Cato hesitated, frowning, then with a brief headshake he left the parlor.
“I look such a mess,” Phoebe groaned. “Why did he have to come in and see me like this? Today of all days.”
Olivia regarded Phoebe in surprise. “You always look like that in the morning. Why should it matter?” Then, when that didn’t appear to have the intended reassurance, she added comfortingly, “I expect he’ll be up and out of the house long before you most mornings… if it really c-concerns you.”
“I’m a bundle of nerves,” Phoebe said in faint explanation. “Of course it doesn’t really matter what I look like.”
“Well, you’d better go and get ready now anyway,” Olivia stated. “It’s close to nine o’clock and yon have to b-bathe and wash your hair.”
In reinforcement, another knock on the door brought the housekeeper, Mistress Bisset. “Lord, Lady Phoebe, are you still in your nightrobe? Come along now. The bath is all ready for you.” Tutting in reproof, she swept Phoebe down the passage to the bedchamber where her maid was adding dried lavender and rose petals to the steaming tub before the fire.
Phoebe gave herself up to the ministrations of maid and housekeeper and seamstress. She followed instructions without conscious thought, barely hearing their stream of chatter bubbling around her. Her entire body was tingling, her skin sensitized as if someone had scraped over every inch with an oyster shell.
As she watched the maid curl her thick brown hair and roll it over soft pads on top of her head, hope warred with despair. Maybe her dread of disappointment was unfounded. Maybe everything would be all right. Maybe this night she would discover what she knew was there to be discovered. Maybe this night Cato would discover what was there to be discovered in his bride.
And then again, probably not.
“There now, Lady Phoebe, take a look at yourself.” The housekeeper stepped back after fastening at Phoebe’s throat the string of pearls that had belonged to Phoebe’s mother, then to Diana, and now to Phoebe. She gestured to the mirror.
Phoebe cast only a cursory glance at her reflection. Close study would only add to her already raging anxiety. She moved to the door. “I’m ready. Is it time to go downstairs? Olivia, where are you?” A note of panic edged into her voice.
“I’m here,” Olivia said calmly, stepping away from the bedcurtains. “Where I’ve been all along.”
“Oh, I wish you could stay with me the whole time.” Phoebe grabbed Olivia’s hand in a convulsive gesture. “If only I didn’t have to have the aunts to attend me at the end. If you were there, I wouldn’t feel so much like a sacrifice!”
Olivia squeezed Phoebe’s hand. “It’s a horrible ritual,” she said feelingly. “But it’ll be over quickly… once you g-get out of the hall.”
“I suppose so.” Phoebe gripped Olivia’s hand so tightly the other girl winced, but did not complain.
Lord Carlton was waiting for his daughter in the hall, pacing impatiently. The bridegroom had left before the first group of guests had been ferried to the church, and the earl was tired of his own company.
“Ah, there you are.” He came to the foot of the stairs as Phoebe came down. “Such a long time as you’ve been… but then, I suppose the bride’s entitled to take her time,” he added with an attempt at a bluff smile. “Very well you look, m’dear,” he said, but he sounded slightly doubtful. “Strange, when Diana wore… But come, we must be going.”
Phoebe curtsied, but could find no words. She laid her hand on her father’s arm, aware that her face seemed suddenly numb, as if frozen.
“I think it’s stopped raining,” Olivia announced from the front door that was held open by a servant. “That’s a good omen, Phoebe.” She looked anxiously at her friend. Phoebe didn’t even look like herself, and it wasn’t just the elaborate hairstyle and the stiff formality of her unsuitable gown.
“Yes,” Phoebe said with a fixed smile. She climbed into the waiting carriage, managing only with Olivia’s swift intervention to keep the full folds of ivory damask from dragging in the straw. Throughout the short journey she stared straight ahead, feeling like someone else. Someone she didn’t know at all.
Cato was talking casually with a knot of guests at the front of the church when the bustle at the back told them that the bride had arrived. He moved without haste to the altar rail and turned to look at his bride as she came down the aisle. It was his fourth such ceremony and held neither terrors nor surprises for him, but he noticed that Phoebe was moving as awkwardly as a marionette with an unskilled manipulator.
He had a flash of compassion for her. Her best features were her eyes, her rich, luxuriant hair, and the delicate peach of her complexion, but somehow they were not shown to advantage. Diana had looked so wonderful in that gown, but it did nothing for her sister.
The poor girl didn’t have her sister’s taste any more than she had her style and beauty, he reflected. But she would do.
Phoebe took in a swirl of emerald green. He had shed his usual black in favor of this brilliant velvet doublet over white silk. And he was magnificent. And he was about to become her husband.
When he took her hand, her eyes were riveted on the square emerald signet ring, and then on the strong, lean fingers and the clean, pared, filbert nails. He’d never held her hand before.
She raised her eyes to his face. His expression as he spoke his responses was cool, courteous, and totally without sentiment.
Chapter 3
Phoebe couldn’t eat at the wedding feast. Not even the gilded marchpane cakes or the sugarplums and almonds could tempt her. She regarded the silver platters as they passed before her down the long table with complete indifference, mildly astonished that her usual sweet tooth had deserted her so completely.
Minstrels played in the long gallery above the great hall and as the afternoon turned to evening, myriad wax candles cast a softening golden glow over the crimson-hued faces of the revelers.
Cato sat beside Phoebe in the center of the high table. He showed no inclination to drink deep, his chalice was only rarely refilled, and he struck Phoebe as distanced from the joviality, although he was attentive to his guests, keeping a close eye on the servants as they circled the long tables with flagons of wine and great platters of smoking meat. When his two youngest daughters, Diana’s children, showed drooping heads and eyelids, he caught it immediately and signaled for a nursemaid to take them back to the nursery.
Despite this, Phoebe had the dismal impression that he would rather be anywhere than at this table, hosting a wedding party. He barely seemed aware of her sitting beside him, and her own father, Lord Carlton, was sinking ever deeper into the plentiful burgundy. The bride seemed an irrelevancy for all the notice anyone but Olivia took of her.
Olivia was sitting opposite Phoebe, too far away for any intimate conversation, but her dark gaze rarely left her friend’s strained countenance. Olivia thought of the night to come.
The wedding night. Was that why Phoebe was looking so taut? Was she thinking of the coming hours? Of that moment when she’d cease to belong to herself? Olivia’s fine mouth set hard. That would not happen to her. She was determined.
Phoebe with desultory hand waved away a basket of comfits, and Cato glanced sideways at his bride as he realized that she’d been ignoring all the succulent offerings that had passed before her.
“Not hungry?” he asked in some surprise. Phoebe’s healthy appetite was a household fact.
“I don’t seem to be,” Phoebe responded, dragging her eyes away from their studious contemplation of the emerald on his signet finger and looking up at him for the first time since they’d left the church.
She was aware of his closeness over every inch of her skin. They sat side by side in state upon a high velvet-padded double chair, and she could feel Cato’s thigh against hers; his arm brushed hers whenever he moved it. The sheer physical sense of him made her head spin. His dark eyes filled her vision as she gazed up at him. She could see her reflection in the irises, and it seemed as if she were drowning there. Her tongue was unaccountably stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t begin to form a sensible sentence.