Marriage to a Mister (A Daughters of Regency #1) (15 page)

"Yes, Miss, I'll try to find blue ones to match your dress. Oh, you look so beautiful, if you do not mind me saying so. Your betrothed will faint dead away when he sees you."

"We can only hope ..." Julia muttered.

Fleur looked long at her sister while Mary left. Julia looked lightly cowed, but Fleur knew it would not last long.

"Really, Julia, will you stop being so dramatic and sit down? My nerves are simply shattered between the pair of you."

Julia sat down beside Fleur, looking her straight in the eye. "Because you know this is madness. Fleur, please, for the last time, do not do this."
 

Fleur sighed, gripping Julia's hands. "You are the best sister, did you know? You are absolutely lovely and I love you, Julia, but you are going to have to let me go. I
want
to be married and have children. I
want
the country estate with the dogs and barn cats. Everything, I want it all. I want
thi
s. What are you so frightened of? You knew one day I would marry."

"Yes, but this is all so sudden, and he is so disagreeable. I cannot like him after his behavior towards you."

"Cannot or will not?" Fleur asked, reaching to push a stray piece of ebony hair behind Julia's ear.
 

"Both. He is a —"

"He is a perfectly respectable man, even with his ... shall we say ... quirks?" Fleur smiled.

"Quirks? He's a menace. I wish it were Edward. Your life with him would have been so much easier."

"Yes, it would have been," said Fleur, thinking how life with Edward would have been perfectly polite and ordered, though never passionate and never challenging. "I know this is going to sound strange to you, Julia, but when I agreed to marry Edward something in me realized that while I do want a home and family, I don't wish to settle. I don't want a lukewarm marriage with someone I cannot speak to above the day's comings and goings and the weather. I think ... I think I shall be happier with Evan. I know I will."

Julia threw her hands in the air. "Now I know you're raving."

Fleur shook her head. "No," she laughed. "Listen to me, please. With Evan I can be myself. I'll be able to run the house the way I want. I'll be able to raise and perhaps even school my own children before they need tutors or go off to school. There will be fewer appearances to keep up and fewer social calls to make. As the wife of a viscount and future earl I'd have all sorts of obligations, but as Mrs. Woolf I'm so much more ... free. Free to have a loud and boisterous home in the country and not have to be watched at every move. Evan hates society as much as I do."

"Oh," said Julia.

"And Julia, it's Evan, my Evan. I know he can be horrible, but, he's just ... Evan. The boy that once carried me home because I fell and scraped my knee. The young man that once went shop to shop in the freezing rain all to acquire a book in town that he knew I wanted. I do not know why you have never acknowledged him, Julia, or how can I convince you of it? He can be very giving too."

"No, I think you have been quite convincing." Julia said, a bit put out. "My, my, Fleur, careful, or you will find yourself in love with your husband, which isn't the thing at all."

Fleur grabbed a cushion from the settee and pitched it at Julia, who stared, wide-eyed and shocked.

"See, he is a bad influence already."

They laughed as they waited for the others to arrive. Fleur was nervous but also excited. She did not know what life would be like as Mrs. Woolf, but the though still excited her.

***

Evan and Nathan arrived at Lord Norfield's home and were ushered inside to the drawing room. Evan paced the floor, his nerves on edge. "What is taking so long?"

"In a hurry to be leg-shackled?" Nathan teased.

Even stopped in his tracks and leveled Nathan with a glare. "It is just strange, is all. Why was not one person here to greet us? Why are we being shuffled away in here?"

"Who knows? We are earlier than the others, which is only natural seeing as you are the groom. I'm sure your family will be here soon."

"I do not like waiting," Evan groused.

Nathan rubbed his temples. "You do not
like
anything."
 

Evan threw his hand in the air, his other already in his hair as he made his way to the door.

Alarmed, Nathan followed him. "Where are you going?"
 

"To see what is happening out there," Evan said slowly, as if talking to a child. He opened the double doors and walked outside, Nathan close behind.

"Evan," he tried to whisper, but was ignored. "Evan, we should not be —"

"Do you hear voices coming from that room over there?" he asked, walking on.

"Perhaps," Nathan said, saying nothing else, not wanting to further encourage his friend.

"Who do you think is in there?" Evan eyed the room like he wanted to storm it.

"Probably just the servants, setting up for the guests, you know. Evan?" Nathan jolted when Evan started walking towards the room. "Get back here!" He tried to shout, but it came out in a strangled whisper.

Evan stopped short of the door a few yards and whipped around, annoyed. "What is the matter with you?"

Nathan looked at Evan. His friend really was unbelievable. "What is the matter with me is that I am not accustomed to sneaking around other people's homes."

"Sneaking? We're not sneaking, just trying to find out where everyone is, and lower your voice."

He started walking again only to be nearly knocked over by a maid exiting the room hastily.
 

"Oh! I'm sorry, sir,"

"That is quite all right," Nathan said, trying to put the nervous girl at ease. "We were standing in the doorway, precarious place to be, is it not?"

She laughed and nodded. "May I help you, sirs?"

"No," Nathan said.

"Yes," Evan corrected.

The maid looked from Nathan to Evan, her mouth opening and then closing. "We heard voices," Evan supplied. "From this room, we wondered if the other guests had arrived?"

"Oh, I see. That would only be Lady Fleur and Lady Julia, sir. As far as I know you are the only guests to arrive. Begging your pardon, sirs, if I seem too bold, but are you guests of the groom?"

"Yes, we are, ah ... cousins of his," Evan said. "We will just go back to the library and wait for the rest of the party to arrive."

