She stared out the window through the parted drapes. It was late. The night pressed against the mullioned panes, thick and dark as smoke.
He wasn’t coming. He had to know Mama and Cecily had left her by now. All the rest of the guests had long since departed. He simply wasn’t coming. She moved to the adjoining door and pressed her ear flat to it. She thought she heard a faint sound from within, but who knew if it was Max or his valet.
Sighing, disgusted with herself, she made her way for the enormous four-post bed. It was hard to miss, even in the dark.
With fresh resolve, she slid beneath the counterpane that Cecily had pulled back for her. Closing her eyes, she rolled onto her side and tried to sleep. Tried to tell herself that she didn’t care. That she didn’t long for her husband.
That a name-in-only marriage would be enough for her.
She would not wait up for him. After all, she was not certain she wanted this marriage consummated. It felt so false when she knew he had not wanted to marry her. Could she open her bed to him, her body, knowing he regretted taking her to wife? She had seen that glaring truth in his eyes as they made their vows.
She tugged the heavy counterpane higher on her shoulders and rolled onto her side, determined not to wait up like a puppy anxious for the return of its master. Darkness swirled around her, and the chamber hummed as thick and silent as a tomb.
This was her life. Alone in this great bed. In this great, empty mausoleum. At least until she decided to add a few flourishes and modify it to suit her, but even then it would all still belong to Max. She would simply be a stranger living here for perpetuity. Unwelcome and unwanted. He had made certain she understood that.
Her eyes ached from staring into the dark for so long. She closed them, easing their ache, but convinced she would never relax. Never sleep.
Until she slipped into slumber.
“I suppose I should be angry. I’ve tried to be angry with you. All week I’ve reminded myself again and again that you dallied with my sister.” Will stopped to shudder and then sighed. “And yet I’m not.”
Max lifted his gaze from his glass at this declaration from his friend, uncertain how to respond. The week had been awkward. A whirlwind of activity leading up to a wedding that had felt farcical despite its utter gravity.
He had seen Aurelia not at all until the ceremony today, and then she had not even met his gaze during the exchanging of vows. Not until the very end. Until the moment they were pronounced man and wife and the noose he had spent all his life avoiding settled firmly around his neck.
“Er. Thank you?” he offered.
Will nodded. “Once the anger faded, I came to realize that you and Aurelia make sense.”
Max’s eyes widened. “We do?”
Other than how Aurelia felt in his arms—ardent and responsive to his every touch—there was nothing about either one of them that made much sense.
Thankfully, the ceremony had been brief. They all had agreed to his suggestion of a small service. They’d wed at St. Dominic’s, a quaint church he walked by almost every day. Sometimes he would stop and chat with the kindly reverend who officiated there. Reverend Williams had only been too happy to oversee the ceremony.
Max winced. He supposed there was no real mystery as to why the Merlton clan had so readily agreed to a hasty marriage. His insistence that they arrange a quick ceremony with little fanfare had spelled only one thing in their minds.
They thought he had ruined Aurelia.
Because that’s what he did. What he was good at doing. He ruined things. Since he lost his family, he had set out to ruin himself. To make himself unfit for any good woman, so that he would never be struck down by the affliction that was love.