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no time for shopping. Well, no matter. It would be better to take her exactly as she was.
    “Miss Duncan?” He half bowed to her and held out his arm for hers.
    “Yes, sir.” She stood up, looked at him briefly, and then lowered her gaze to his arm. She appeared not to know whether she should lay her own along the top of it or link her own through it. He took her hand in his free one and set it on his wrist. He did not pause to present her to Lord Rowling. He was impatient.
    “The rector is waiting,” he said.
    “Yes, sir.” She glanced to the front of the church.
    His mouth felt surprisingly dry and his heartbeat surprisingly unsteady. She was a total stranger. She was about to become his wife. For the rest of a lifetime. For a moment his mind touched upon the notion that he might live to regret this day. But he suppressed the thought, as he had done when he had awoken soon after dawn and again while he had breakfasted. He despised last-minute nerves. He led his bride forward.
    Without all the pomp and ceremony that had accompanied every society wedding he had ever attended, the nuptial service was really quite short and unremarkable, he found. The rector spoke, he spoke, she spoke, 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 of her 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 herhand 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