When You Wish Upon a Duke Read online

  Charlotte nodded quickly. “He was most kind to me when were alone together at Mrs. Cartwright’s, and when he kissed me—”

  “He did kiss you, then?” Mama asked tentatively. “It wasn’t an invention of the papers?”

  Charlotte blushed, and she looked down. “He did, and it was—it was very nice. He is very nice. But Mama, what I wish for, what I hope for, is to be happy and in love as you and Father were, and—and I do not know how to make that happen.”

  “Because you can’t force love to happen, Charlotte,” Mama said gently. “Love grows on its own, like the prettiest of weeds. You cannot predict where it will sprout, or even if it will. But if you nurture it with trust and respect, it will grow, and prosper. So it was between your darling father and me. Our match was arranged, too, and I was even younger than you when I wed, and oh, I was frightened of being a countess!”

  “You were?” Charlotte asked. She remembered her parents as being so inseparable that it was hard to realize they hadn’t always known each other.

  “Oh, yes,” Mama said. “I nearly fainted clear away at our wedding. But before long your father and I realized we suited each other quite well. We fell in love and stayed in love, and so I pray it will be for you and His Grace.”

  Though Mama’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, she smiled, and her face seemed to soften and grow younger as she spoke of Father. To Charlotte’s wonder, she glimpsed her mother not as she was now, but as she must have been long ago as a bride herself. She’d thought her parents had always loved each other, because that was how she remembered them. But now it seemed that they’d had to fall in love like anyone else. It was a wondrous, encouraging realization.

  “I do believe His Grace likes me already, Mama,” Charlotte said shyly. “Why else would he have come clear to town and followed me to Mrs. Cartwright’s shop?”

  Mama’s smile widened. “More important, why else would he have braved your aunt to do so?”

  “He called her a dragon, Mama,” Charlotte whispered, lowering her voice even though her aunt was far from hearing. “I wanted to laugh when he did.”

  “You should have,” Mama said, laughing now. “Because he is completely right. She is a dragon.”

  Her laughter faded, her expression growing more serious again. She took Charlotte’s face in her hands, so tenderly that tears welled in Charlotte’s eyes. Mama was right: once Charlotte wed March, her loyalty must shift from her family to him. Her family would return to Ransom Manor, and future moments like this with her mother would be rare indeed.

  “My own darling daughter,” Mama said. “How I will miss you! Yet I believe in my heart that His Grace will be the right gentleman for you. Be your own dear, sweet self, and how can he not love you?”

  “And I will love him, Mama,” Charlotte said, promising herself as well as her mother. When she and March took their wedding vows, she knew she’d have to swear to that, as well as a great many other serious things, but she was certain that loving him would be the easiest vow to keep.

  “In time, sweet, in time,” Mama cautioned. “You can’t force love, no matter how much you wish to.”

  Tears welled up again in Charlotte’s eyes. “What if it doesn’t grow as you say?”

  “It will,” her mother said softly. “I don’t doubt it. And once you love him, and he loves you, then you will be happy. You will. And that, Charlotte, is the very best I can wish for you both.”

  “Rain,” March said with disgust. “Can you believe this, Breck? I cannot recall the last day that it rained, and now see how it pours down for us today.”

  Brecon stood with him at the small arched windows, watching the rain stream from St. Paul’s porches and splatter and puddle on the paving stones. They were waiting in a small vestryman’s room beside the Morning Chapel, where the wedding would take place as soon as the bride’s party arrived. They were not late; it was March who was early, as was often his habit. Usually he preferred arriving first, but today, standing here dressed in a blue silk suit in the late afternoon, waiting for the others only made his restlessness grow, ratcheting higher with every passing second.

  “Be easy, March,” Brecon said, handing him a glass of the Madeira that had been thoughtfully left on the sideboard for calming the groom. “There are plenty of folk who believe that rain on a wedding day only augurs the best. Love, happiness, fertility, and all the rest come dripping from the clouds upon you.”

