The Temporary Wife Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rowling handed him a ring, which he placed on her finger, and he found that it was too late to wonder if he would regret the day. Miss Charity Duncan no longer existed by that name. She was his wife. His first feeling was one of relief. He bent his head and briefly placed his closed lips close to the corner other mouth. Her skin was cool .
    The rector was congratulating them then with hearty good humor, his man of business was doing his best to look festive, and Rowling was smiling and being charming. There was the register still to sign.
    "My very best wishes to you, Lady Staunton," Rowling said, taking one of her hands in both of his and smiling warmly at her.
    "Wh-what?" she asked.
    "You are unaccustomed to the sound of your own new name," he said, raising her hand to his lips. "My best wishes for your felicity, ma'am."
    "You are Charity Earheart," the marquess explained to her, "Marchioness of Staunton."
    "Oh," she said, looking full at him with wide and startled eyes—and this time he really did take a step back. "Are you a marquess !"
    "Staunton, at your service, my lady," he said. He really should have given greater consideration to those eyes yesterday. But it was too late now. "May I present Lord Rowling?"
    It was raining when they came out of the church—a chilling drizzle oozed downward out of a gray and dreary sky.
    "A good omen," Rowling said with a laugh. "The best marriages always proceed from wet wedding days, my grandmother is fond of saying. I believe she married my grandfather during a thunderstorm and they enjoyed forty happy years together."
    But no one seemed prepared to share his hearty optimism. The Marquess of Staunton hurried his silent bride toward his carriage. There was breakfast to take with their two wedding guests, his wife's trunks to collect from her lodgings, and a journey to begin. He had written to his father to expect him tomorrow. He had not mentioned that he would be bringing a wife.
    He seated himself beside her in the carriage, lifted her hand to his wrist again, and held it there with his free hand while the other two men seated themselves opposite. He felt almost sorry for her—a strange fact when he had just ensured her a future infinitely preferable to what she could have expected as a governess. Besides, he was unaccustomed to entertaining sympathetic feelings for anyone. For the first time it struck him as strange that no one had accompanied her to her wedding. Was she so totally without friends? The leather of her glove was paper thin on the inside of the thumb, he noticed. There was going to be a hole there very soon.
    He was a married man. The stranger whose gloved hand rested lightly on his wrist was his wife, his marchioness. There was a strange unreality to the moment. And a stark reality too.

    She was a married lady. She had walked to that quiet, rather gloomy church this morning, gone inside as herself, as Charity Duncan, and come out again a mere half hour later as someone different, as someone with another name. Everything had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again. She was Charity Earheart, the…
    She turned her head to look at the taciturn man beside her on the carriage seat. He had not spoken a word since his footman had carried out her small trunk from Philip's lodgings—the carriage had appeared to fill the whole street and had attracted considerable attention—and he had asked her in seeming surprise if there was nothing else.
    "No, sir," she had said and had thought that probably she should have called him my lord .
    She was… She felt very foolish. And he must have felt her eyes upon him. He turned his head to look at her. His eyes were very dark, she thought. They were almost black. And quite opaque. She had the peculiar feeling that a heavy curtain or perhaps even a steel door had been dropped just behind his eyes so that no one would ever be able to peep into his soul.
    "I am— who ?" she asked him. She could not for the life of her remember.