The cuts were precise and neat. Just like his life would be from now on.
* * *
Helena had never indulged in daydreams of her wedding day, but if she had, she would have hoped for sunshine, not the cloudy skies overhead. She would have also expected to marry a man she’d seen more than twice.
She was grateful all the same. Lord Ardoch was rescuing her. Marrying him would solve every problem she’d created.
She smoothed her hands over her snowy wedding gown, adjusting the gauze overskirt trimmed in green ribbon before she examined herself in the looking glass. She looked ready, to be sure, in the dress and with a short veil trailing behind her white bonnet, but her skin was pale, her eyes flat, her lips set in a line. She didn’t look grateful.
She looked like ice.
A knock on the door startled her, rattling her teeth. Was she brittle as frost, too?
Barnes, her new dark-haired lady’s maid, hopped to open the door. Gemma swept past her, her grin as sunny as her daffodil gown. “How lovely you are, Helena. Here, the finishing touch.”
The bridal posy was unlike anything Helena had ever seen. Bundled and tied with a simple white ribbon, a sprig of white blooms lay atop a cutting of ivy, spreading a delicate but delectable spicy-sweet fragrance. “How thoughtful. Thank you.”
“Do not thank me. ’Tis heather from Lord Ardoch.”
A faint swooning sound came from the usually stoic Barnes.
Her maid was right: this gesture of Lord Ardoch’s was thoughtful. The heather was a pleasant token, and far preferable to a more lavish gift. Papa had presented Mama with the Kelworth diamonds on their wedding day, but a convenient wife like Helena didn’t deserve anything like that.
She sniffed the blooms. “I thought heather was purple.”
“Most of the time. But white heather is special and not easy to find.”
“Is it a bridal tradition?” She fingered the slick leaves of ivy trailing the heather. Rimmed in creamy white, the green foliage echoed the trim of her gown.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure the ivy is not. I recall it is his family plant.” Gemma patted Helena’s arm. “’Tis a Scottish tradition, a way of him welcoming you to his family.”
A gesture, which, if theirs was a true marriage, would make her heart swell. As it stood, this symbol was kind, but one more facade to mask the hollow shell that would be their marriage.
“I shall carry it with my prayer book.” Helena tied the cuttings to the slim volume using the ribbon he had provided. Or, rather, his staff had provided. He wouldn’t have bothered with such a chore himself.
Only a devoted man in the throes of love would pick blooms for his bride.
In her youth, she hadn’t dreamed of her wedding day, true, but not so long ago, she thought she would marry Frederick. Sometimes when she thought of it, her grief compressed her chest like too-tight stays, and no matter how her fingers plucked and pulled at the laces, she couldn’t loosen them.
Everyone thought she was here today because of her love for Frederick, because she’d made a grave mistake giving herself to him before they wed. Tavin, Gemma and her almost-husband seemed to pity her over it. Would they feel otherwise if they knew the truth, that Frederick forced himself on her? The facts hadn’t mattered overmuch to Papa, although he was angrier with Frederick than he was with Helena. He just didn’t know how to show it.
He also blamed her for her disobedience in falling in love with Frederick. Well, this was the day she would obey Papa, demonstrating her sorrow to God and her family by marrying a stranger. She squeezed the flowery prayer book and looked up into Gemma’s expectant face.
“We mustn’t keep everyone waiting. Shall we?”
Helena pattered up the rain-puddled path to the village church on her father’s arm, favoring her stiff ankle. The kirk’s weathered stones blended into the landscape’s gray-green palette of rolling hills, rain-heavy clouds, mossy gravestones and muddy grass. It was probably damp and drafty inside, but the moment Helena crossed the threshold, she didn’t mind the cold swirling her ankles. The kirk felt like something, all right—warm and comfortable in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.
It felt hopeful, something Helena hadn’t experienced in a long while.
Was this from God? Did it mean this church was full of His love? Could some of it extend to her?
Someone must have noticed them arrive, because the murmured conversations of the guests quieted. A nervous thrill twined with the quickening she’d experienced in her body, but she was ready, especially now that she’d felt such comfort. She took a deep breath, filling her nostrils with the smells of every church she’d ever entered: stale air, musty pages, candle smoke and beeswax.
She squeezed Papa’s arm as they paused at the threshold to the aisle. She hoped he’d look down at her. Smile and squeeze her fingers. Tell her she made a beautiful bride.
Instead he looked ahead. “Come along, then.”
The aisle was as lacking in length as the pews were in guests. A tiny female in dull clothing—the children’s nursemaid—lurked in at the rear. Toward the front, a few others dressed in finer attire stared at her with unashamed curiosity. The familiar faces of Gemma and Tavin smiled at her from the left side of the aisle while their wards, Petey and Eddie, wriggled and tugged at their miniature neck cloths.
Lord Ardoch’s children stood in the front pew on the right. The boys wore matching brown coats and impish expressions. Margaret, wearing sprigged muslin, a straw bonnet and a scowl, lifted little Louisa in her arms.
And beside the bespectacled, round-faced young clergyman at the end of the aisle, donned in a formal black coat, Lord Ardoch waited, hands at his sides, face impassive.
The sensation of peace she’d experienced at the threshold drained away.
Helena compressed her lips. I do not know if I can address You like this, God, but You must know how sorry I am. Marrying will make everything right, won’t it? Will You forgive me, once I do this? Will You even love me?
When they reached the end of the aisle, Papa released her arm. She clutched her prayer book so hard her knuckles ached.
Glancing down at her flowery book, Lord Ardoch’s eyes warmed to a deeper green and a soft smile lifted his lips. He must be pleased she’d attached his gift of blooms.
He was handsome, the sort of gentleman she might have noticed before she met Frederick Coles. But as Lord Ardoch was a lord of Parliament, the lowest rank in the Peerage of Scotland, her parents would have dismissed him as a potential husband.
In the end, however, rank hadn’t mattered to her that much. Certainly not with Frederick.
Stop thinking of him. She forced her lips to lift into a slight smile. Now freeze.
She trembled. Perhaps in freezing her smile, she’d iced the rest of her, too.
The clergyman spoke of covenant, looking over his spectacles at them as if to impress on them the gravity of such a thing. But she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t understand. Her pledge was no small thing. It was forever.
A few more words, punctuated by one of the children’s snuffles and someone’s long sigh. Then Lord Ardoch faced her and took her right hand. Steady, she ordered her twitchy fingers.
“I, John Angus, do take thee, Helena Caroline, to be my married wife, and do, in the presence of God, and before this congregation, promise and covenant to be a loving and faithful husband unto thee, until God shall separate us by death.”
As he