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empty, useless reassurances did nothing to calm her. She would be the one left alone with Lord Townsend once all the guests took their leave, and she wasn’t sure that being a “beacon of love and obedience” would accomplish anything at all.
    “Will you v-visit me sometimes?” she stammered, turning to her sister-in-law Georgina.
    “Of course. I’ll come calling as soon as you like.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    She stifled a smile. “Newlyweds don’t generally take callers for a couple of days. Perhaps next week? Brendan’s right, you know. Everything will be fine. You make a beautiful bride, and Townsend is...” She sobered. “Well. Be patient with him. I shall pray for your happiness every day.”
    Her sister-in-law clasped her in a floral-scented hug, and then Brendan and Georgina joined the other guests on their way out. Her new husband bid the last of them farewell, then turned to her. Oh, for all his faults, for all the threat of him, he was rather handsome. Black hair, and piercing, intense brown eyes. Those beautiful eyes softened the effect of his sharply sculpted features. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the soaring marble foyer. His coat’s ornate embroidery caught her gaze, or perhaps she was too overcome to look up at him, now that they were alone.
    “I suppose we’re married now,” she said in the echoing stillness.
    “It would seem so, Lady Townsend. Are you counting my buttons? I believe there are forty or so.”
    “What?” She looked up. “Oh no, I’m just...”
    “Feeling shy?”
    “I am shy, unfortunately. I always have been. I’ll try to be a good wife, but I’m...”
    “Shy? And tired and overwhelmed? Weddings are exhausting, aren’t they?” He stepped closer and brushed a fingertip down her cheek. She strained to hear a whisper of skirts, the footstep of any servant, but she heard nothing. They might have been utterly alone in the house. He tilted her head up and searched her face with his deep, dark eyes. “You’ll want to go rest, won’t you?”
    “For...what?”
    “For later.” The husky hitch in his voice unnerved her. “It’s our wedding night.”
    She blinked, her gaze skittering back down to his gold buttons.
One, two, three, four...
    “Must you look so deflated at the prospect?” he asked.
    She stared at this man, this stranger who really didn’t like her very much. He was her
husband
.
    “Mrs. Orban,” he said in the echoing silence. A servant materialized at the head of the grand marble stairs and dropped a graceful curtsy. “Will you show Lady Townsend to her rooms?”
    *** *** ***
     
    Aurelia hid in the window seat of her new bedroom and cried. It was weak and silly of her, and doubtless disturbed the household’s disciplined staff, but she couldn’t help it. At some point, her life had slipped out of her control. Now she was married, forever, to
him
.
    The marquess had provided her with a newly refurbished suite—a sitting room and dressing room, and a luxurious bedroom across the hall from his apartments, with a canopied bed as high as the ceiling, all swathed in lavender embroidered silk. Violets scented the air and a fluffy ivory counterpane beckoned her with promises of softness, but she couldn’t bear to go near the place where her husband would join her later on. Where he would
mount
her, as he said. She had no doubt he’d make it as unpleasant as possible, despite his promises to the contrary. She didn’t trust the man at all. She didn’t believe he was very sensitive or kind.
    While she hid and cried, servants bustled in and out with food and wine and trunks of clothes and jewelry, and set about unpacking the necessities of her trousseau. Clement, her staunch, proper lady’s maid from home, wheedled her into a wisp of a silk shift and a ruffled ivory dressing gown and then went to turn down the bed.
    Aurelia scooted deeper into the soothing darkness of the curtained window seat and gazed through the glass. With the little light left, she