The Dissolute Duke. Sophia James

estate. Tay thought of its roofline under the Bedfordshire sky, the golden stone against the sun and hundreds of acres of fertile and green land at its feet. His father had forsaken the place, but he could not. Not even if the alternative meant selling his soul.

      ‘Very well.’ His voice was hoarse and he felt his honour breaking, but he swiped the feeling away as a quill was inked and a parchment made ready. He was the only Alderworth who could save four hundred years of history and Lucinda Wellingham hated his very guts.

       Chapter Four

      Lord Taylen Ellesmere, the sixth Duke of Alderworth, had the appearance of a man who had been in a particularly rough boxing match when Lucinda saw him for the first time at the top of the aisle in the small chapel in London’s Mayfair.

      He did not turn to look at her, his profile granite-hard, his left wrist encased in a bandage and a large cut running along the whole side of his jaw. The muscles beneath the wound rippled with anger, a barely held wrath that was seen in the straightness of his posture and in the rigidity of his being. His hair was shorter, shaved almost to the skull, a single white, opaque scar snaking from the edge of his right ear to his crown. One eye was blackened.

      Even Asher looked slightly taken aback by his appearance, but at this stage of the proceedings there was little anyone could do.

      The die was cast after all. She would marry the Duke of Alderworth to redeem her place in society and he would marry her because her brothers had made him do so. She had sinned and this was the result. Love existed nowhere in the equation and the empty pews in the chapel reflected the fact. Her siblings and their wives sat on her side of the church, as well as some close friends, but on his side … there was nobody.

      Lucinda speculated as to who might stand up as his witness, the question answered a moment later when Cristo moved across to him. Her youngest brother looked about as unhappy with the whole thing as Asher was, a duty performed out of necessity rather than respect.

      Every other Wellingham wedding had been a joyous affair, celebrated with laughter and noise and elation. This one was sombre, quiet and dismal. She wondered how long the Duke of Alderworth would stay in London after the ceremony and just what words she might use to explain away his absence. Asher had said that he would remain in the capital for a week or more, so that appearances could be upheld. After that they would be glad to see the back of him.

      Her brother had breathed this through a clenched jaw as if even a day in the company of her soon-to-be husband would be one too many.

      Lucinda swallowed away dry fear. This was the worst mistake she had ever made, but the consequences of her own stupidity had brought her to such a pass, her whole family entwined in the deceit. She wanted to throw down the bouquet of white roses interlaced with fragrant gardenias and peel off the ivory gown that had been quickly fashioned by one of London’s up-and-coming modistes. The veil helped, however, a layer of lace between her and the world, sheltering confusion. A week ago she would not have been able to walk or to stand for such long periods, but today the utter alarm of everything allowed her to keep any pain at bay.

      Posy Tompkins stood to one side of her, her face drawn. Her friend had been nothing short of horrified about the consequences of their ill-thought-out visit to Alderworth and had been attentive and apologetic ever since. She claimed she had managed to avoid the worst of the excesses by locking herself in her room.

      ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this, Luce?’ she whispered. ‘We could disappear to Europe together otherwise. I have more than enough money for us both. We could go to Rome or Paris to my relatives.’

      ‘And be for ever outcast?’

      ‘It might be better than …’ She stopped, but Lucinda knew exactly what she was about to say.

      It might be better than being married to a man who looked for all the world as if he was going to his own funeral. With an effort she lifted her chin. It was not as if she was happy about anything, either, although some quiet part of her buried deep held its breath as green eyes raked across her own, the red streak in one of them bright with fury.

      ‘This is 1831, Luce, not the Middle Ages. If you truly do not wish to do this, you only have to say. No one can drag a reluctant bride to the altar even if the alternative is enormous scandal.’

      ‘I do not think your words are helping, Posy.’

      ‘Then let me call it off. I can say that it was completely my fault I took you to Alderworth in the first place and procured the dress and …’

      But the minister had begun to speak in his low, calm voice and Lucinda knew that to simply walk out on her last chance of salvation would be to cut herself off from a family that meant the world to her.

      She had brought this upon herself, after all, and she just could not think of another more viable solution. A marriage ceremony. A week of pretence. And then freedom. Lord, she would follow the straight and narrow from now on and, if God in all his wisdom allowed her the strength to get through these next hours, she would promise in return an eternal devotion to His Good Works.

      When Tay took a quick look at his bride-to-be he saw that under her veil her hair was plaited in a crown encircled by pale rosebuds. Today she seemed smaller, slighter, less certain. The lies she had spun about them, he supposed, come home to roost in front of the altar, no true basis for any such betrothal. He was glad of the lace that covered her head because he did not wish to see her deceitful eyes until he had to. The gown surprised him, though. He had thought she might balk at making any effort whatsoever, but the dress fitted her perfectly, spilling in a froth of whiteness about her feet. A dainty silver bracelet adorned her left wrist, four small gold stars hanging from it.

      A continual whispered dialogue with the bridesmaid began to get on his nerves and he was glad when the minister, dressed in flowing dark clothes, called the place to order.

      Everybody looked tense. The bride. The brothers. Even the minister as he held his hand up to the organist and called for quiet.

      ‘Marriage is a state that is not to be entered into lightly, or with false promise. Are you happy to continue, Lady Lucinda?’

      Tay bit down on chagrin. Of course she would be. His title was one factor and her ruin was another. He wished the man might skip through to the final troths and then all of this would be over.

      But he did not. Rather he waited until the bride before him nodded her head without any enthusiasm whatsoever. ‘Then we are here today to join this man and this woman in the state of Holy Matrimony …’

      For ever and for ever. It was all Tay could think as he gave his replies, though his parents had never let such pledges inhibit them in their quest for the hedonistic. For the first time in his life he partly understood them and some of his disillusionment lifted.

      But it was too late for such understanding now, with his years seemingly destined to run along the same chaotic and uncontrolled pathway as those that he had sworn he would never follow. He was his father’s son, after all, and this was a universally ordained celestial punishment for what he had become. The thought calmed him; fate moving in ways which allowed no redemption and if it had not been this particular sticky end that he had met, then undoubtedly it would have been another.

      ‘Will you, Taylen Andrew Templeton Ellesmere, take Lucinda Alice Wellingham as your lawfully wedded wife …?’

      The words shook him from his reverie. Her middle name was Alice and it suited her. Soft. Pale. Otherworldly.

      ‘I will.’

      Resignation tempered his pledge.

      When Lucinda Wellingham gave the troth her tone was shaken, a thin voice in a house of God that held no message of joy within it.

      And finally it was over.

      Because it was expected he turned to face her and lifted the veil slowly. The church had been a place of refuge for him as a child and he still believed in the sanctity of religion despite everything he had become. The woman who stood there,