The maid curtsied and bustled off upstairs. Nathan stared at Evan until he started to shuffle uncomfortably under his gaze. "Why did you lie to the girl?"

Evan made an impatient noise. "Because if she knew I was the groom she would have insisted on either announcing me to Lady Fleur or would have continued on with her questions. She looked like a prattler, that one."

"Hmm," was all Nathan said while Evan walked slowly, edging closer to the room.

"Do I even want to know what we are doing now?" Nathan asked wearily.

"Shush," he said, waving his hand at Nathan and moving his head closer to the door.

"Oh no, I will not stand here while you eavesdrop on their conversation. It is completely —"

"Nathan, be quiet," Evan whispered.

"This is completely immoral, not to mention ungentlemanly and —"

Evan clapped a hand over Nathan's mouth. The two struggled, one to keep his hold, the other to shrug him off. Nathan won when Evan whipped his wet hand away, wiping it on his pants hastily.

"You disgust me, Carter," Evan whispered angrily.

Nathan waggled his eyebrows. Both stiffened when they heard voices inside.

"Yes, but, this is all so sudden. And he is so disagreeable. I cannot like him ..."

Evan blanched. "Is that —"

"That was Julia, Evan, I would know that bite anywhere."

Evan nodded. "Perhaps we should go," he whispered.

"Yes," Nathan agreed.
 

Neither of them moved.

"I wish it were Edward, your life with him would have been so much easier."

"Yes, it would have been ..."

Evan slowly moved his head from the doorway.

"Evan, you ..." Nathan faltered, unsure of what he wanted to say.

"Don't try to comfort me, Nathan, besides, I am sure I am quite difficult to live with," he laughed, trying to hide his hurt. "My mother has said so for many years."

Evan felt the full effect of embarrassment come over him as he remembered his actions and feelings earlier that morning. He could not believe he had gotten so carried away.

"Come on, let us return and wait for the others," said Nathan, not wanting to watch his friend flounder in the hallway any longer. "All she needs is time, my friend. Marriage is an adjustment for all, not just men you know."

Evan nodded and followed Nathan to the library, not quite as optimistic as he had been that morning. Any hope he had of Fleur returning his feelings at this point was lost to him, and he felt like any and all visions he had ever conjured of the future, both when he was young and now, were cast out of his reach forever.

***

Evan stood at the end of the music room with Nathan. There he waited, leaning upon the fireplace mantle with his chin in his hand, wondering where his mother had taken Fleur and her father, sure she was hiding them from his sight until the moment of their vows.
 

He then looked over and saw Julia, standing to his left, waiting to attend her sister, and maybe even more impatient than he. Their eyes connected and she smirked, turning her head towards the door, ignoring him.
The little imp
, he thought.

He shook his head while rubbing his jaw, then raised off the fireplace. "What could be keeping them?" he asked Nathan. "The vicar looks restless. Half an hour has passed since he arrived."

Nathan took the watch out of his pocket and glanced at the time. "Nonsense, a quarter at most, stop fidgeting."

"I most certainly am
not
fidgeting."

"Quite right," said Nathan. "It is only your wedding day, why would you fidget?"

"One day it will be your turn, then I will ..."

Evan trailed off and quickly turned when he heard the door. "Is it she? Are they here?" he asked.

His mother walked in and silently closed the door behind her, she glided up the provisional aisle and took her seat next to his father.

"No, not fidgety at all," Nathan teased.

"I heartily dislike you."

"You adore me. Look, the door is opening, I think it is they."

Evan held his breath as the door creaked open. A footman passed through to open the double doors and soft music, he did not know — nor care — whence it came, played.
 

Then he saw her, on the arm of her father in a dress of soft blue with a deep cerulean ribbon in her hair. She looked so small next to him, so lovely. He knew that somehow he had finally attained the one happiness he thought would forever be beyond his reach, and in that moment, he was terrified.

Somehow by some random chance of what some would call a disaster, he was going to finally have her, and he promised her father that he would make her happy. Only he did not know how he was to accomplish it.

He scarcely noted the vicar moving into place as she made her way toward him, and when she stopped and looked at him, smile slightly faltering as she looked him in the eyes, he drew a shaky breath.

The vicar cleared his throat and the room quieted. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony ..."

Fleur listened to the droning voice of the vicar and found it soothing, all she had to do was concentrate on his voice, not the stonefaced look Evan was giving her that very moment. She expected to be nervous, but she felt ... she could not name it, as she was unsure.

Her father was there, beside her, and Madeleine and Julia. Everyone she had ever cared for or loved as family was there with them. Calm settled within her.

"Evander Charles Woolf, 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, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

He looked at her, never removing his eyes from her own. He didn't waver. "I will."

"Fleur Marianne Osborne, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"

Her father rubbed the back of her hand, a loving, reassuring gesture. She loved him for it. "I will."

"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"

Julian handed her forward, the vicar taking her hand and placing it inside of Evan's, holding them there, together.
She listened as he spoke his vows to her, waiting to vow herself to him in return.
 

"I, Evander Charles Woolf, take thee, Fleur Marianne Osborne, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth."

They released each other for a moment and then she took his hand again, this time holding onto him. She felt him trace his thumb down the back of her hand, the same gesture her father had made only moments before, but one that felt so different. She gathered the courage to look up at him, those same dark eyes she'd always known.

"I,
Fleur Marianne Osborne, take thee, Evander Charles Woolf, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth."

She watched as the vicar handed him the ring, and she felt him take her left hand into his, placing the ring on her fingertip while he spoke to her.