The Perfect Arrangement (The Not So Saintly Sisters #4) - Annabelle Anders Page 0,24

good health? Despite the unorthodox ceremony, the significance of what they’d just done hovered over her. They were not a pair of star-crossed youths, running away because her parents disapproved, They were not in love, and yet... the two of them would become friends.

And they would also be lovers.

How long before his illness overtook him? Did he suffer already?

“I almost forgot.” Christian turned to her. Taking her hand in his, he slid a gold band on her finger and then handed her a larger one to slide onto his. It was a simple thing and when she finished she wiped a hand at one of her eyes.

“It’s from the smoke,” she lied. But he knew.

He squeezed her hands before releasing them and then turning to shake hands with the blacksmith while Mr. Smythe brought forth what Lillian surmised must be the marriage license.

Christian Maximillian Percival Masterson. She hadn’t even known his real name until he’d signed it and handed the quill across to her. She had a husband. A husband!

“Many thanks.” Christian thanked the blacksmith again and then offered Lillian his arm to lead her back into the sunlight.

She placed her hand on his arm and then looked down at her fingers. The ring was a simple one. Elegant, smooth and thick.

It was perfect.

Their perfect arrangement, however, was no longer simply an arrangement.

It was a marriage.

Christian assisted Lillian, his bride, his duchess, into the carriage not even ten minutes after they’d entered the blacksmith for their rather unremarkable, unromantic ceremony. Mr. Smythe, Horace, as well as Mr. Simmons and Lillian’s maid had already departed in the second carriage, leaving him to make the short journey to the opposite side of town alone.

With his wife.

John had assured Christian that he’d secured the most luxurious chamber available in all of Gretna Green. The Waning Swan suite featured adjoining suites, specifically decorated for noblemen such as himself, who had travelled north in order to secure a hasty marriage.

He and Lillian’s belongings had already been taken there, and the servants would be waiting for them.

She sat on the forward-facing bench, and Christian took the empty space beside her.

She deserved so much more than a two minute ceremony in front of an anvil. Who was he to hijack her future like this?

“His clothes weren’t black.” Her lovely lips were turned up in a mischievous grin as she met his eyes. “The anvil priest—it was all coal.”

“The black is from the metal itself. When it heats, a layer of oxides forms on the surface. It’s what the name is derived from.” Christian held out his charcoal smudged hand. “I was afraid to get it on your gown.”

She reached over to his hand and traced the outline of black with her fingertip. “Only the Scottish could merge marriage and smithery—rather clever of them, really.”

Christian froze where he sat, allowing her to explore the contours of his hand, feeling a number of emotions that he hadn’t expected. Protective and protected, tenderness, intimacy.

Arousal.

“In actuality,” Christian attempted to speak evenly, “there is a beautiful sense of significance to it. A blacksmith heats metal, making it soft and malleable to remake it into an entirely different object. There is some similarity to marriage, would you not agree?”

She removed her hand and clasped it with the other in her lap.

And that was when he realized what he had just described. Marriage made the two of them into one. When he died, she would be less than whole.

“We won’t wait?” She didn’t look at him when she asked the question. “Olivia spent a good deal of time with the midwife when she came through our village and she wasn’t stingy with the information she learned. It is… I am. I mean…This is a good time”—she swallowed hard—“the likelihood of conception is advantageous.”

As the meaning of her words washed over him, most of his breath whooshed out of his lungs. Despite her enthusiasm to help him, he had thought she would need more time. He understood female anatomy, of course, and the nature of womanly courses. But he’d not ever delved into such specific details. “So…” He inhaled, recapturing some of the air he’d just lost. “You are more likely to…”

“Get with child.”

He nodded. This was the reason for everything they’d done so far. “The journey, the wedding.” He wished he’d been able to court her—even for a few days.

“That damn pig.” She muttered, as though reading his mind.

“My sentiments exactly.” Because that damn pig had caused Christian to retreat from her. It had