  “Pox on your augurs.” March emptied the glass, wishing at once that the Madeira weren’t so cloyingly sweet. He’d had no appetite for dinner, and the wine on his empty stomach was not pleasing. That was all he needed, to be violently ill as he took his vows. “You would say something inane like that.”

  “I would,” Brecon said mildly. “That is my role here today. To keep your spirits up by pouring more down your throat. Consider this, cousin. If you must play Noah, then at least you’ll leave St. Paul’s with Mrs. Noah.”

  “The woman must have a name.” March smoothed the sleeves of his jacket, tugging the ruffled cuffs of his shirt free, then decided they hung too low over his hands and stuffed the cuffs back in. At least his shoulder had improved, so he’d been able to abandon the sling. “You cannot call her Mrs. Noah. Could there be a worse omen than that for the day?”

  Brecon tipped his head to one side, thinking.

  “I do not believe I know the lady’s name. How curious.” He leaned around the corner to call to the bishop and the two other clerics who were likewise waiting respectfully for the bride. “Tell us, gentlemen. What is the given name of old Noah’s wife?”

  The minister bowed. “I regret to disappoint you, Your Grace, but the Bible never gives the name of Noah’s wife. It remains a mystery.”

  “Ah, well, cousin, there you have it,” Brecon announced grandly, as if March weren’t standing only a half dozen paces away. “Noah’s wife remains Mrs. Noah, with nothing beyond that. Pity. Can’t see your lady standing for that, though she’ll have nothing to complain of now. ‘Charlotte Wylder FitzCharles, Duchess of Marchbourne’ is name enough for any woman.”

  March ignored him and turned back to the window. He wasn’t particularly given to superstitions, but all this empty talk of what was lucky and what wasn’t was making him think too much of good fortune and ill, and when he caught himself wondering if there’d been rain on his parents’ wedding day, he knew it was time to steer his thoughts in a more practical direction.

  “At least the rain has discouraged most of the gawkers,” he said to no one in particular as he stared from the window. “I trust the men we’ve hired will keep the ones who have come at a distance.”

  Groups of soggy onlookers huddled beneath the porches, but the crushing crowds he’d feared had stayed away. Even with such short notice, the papers had seized upon the wedding, and had reported every morsel of news they could learn and had invented many more with a panting eagerness that had appalled March.

  Still, though he didn’t like the attention, he understood it. The English adored any kind of wedding, especially the wedding of a duke descended from a much-loved king. There’d also been all manner of claptrap invented about Charlotte, practically turning her into a fairy-tale heroine raised in a tower by the sea. It was nonsense, and it was … distasteful. The sooner he and Charlotte were decently made man and wife without the rest of the world peering at their every move, the better.

  Restlessly he once again pulled his watch from his pocket, stunned that only five more minutes had crept past since he’d last checked the time.

  “She’s here, cousin,” Brecon said quietly beside him. “Are you ready?”

  March jerked to attention. “How can that be? I’ve not seen their carriage.”

  Brecon smiled. “Do you truly think we’d let you see your lady before the ceremony? Her party’s come by the other door.”

  March felt an odd little lurch in his chest. “Have you seen her, then?”

  Breck’s smile widened. “I have, briefly. She
’s absolutely beautiful. Terrified, too.”

  “Terrified?” March repeated. “Why should she be terrified of me?”

  “Not you,” Brecon said, critically straightening the front of March’s coat. “Rather, I suspect she’s afraid of the same thing that’s frightening you as well: the knowledge that you’re soon to be joined for life to another you scarcely know.”

  March groaned. “If that’s your notion of comforting support—”

  “I’m merely reminding you, March, that you and Lady Charlotte are in exactly the same situation.” He gave March’s shoulder a final, fond pat. “Be kind to her, cousin, especially tonight. Never forget that she’s a lady. She’s very young, true, and gently bred, but if you’re kind, she’ll make you happy. That’s the best advice I can offer you. Now come. You don’t wish to make Lady Charlotte wait, do you?”

