When his lips brushed tenderly against her forehead, she trembled. And prayed that she had made the right choice.
13
Two mornings later, Severin awaited Fancy in the blacksmith’s shop in Gretna Green.
Although the place hadn’t been used as a smithy in probably decades, the low-ceilinged room still bore the faint scent of smoke and heated minerals. The whitewashed walls and bouquets of local flora signaled the room’s current use as a wedding venue. Severin maintained an aura of calmness as the blacksmith “priest,” a Mr. Clewis, puttered impatiently by the anvil over which the marriages were conducted. Twice, Clewis had asked when the bride-to-be would arrive as he had several weddings scheduled for the day.
Severin had shut the man up with coin. Yet he couldn’t stem his own unease that Fancy might not show. What were the odds that he would be stood up not once, but twice for an elopement?
Granted, things hadn’t gotten this far with Imogen: they’d never left London, for she’d failed to show up at their appointed meeting place. He’d planned to take her here, to Gretna Green, a village just past the border of Scotland that was famous for its trade in expedient marriages. As Scotland’s marriage laws were less restrictive than English ones, Gretna had become a favorite destination for English elopements. Blacksmiths could legally carry out the ceremonies, officiating what were popularly known as “anvil weddings.”
Severin and the Sheridans had arrived yesterday in the late afternoon. Although Severin wasn’t eloping with Fancy, he did want to bind her legally to him as soon as possible. He’d booked an appointment at the blacksmith shop for ten o’clock sharp this morning, and Fancy was a quarter hour late. He wondered darkly if her father was behind her absence.
Sheridan had insisted that Fancy spend the night in the family wagon rather than at the inn where Severin had booked out an entire floor of rooms. For reasons that Severin frankly could not fathom, the tinker remained staunchly opposed to the union. Severin was prepared to take whatever steps necessary to gain the man’s acquiescence, if not approval, but Fancy had precluded his interference.
“Leave Da to me,” she’d said firmly. “I’ll see you at the blacksmith’s tomorrow.”
Despite her delicate looks and sweet manner, his bride-to-be had a determined streak to her personality. Severin was glad for it: she would need that obstinacy when they had to face his family and the ton back in London.
If he succeeded in claiming her as his duchess, that was.
Faced with the potential of Fancy leaving him at the altar—or anvil, as it were—Severin felt his remaining ambivalence about marrying her vanish. Whether she was suitable or not, he wanted her to be his wife, damnit.
He thought back to the condition Fancy had placed on their marriage, the only thing she had asked of him, and an odd spasm hit his chest. At the time, he’d thought that she was going to negotiate for something of material value. It would have been within her rights to ask for jewels, a quarterly allowance, and the like. His past lovers had bargained with him for such things, and he had been generous.
Yet Fancy had stunned him by asking for the opposite. By telling him that she didn’t want anything that he didn’t freely give. It struck him now that Fancy was the only woman who’d ever made him feel that he was…enough, just as he was.
Before the madness had claimed his maman, she had loved him. He thought, with a sharp twinge of the old scar, that she’d loved him even when the illness took away her control. She’d sacrificed everything for their survival. When he was old enough to realize what she was doing, he’d begged her not to do it. He’d offered to steal—to do anything—rather than have her earn their keep in an alleyway.
You are not big or strong enough to do a man’s work, mon chou. She’d brushed her worn fingertips across his brow. If you want to make your maman happy, then be better than what the streets have taught you to be. Don’t be like those animals you run with, oui?
He had tried to be a man, tried to take care of her, but he’d failed.
Then he’d met Imogen, and she’d needed him to be something he wasn’t...or hadn’t been, at the time. Now that he was a duke, it was too late. He couldn’t turn back time, even for her.