Page 5 of The Inconvenient Compromise
“What?” She asked.
“The priest asked you a question. I’m certain he can be persuaded to repeat it now that you are back with us,” the earl explained.
“Aye, miss. Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, forsaking all others, kept to him as long as you both shall live?” the priest asked again.
“I will,” she answered softly.
“Your ring?”
Fiona felt a spark of panic. She didn’t have a ring. As if he’d sensed her panic, Lucian slipped a gold signet ring from his smallest finger and placed it in her hand. “Here. We can use this for the time being.”
Fiona accepted the ring, her fingers trembling so much she feared she would drop it. When she handed it to the priest, he held it up before his monocle, inspected it thoroughly, and then bit it to test the metal. With a grin and a speculative gleam in his eyes, he blessed it and then passed it back to Lucian.
“Place the ring on the third finger of your bride’s left hand,” the priest instructed. “Tis a good ring. Solid gold!”
Fiona spared a glance at Lucian, who was staring at the priest with a mixture of consternation and amusement. Still, he did as the priest said, lifting her hand and placing the ring on her finger, sliding it down until it rested at the base. It was a bit loose, but not so much that it would fall off.
“Now, repeat after me, my lord… with this ring I thee wed,” the priest intoned.
Lucian repeated the words in a somber tone—solemn and with suitable gravitas.
The priest continued, “With my body I thee worship, with all my worldly goods I thee endow in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.”
Again, Lucian repeated them. He never stuttered or stumbled over the words. They were spoken with precision and care.
“Join hands,” the priest instructed.
The warmth of his hands was surprising, or perhaps it was only that her own hands were so dreadfully cold. Fiona looked up and found him gazing down at her with an expression she could not fathom at all.
The priest spoke again, his words hanging in the air around them. “What God joins together let no man put asunder… forasmuch as this man and this woman have consented to go together by giving and receiving a ring, I, therefore, declare them to be man and wife before God and these witnesses in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.”
Fiona felt a shiver pass through her. It was not fear. It wasn’t even trepidation. It was something else together, something she could not put a name to.
She was a married woman. A countess. Fiona looked up once more, taking in the darkly handsome face of her new husband. Then she simply sank into the darkness of oblivion. For the first time in all her life, she fainted.
* * *
Lucian caughther before she hit the stone floor of the small ‘chapel’. In truth, the priest’s chapel was nothing more than a storeroom next to the tavern. The witnesses consisted of the tavernkeeper and his portly wife.
“Well, I never seen that before,” the priest stated with a guffaw. “You certain she was willing to wed you? Not coerced, was she? Or have you consummated the marriage before having it sanctified, and now ’tis a babe in her belly making her faint?”
“She fainted because she is exhausted from travel. Nothing more,” Lucian insisted, before sweeping her limp form into his arms. “Now, if you don’t mind, I shall take her to the inn so that she may rest and recover.”
The priest eyed him disapprovingly. “The lord knows. He sees all. Treat her kindly, my lord, and do not demand your husbandly rights of the poor thing when she’s clearly frightened half to death of ye! And no wonder with you looking like Lucifer himself.”
Fiona Trimble—Fiona Maxwell, he corrected, the Countess of Rathmore—had no reason to fear him. But she’d been terrified of Charlotte Farraday, Lady Bruxton. And he would know why. He would have answers, and he would see that vicious woman stopped at any cost.
FOUR
The bed curtains were unfamiliar. That was the first thought which entered Fiona’s mind upon waking. The curtains were a heavy damask, old and worn but still effective against the chill. The dark blue fabric created a sort of cocoon around her, but she was not so sheltered by it that she could escape the fact that she was not alone.
“Ah, you have awakened. Finally. I feared our dinner would grow quite cold ere you opened your eyes.” The voice came from a distance beyond the bed. Dark, sardonic. Familiar.
“What happened?” she asked. “We were in the chapel… and then, I just cannot say what happened next.”
He stepped into view between the posts at the foot of the bed. “You fainted, my lady,” he said with no small amount of amusement. “Delicately and with perfect grace, I assure you.”
Never in all of her life had she fainted. It was shocking that she should have given in to such, as she often characterized it, weakness. She would have liked to believe that she was made of sterner stuff than that, though she supposed one’s wedding day, unorthodox as it had been, could be an appropriate date for such a deviation from form. “And I can assure you, my lord, that I will not do so again. It must have been the exhaustion of travel that finally overtook me. I can think of no other reason for it.”