  March nodded briskly, tamping down a curious mix of excitement, anticipation, eagerness, and, yes, a bit of fear. He had never been an officer, but surely this must be what military men felt before they went into battle. And if all this was roiling through him now, what could Charlotte be feeling? She was so young, not far from the schoolroom, really. Brecon was right. She would need him to support her through this day, and he squared his shoulders in preparation.

  There was no denying it now. He was ready to become a married man.

  With Brecon beside him, he entered the chapel behind the three clergymen, their black and white vestments billowing around them. The wedding was not a grand, princely affair. No flowers, singers, orchestra, or scores of guests, but instead a small ceremony with only family for witnesses. March had Brecon beside him and no others because, quite simply, he’d no one else left in his family.

  He had chosen the Morning Chapel for both its privacy and its size, tucked away as it was from the main nave of St. Paul’s. The dark polished wood of the pews and wainscoting were an elegant backdrop to the red and purple silk hangings and cushions, a most sumptuous setting by the light of the candles.

  As he took his place at the rail, he couldn’t help but glance up. If it had been a fair day, the afternoon sun would have been streaming down upon him and Charlotte through the tall arched window, something he’d anticipated as a sort of natural blessing. But the dark clouds overhead had put an end to that hope, the rain drumming against the glass, and steadfastly he tried to think of it more as an inconvenience than as one more inauspicious omen.

  No, he’d make luck enough for him and Charlotte together. He heard a door close, and he turned eagerly.

  And there, at last, she was.

  She stood at the entry, surrounded by a flurry of women—her mother, her aunt, her sisters—who, like ghosts, left only the vaguest of impressions. There’d be no grand procession, and once she was ready, she was to join him here at the rail with her little flock of family.

  She was still fussing with her gown, smoothing her skirts after they’d taken away her cloak, and perhaps shaking away a few drops of rain. Her hooped gown of silver silk shimmered as she moved, the skirts dabbled with some manner of sparkling stones and loops of silver ribbon and drifts of lace falling from the sleeves. Her waist seemed impossibly small by contrast, and as she bent forward he’d a heady glimpse of her breasts, pushed up above the gown’s low neckline. She wore a fine lace kerchief pinned to the back of her hair, and through it glinted more sparkles in her hair, or maybe it was only more raindrops. He was glad they hadn’t powdered her hair to follow fashion; he remembered how soft those thick dark waves had been to touch.

  She straightened, visibly trying to compose herself with her eyes downcast and her hands clasped at her waist, the way every lady stands. But even that well-practiced gesture couldn’t calm her: her fingers failed to link smoothly, missing first, then tangling and fumbling before she finally pressed them together.

  March’s sympathy went out to her at once. Brecon was right. She was frightened. She hadn’t yet dared look his way, though surely she must know he was there. Finally she took a deep breath—how base he felt that he noticed how her breasts rose and fell!—and raised her gaze to meet his.

  Her eyes were enormous in her pale face, as blue and fathomless as the sea. In them he saw her fear and uncertainty, but he also saw courage and determination. Most startling of all to him, however, was the hope that he saw there, too, and that was what won him completely.

  Ignoring the instructions that had been given to him, he went striding down the short aisle to her. He didn’t care at all about what was proper for a marriage in St. Paul’s, but he cared very much about her, and he did not want to see her alone any longer. They’d do this together, just as they’d go through the rest of their lives together.

  Startled, she barely remembered to sink low in a curtsey before he reached her, the sparkling silk of her gown making the softest shush around her. It would, he realized, be the last time she’d need curtsey to him, for as soon as they were wed, she’d be a duchess, and his equal.

  He couldn’t wait. He grasped her hand and lifted her up. She was dazzling, and it had nothing to do with her silver gown or the glinting stones in her hair.

  He smiled, unable to help himself. “Does it still rain, Lady Charlotte?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she answered, a charming tremor in her voice. “Though the shower did seem to be lessening as we left the carriage.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad. We’ve had enough rain this day, haven’t we?”

