said brightly, linking her arm through the viscountess’. “Lead the way.”

CHAPTER FIVE

HUGH FELT Alight pang of regret as he watched Anna walk toward him. Though her expression remained stoic he could tell, from her rigid posture and set jaw, that her father’s absence smarted.

Despite enlisting the help of Daniel Shatter—who had connections to every blackguard and knave in London—Hugh had failed to locate Lord Mosley in time for the wedding. Unperturbed, Hugh had thought the baron’s absence would further remind Anna that she was safer in his care than her father’s. Now, as she walked toward him—her chin held high, her steps measured and deliberate—Hugh realised that his assumption had been incorrect.

As Anna came to meet him at the top of the room, her eyes finally met his. They were shadowed with emotions that pricked his conscience. Resignation, a touch of defiance and something else; sorrow. Carefully contained but unmistakably present.

The triumphant satisfaction Hugh had anticipated feeling at this moment was suddenly complicated by an unwelcome twinge of guilt. This was not how he had imagined claiming his prize.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure, his conscience chided. Though, as Hugh took in Anna’s radiant beauty, he hoped that his new bride would allow him a few moments of worship alongside his penitence.

“A-hem.”

The Reverend Potsley—clutching his prayer book in one gnarled hand and a brass ear trumpet in the other—cleared his throat loudly, interrupting Hugh’s train of thought. A mercy, for his acute guilt was in danger of turning into aching desire.

“SHALL WE BEGIN?” the reverend boomed at a volume fit to wake the dead. The small gathering winced collectively, and even Anna's composed expression faltered momentarily.

Hugh stifled a sigh of irritation; Potsley was the only curate he’d been able to find at such short notice. He suspected that the ear-shattering acoustics were the reason why the reverend’s diary had been so empty.

"Yes, let’s begin," Hugh answered, enunciating every word with equal volume.

"Excellent. Dearly BELOVED!" the rector bellowed, sweeping his arms wide and nearly striking Hugh with his prayer book. "We are GATHERED HERE in the sight of GOD to join this man and woman IN HOLY MATRIMONY!"

The ceremony continued in much the same alarmingly loud manner. As Potsley bellowed the liturgy Hugh sighted, from the corner of his eye, the feathers of his mother’s turban shaking—Edwina had already descended into gales of mirth. Hardly an auspicious start to a marriage.

He imagined that Lady Limehouse beside her was less than amused. The viscountess had made clear that while she regarded his title and fortune impressive, she was less than impressed by Hugh himself. Hugh did not blame her for her misgivings; his pursuit of Miss Mosley had been slightly less than proper, but he would endeavour to prove to the viscountess—and to his new bride—that he intended to attend to his husbandly duties with care.

He would honour and protect his new wife until the day he died.

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