The Wedding
So this was love.
Whoever would have thought plain, awkward, eccentric Beatrice Chaswell would ever find such bliss? she thought as she heaved a giddy sigh.
No, no, she silently chastised herself. Not Beatrice Chaswell, but Countess of Faulconer, wife to the Earl of Faulconer.
Perhaps it was not so strange that she found it difficult to think of herself in such a title. She had barely been married two hours. And with her whirlwind courtship there had been little time before her marriage to actually consider anything beyond the immediate needs of acquiring a trousseau, calling the banns, and attending to the hundred and one details required for a wedding of such large proportions.
She still could not truly believe her incredible luck. Fairy tales happened to lovely, charming vixens who knew how to bewitch gentlemen with a smile. Not plodding, shy maidens who were far too plump for fashion and preferred pottering about her grandfather’s workshop to dancing the waltz.
Gabriel was quite simply something out of her dreams.
Handsome, charming, witty, and heartbreakingly kind. He never made her feel clumsy or ugly. Never grimaced when she managed to wrinkle her gown or say something foolish in front of society. In truth, he was the only gentleman who had ever taken the effort to truly understand her.
He was her friend.
And soon he would be her lover.
That delicious thought made Beatrice impatiently glance around the elegant salon still crowded with her parents’ guests. She would have far preferred a quiet ceremony with only a few close friends, but she had not had the heart to dampen her mother’s enthusiasm. After three and a half seasons of watching her daughter suffer the embarrassment of being a perennial wallflower, Mrs. Chaswell had wanted to crow to the world that Beatrice had not only managed to land a husband, but a titled one at that. And for once her suitor’s interest had not been firmly settled on the large inheritance that would one day be hers.
But now the ceremony was over and Beatrice had more than done her duty. All she wanted was to be alone with the gentleman who had made her believe in happily-ever-after.
The gentleman who had stolen her heart and changed her life forever.
Floating upon a cloud of euphoria, Beatrice began to weave her way through the babbling crowd, barely noting the envious glances and pointed stares at her waistline. She no longer had to concern herself with her parents’ shallow friends and their barbed tongues. What did she care if they thought she had trapped Gabriel into marriage by becoming pregnant? Or even worse, that she had bought him with her dowry.
She was utterly indifferent to their spiteful dislike.
As long as she had Gabriel at her side, she could face anything.
Reaching the end of the salon with still no sight of her husband, Beatrice gave a faint frown.
Perhaps he was seeing to the carriage that would take them away from Surrey, she told herself. He was surely as eager as she to be away from the crowd.
Slipping through the door, she moved down the hall toward the front of the house. She had just passed the library, when she halted at the sound of deep voices drifting from behind a partially closed door.
At first she paused to see if she could recognize one of the voices as Gabriel’s. Then it was the realization that the men were discussing her that kept her glued to her spot.
“To my mind, Beatrice got precisely what was coming to her.”
“Damn right. Sticking her nose up in the air and pretending she would never stoop to marrying a poor bloke in need of a bit of the ready. Serves her right to have married the most desperate fortune hunter in London.”
“Shame, though. All that lovely blunt being squandered on a destitute estate. Wish I’d seen through Faulconer’s act before he swept the heiress off her feet. That money could have been mine.”
“ ’Taint worth it, if you ask me. The woman is dicked in the nob, and not a thing to look at. Wouldn’t want that in your bed every night.”
“Don’t think Faulconer will worry about bedding the chit. Now he has her fortune he can leave her buried at his godforsaken estate and have all the fun he wants in town. Damn his eyes. He is deuced lucky that my man of business didn’t learn he was floundering in debt sooner. Gads, the man is said to owe every creditor in Derbyshire. Sweet little Beatrice wouldn’t have been nearly so eager to tie the knot had she known the truth. Now it’s too bloody late.”
In the hall Beatrice walked to the front door and into the cold afternoon air.
She did not feel the bite of the wind, or the sting of the pelting sleet.
In truth she could feel nothing.
Her heart had just died.