  “Oh, yes.” She smiled, and he forgot everything else.

  “March,” Brecon said behind him. “Please.”

  That was reminder enough. As if he’d planned it all along, he led Charlotte to stand before the bishop. Brecon stood at his side, and Charlotte’s family gathered at hers, as witnesses should. He had a slight awareness of Lady Sanborn looking serious and faintly disapproving, Lady Wylder weeping into her handkerchief, and the two younger ladies—he’d have to learn their names—staring at him as curiously as if he’d grown an extra head.

  For all he knew, he had. He could concentrate on nothing but Charlotte beside him: the little wisps of curls along her nape that the rain had coaxed free, the length of her lashes over her cheek, the sweet pout of her lower lip, the way her fingers were holding tightly to his as if she never wished to let go. He barely heard the bishop as he began reading the ceremony, and only judicious prodding from Brecon produced his responses at the proper time. Since there had been no betrothal ceremony, he had decided to use the diamond cluster ring as her wedding ring, and when he drew it from his pocket and slipped it on her finger, he’d been rewarded with a definite gasp. It also fit as if it had been made for her, which, at last on this day, he saw as a favorable omen.

  But as March knelt beside her on the purple velvet cushions and listened to the bishop’s final beneficent blessings, the significance of those blessings struck him with all their awful force. Charlotte was not only his wife but also his responsibility. He knew he was supposed to love her, which he’d every intention of doing, and to give her children, which he expected to be enjoyable, too.

  But for the sake of their marriage, he was also bound to guide her, keep her from harm, and generally make sure she did her best to be a good wife as well as a good duchess. He thought once again of his parents, and how seldom they had been in each other’s company. Would they have been happier if his father had heeded the words of their marriage vows and taken more care watching over his mother? Was it his father’s fault that their marriage had been so thoroughly miserable?

  There was no way of knowing now, of course, not with both of them long dead. But March wasn’t going to take that risk with Charlotte. He would do whatever he must to preserve their happiness—for her sake, and for his.

  “You may now kiss your bride, Your Grace,” the bishop said, his smile jovial.

  Charlotte blushed, as every bride is supposed to do, and chuckled as she offered her lips to his. Gently he pulled her close and she curled her arms around his shoulders. He kissed her
, long and well, and perhaps with more passion than was proper for St. Paul’s, but not for his new wife.

  “Oh, March,” she whispered, her blue eyes shining. “I’m so vastly happy!”

  So vastly happy: that was right, he thought, that was how it should be, and with equal happiness he tucked her little hand into the crook of his arm.

  At once her family seemed to swarm around them, a mass of females and their rustling, perfumed finery. Lady Hervey managed to weep and smile at the same time; Lady Sanborn smiled, too, in her usual disapproving, dragonlike fashion; and the two sisters bounced about in there as well. They congratulated him, and marveled over Charlotte’s ring. They all kissed him, and he kissed each offered cheek. Brecon was laughing merrily, and kissing the women as well, because he could. One of the sisters stepped forward and bobbed a quick curtsey as she handed Charlotte a posy of white flowers. He hadn’t considered that while Charlotte need no longer curtsey to him, her family must now curtsey to her.

  “Congratulations, Your Grace,” Lady Sanborn said with a tartness that struck him as wildly inappropriate. “You’ve become a member of our family now.”

  “That’s true,” he said mildly. For Charlotte’s sake, he wouldn’t let the dragon annoy him. “Just as the duchess is now part of mine.”

  He smiled, thinking of how fine that sounded, and drew Charlotte a little closer to him.

  “Yes, yes,” Lady Sanborn continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You and the duchess will return to St. James’s Square with us to dine, of course. Nothing elaborate, a small collation for the family.”

  His smile vanished. He wished she would cease reminding him that they were now related. And the last thing he wished was to return Charlotte to her aunt’s house, bringing her back like some sort of faulty goods. This was their wedding day, and besides, he wished nothing more than to be finally alone with her.