Page 16 of My One and Only Duke
Davies was at the awkward age when boyhood refused to entirely part with the emerging man. His voice hadn’t settled, his muscles hadn’t caught up with his bones, and he hadn’t learned to hide his emotions.
Though he was trying. Pity lurked in his pale blue eyes, for all he smiled at Jane and offered his arm.
The polite gesture was ridiculous, as was Davies’s compliment. Jane had sewn this dress in haste, hoping against all the evidence that she’d never need it.
“Come along, Ned,” Jane said. “Mr. Wentworth will expect you to join us.”
Papa was elsewhere in the prison this morning, thank goodness, likely hearing the confession of somebody bound for New South Wales. Penny, one of the whores, had told Jane that Mr. Wentworth would be the only convict sent to his reward on Monday.
The thought was horrid. In the abstract, capital punishment brought a violent symmetry to justice. A life for a life. All good Christians ought to consider that approach outdated, but on a human level, the formula was logical. When the execution involved a man who fed wild birds and arranged for a child to regain his liberty, the logic failed.
There was good in Mr. Wentworth. There might have been a murderous impulse, a bad moment, a misjudgment, but there was also good.
“Miss Winston,” Mr. Wentworth said, bowing when Jane entered his quarters. “Any second thoughts?”
He was resplendent in morning attire, which must have cost him significantly. The fine tailoring turned blinding good looks into male perfection, and—most perfect of all—he seemed unaware of his own attractiveness.
“No second thoughts, Mr. Wentworth.” Jane had misgivings, doubts, and regrets in quantity, but she and her child needed to eat.
He extended a hand to her. “May I introduce Mr. Perkins? He has the honor of joining us in holy matrimony. Davies and Penny have agreed to stand as witnesses. We’ve room for a few more, if you’d like any other guests to join us.”
His tone skirted the edge between jocular and ironic, and his grip on Jane’s hand was warm.
That grip was all that prevented her from fleeing. She’d married Gordie in haste, and within months, Gordie had died. At least in this case, Mr. Wentworth’s fate was a foregone conclusion rather than a damnable surprise. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
“Sophie and Susie would enjoy the ceremony,” Jane said. They were good women, doing what they could to keep the children safe and to look after the older inmates. What they did for the guards was none of Jane’s business.
“Ned, if you’d usher the ladies here?”
Ned took off like one of the birds stealing crumbs from the windowsill.
The minister offered Jane an awkward greeting, then went back to paging through his prayer book. The cat sat upon the bed, looking the most dignified of anybody present, and a crow strutted back and forth on the windowsill.
“Not what you envisioned when your girlish fancies turned to marriage, is it?” Mr. Wentworth asked.
“Nor you,” Jane replied, “when you thought about taking a bride.”
When Susie and Sophie crowded in behind Ned, Penny, Davies, and the preacher, the ceremony got under way. The words were beautiful, or would have been had not Mr. Perkins been in such a great rush. Midway through Jane’s vows, a commotion erupted behind the witnesses.
“Jane Hester Winston, what is the meaning of this?”
Papa had used his Wrath of God voice, of course, and genuine consternation shone in his eyes. Had he been merely raging, Jane might have stood firm, but that doubt, that glimmer of fear, had her slipping her hand from Mr. Wentworth’s.
Jane was half-turned toward the door—whether to flee the premises or cast up her accounts in the common, she could not have said—when the groom spoke up.
“Reverend Winston, I am so glad you could join us. The circumstances are unusual, but a father’s presence at a wedding is always welcome.”
Mr. Wentworth’s fingers closed around Jane’s hand as Papa’s outrage faltered.
“A wedding? To you?”
“In order that I might leave your daughter provided for, and minimally ease the conscience of a man soon to face his Maker.”
Provided for—that mattered. That did matter a very great deal. Jane studied the carpet, which bore a worn pattern of peacocks and doves amid lotus blossoms.
“Shall we proceed?” Perkins asked.
“No you shall not!” Papa thundered. “This is beyond irregular, and I see plainly that my daughter is again failing to heed the guidance of a loving parent. The minds of women are easily disordered, and I have no doubt this scoundrel, this murderer, this, this—”
