Page 12 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars
And her parents—she looked at the grim resolution etched on her father’s features, the distress on her mother’s pale face. And worst of all, the man who was waiting for her at the altar.
Even if they called him a monster, he would still bear the humiliation of having his wife flee from him at his own wedding.
Theresa could not see his face through her tears, but she could make out the proud set of his shoulders. The rigid way he held himself before man and God.
He, too, had been forced into this union by a mere slip of paper.
He was every bit a victim of circumstance as she was.
She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. “I will do it. I will marry the Duke.”
Her father stiffened. Her mother looked at her with relief.
Theresa took one step closer to the altar.
CHAPTER 5
Merciful Lord!
Aaron had not prayed or sought divine assistance in a long time, but it was his first and foremost reaction at his bride’s entrance.
That, and a little stumble backward that hopefully did not catch the eye of anyone else in attendance.
Extravagance had nothing on the daughter of the Marquess of Wyndham. He was not even certain there was awomanunderneath all ofthat.
Untilitstarted walking down the aisle toward him, that is. Like a horrendous, silvery heap of silk, lace, pearls, and all sorts of dazzling things in between.
He clenched his teeth and stood his ground. He had not run from battle before. Not even when he was surrounded on all sides, or when the searing heat of cannon fire had torn his flesh.
Aaron had known that the tastes of the aristocracy tended to run to the extreme, but he had not expected his bride to arrive swathed in an atrocity of fabric and jewels. If she had hoped to dazzle him, then she had achieved it, although for a much different reason than she might have hoped.
When he first woke up to the inexplicable grotesqueness of his injuries, he had not thought it possible that he would ever encounter anything as revolting as his own appearance. Or that he would be marrying his bride in it.
Now, it would appear that he was mistaken. Grossly so.
Apparently, the heavens enjoyed making a mockery of him at every turn.
Well, it seems that we are quite evenly matched, after all.
Except he was mistaken yet again.
His wife drew nearer, and he sucked in a harsh breath, his eyes narrowing as he focused onherfor the first time. Tried to see through the blinding lace monstrosity that was her veil. Squinted really hard…
It’s her.
The little nun from the forest. The only one who ever looked at himand did not see the hideousness of his appearance.
The realization hit him with a force enough to rival the cannon fire that ripped his flesh apart.
He would know her anywhere. Once he looked past that horror of silk, lace, and the ungodly amount of pearls and beads they had thrown all over her, he recognized her at once.
He knew her, he realized, even as she walked stiltedly toward him, dragging her heels at the beginning, and then—as if she had resigned herself to her fate—with more certainty as she took the last few steps toward him.
He knew it as certainly as he knew the reaction of his body to hers—and it was not a particularly appropriate reaction to be having in a chapel, before a man of God and at least a hundred guests.
Not that he cared for either of them.
“Your Grace.”
