Page 10 of Duke in Darkness

“Your father is waiting across the hall to walk you down the aisle.”

Minutes later, they were on their way.

LANGTON’S CHAPEL, located within Lambeth Palace, was a truly spectacular building in London, with beautiful stained glass windows that fortunately allowed in a lot of light. In contrast, he loathed the black and white checkered marble floor, looking at it for any length of time would give anyone vertigo.

Grimacing, Gabriel looked around the chapel. There were only a few guests here, although as the Jordan-Ives family were still officially in mourning, hardly unexceptional. Actually, he was vastly relieved that he wouldn’t have a large audience for this ceremony. Marriage should be personal. Private. Not a damned bloody marching band parade like some peers expected. If they were so desperate to prove their status or wealth, there were plenty of better ways, like donating to charity. Not to mention that the fewer people who saw him struggling to stand or speak, the better.

“Good morning, Your Grace. All ready?”

He turned and smiled at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton. The slender and affable archbishop was the grandson of a duke himself, and Gabriel had found him to be intelligent, hospitable, and admirably resolute in his desire to assist the poor and needy, unlike many churchmen who came from wealth. No wonder the queen, and Prime Minister Liverpool, trusted him with important matters. “Archbishop. You look well. And yes, ready…as I’ll ever be.”

“Lady Lilian and his lordship will be here momentarily, I understand just a little last minute hem adjustment.”

More relief than he thought possible shot through him. “Good start. Bride actually here. And thank you for allowing…the vows to be read line by line.”

The archbishop nodded as he lovingly patted the large open Bible on the pulpit. “No trouble at all. In unique circumstances such as yours, a little flexibility is the least I can do. Now, I hate to be indelicate, but how is your foot faring?”

Gabriel gave the man a rueful smile. “Only for your ears…I’ll say rather tender. It doesn’t do so well…when the season is changing.”

“Understood. I shall ensure my sermon errs on the side of brevity…ah, I see Kingsford. No fashionably late bride today, thankfully.”

Gabriel turned to watch Lilian walk toward him on her father’s arm. She looked beautiful if rather tense, dressed in a high-necked pale blue gown with a fine overlay of some sort of lace. After the little glimpse of passion he’d witnessed at their balcony meeting, he found it hard to believe the overly modest gowns were her choice, but they could be. He’d have to wait until the evening to discover what kind of figure lay hidden beneath.

When the pair stood next to him in front of the pulpit, Lord Kingsford formally placed Lilian’s hand in his, then moved to take a seat next to his mother.

This was it.

The archbishop welcomed them all and began his sermon on the sanctity of marriage. As his words filled the chapel, a tiny shimmy of movement made Gabriel glance down. Lilian, trembling. He gently rubbed his thumb over her too-cold knuckles, and she smiled shyly as she discreetly squeezed his hand in return. There. Again the hint that a quite different woman might exist under the awful gowns and rigid manners.

As promised, the sermon was blessedly short, and soon came time to recite the vows, although it passed in rather a blur as he concentrated fiercely on forming the words to speak.

“And you, Gabriel Arthur Jordan-Ives, Duke of Exton,” intoned the archbishop, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

His ‘I will’ sounded fine, but a thin layer of perspiration gathered at his neck at the recitation to come. And his bloody foot had begun to throb.

Manners-Sutton gave him a quick, encouraging smile and continued the ceremony until finally it came time for the exchange of rings. “Please repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed…”

Gabriel lifted Lilian’s left hand and slid the plain gold band onto her third finger. “With this ring…I thee wed.”

“With my body I thee worship…”

Any second now he would be struck down by a heavenly bolt of lightning for the explicit thoughts now flooding his mind. Tonight. She would be all his, tonight. “With my body,” he said gruffly, and Lilian’s cheeks pinkened, “I thee worship.”

“And with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

“And with all…my worldly goods…I thee…endow,” Gabriel finished awkwardly, wanting to curse his uncooperative mouth as his scar ached and pulled. He sounded like a drunken fool, and Lilian’s expression had turned quizzical.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Gabriel took a deep breath, but his heart started racing as the start of a vicious cramp seized up his maimed foot and the back of his calf. “In the name…of the Father…and of…the Son…and of the…Holy Ghost. Amen.”

After one final prayer and a blessing, Lilian was his wife. His duchess. Yet he couldn’t even enjoy the moment, as he battled to remain upright and not let his leg buckle under him as it occasionally did.

One step. Two. Nod. Smile. Shake hands. Don’t stumble. Don’t wince. Three steps. Four. Five. Don’t look at the damned floor, or you will fall over. Breathe through the pain. Breathe!

“Exton? Are you well?”

He stared down at Lilian, hoping he didn’t look as forbidding as he felt. If they could just move away from the witnesses, and the bloody lawyers seated at the back. Pain was bad enough, but pain in front of an audience, goddamned unbearable. It reminded him too much of those dark, dark days in France. “Quite well.”