Under A Duke's Hand Read Online Free PDF Page B

their wedding was to take place tomorrow afternoon, rather than
the customary morning—because all these soused peasants would still
be abed. He stood with his best aristocratic air and smiled down at
his future bride.
    “I must disagree, Lord Lisburne. I’m not the
guest of honor. That title must surely go to my betrothed, who
graces all of us with her purity and beauty on this happy day.”
    The lady in question pressed her lips
together and stared up at him as if he must be daft, but he was
only getting started. Public speaking was a particular talent of
his. He picked up his wine and gazed for a moment into its crimson
depths. “It was a long journey’s ride from my holdings in England,
and I spent the whole of it wondering about my bride-to-be. Would
she be short or tall? Pleasant or shrewish? Would she be
pock-marked, or buck-toothed?”
    There was a soft rumbling of protest before
the slower among them realized he made a joke. “Then I arrived...”
he said. He paused and gazed down at Miss Vaughn. Guinevere. His
fairy of the meadow. He made a show of touching her cheek, and
perceived a tremble in her lower lip. “Then I arrived and
discovered an Angel of Paradise, a Welsh rose I shall be honored to
make my wife.” He looked around the table and raised his glass. “I
propose a toast to my future bride, and this rugged Welsh homeland
which has nurtured and sheltered her until now.”
    The table erupted in approving shouts at this
courtly speech. Her father surged to his feet and followed with
rambling toasts to his daughter, his late wife, his homeland, his
king, and numerous other entities, until the table was adrift in
wine and Welsh exclamations. Aidan ought to have made a study of
Welsh language as soon as he knew his fate, as soon as the king
told him about his border bride. Too late now. Perhaps Guinevere
could tutor him in the most important words, words like pretty and obedient and mine .
    He reached under the table to take her hand.
Before she could pull away, his fingers curled about hers. Mine.
You’re mine now, or you soon will be. A duke could do worse
than a fairy queen, he reasoned. While their acquaintance had not
begun in the most traditional fashion, he had high hopes for a life
with Guinevere Vaughn. If he could only weather these endless
toasts, this drunken dinner and the wedding tomorrow, he could
bundle his exotic bride back to England, where he could start
transforming her into the duchess of his dreams.

Chapter
Three: So Awfully Uncivilized
     
     
     
    The wedding went about the way Aidan
expected. Flowery, country-shabby, overly emotional. Lots of
tears.
    His bride wept openly through their vows,
wept so hard she could barely get the words out. Aidan felt some
sympathy, but a greater impulse to shake her and tell her to stop.
Did she think he was overjoyed to be here? He might have had a
London wedding with all his friends and contemporaries in
attendance. He might have wed a blueblood, a diamond of the first
water, and had an elegant breakfast reception at his Berkeley
Square home, rather than a drunken dinner in a dark, sooty medieval
hall which still stank of the previous night’s wine.
    But he did not shake his bride. He was not
the shaking type. He was the proper, refined type, and so he gazed
at her steadily, allowing nothing in his expression to betray his
disgust at her histrionics. Thank goodness none of his friends had
made the journey to witness these nuptials; they would have mocked
him forever. By the time the ceremony ended and they signed the
marriage papers, Aidan felt in need of a very strong drink.
    But he didn’t partake in any strong drink. As
scores of Lisburne guests grew drunker and drunker, Aidan sipped
brandy and stayed close to his bride. Now that they were legally
and officially wed, she had ceased crying, but she still looked
miserable. Nary a smile, and very little conversation. This
marriage was good for her father and her family, so they
celebrated,