Chapter One
April, 1816
Imogen Harrington had never imagined her wedding day would feel like abattlefield. And yet, as she stepped into the aisle, every inch of her felt braced for war.
The soft strains of the organ swelled through the small Surrey church, the music rising and falling against ancient stone walls that had borne witness to a hundred years of vows—some kept, some broken, and surely none quite so spectacularly fraudulent as the one she was about to make. The sound seemed to come from very far away, muffled beneath the thunderous beat of her own heart, which had taken up such a vigorous rhythm in her chest she half-feared it might be visible through the bodice of the borrowed gown.
The borrowed gown.
She nearly laughed at that, an awful, brittle sound she swallowed before it could escape.
The silk was too fine for her—heavy ivory shot through with the faintest blush of pink, embroidered with seed pearls along the bodice and trailing down the train in a pattern of climbing roses. It had been fitted for Eliza’s slimmer frame, and Imogen had spent the better part of the dawn standing very still while Eliza’s lady’s maid—red-eyed but discreet, bless her—had taken hasty pinches at the seams along Imogen’s ribs and let out the bodice across her fuller bosom.
The result was passable. Barely. The dress sat snug where it ought to have draped, and the lace at her wrists felt a half-inch too short, as though the gown itself knew it was being worn by an impostor and meant to give her away. Thankfully, the long veil covered most of her figure, so perhaps the groom would not notice his bride was rounder and fuller than he’d last seen.
The scent of lilies clung too sweetly in the air, mingling with the cooler note of beeswax candles and the faint, dusty-stone smell that lived in old churches no matter how vigorously they were polished. The gathered guests blurred into a sea of indistinct color beyond the fine veil that shielded her face. Pale lavenders and dove greys, a flash of crimson here, the glint of a gentleman’s pocket watch there. She did not let her eyes settle onany of them. To look directly would be to acknowledge them, and to acknowledge them would be to remember that every single one of them believed her to be someone she was not.
No one stirred. No one questioned.
Of course, they did not.
They believed her to beEliza.
Imogen tightened her grip on the small bouquet in her hands—white roses and a sprig of rosemary, for remembrance, Eliza had insisted on that, sentimental creature that she was—and willed her fingers not to tremble. The stems were bound too tightly with ribbon, and she could feel the moisture of her gloved palms seeping into the silk wrapping. Her steps remained measured and deliberate. Each one taken with the same careful precision she had used as a girl crossing the frozen pond behind her grandfather’s house, certain that if she moved too quickly or breathed too deeply, the ice would crack beneath her and swallow her whole.
It was not too late to turn back.
The thought came swift and sharp, as it had a dozen times already that morning. It had come to her in the carriage, when the wheels had jolted over a rut in the road and she had nearly cried out for the driver to stop. It had come again at the church door, when the wind caught her veil and pressed it against her mouth like a hand seeking to silence her. And it came now, with each step, an insistent little voice that sounded a great deal like her own good sense.
You could stop. You could lift the veil, confess everything, and endure the inevitable scandal. The whispers. The ruin.
Her ruin she could survive. Scandal would touch her, certainly, but as the sixth daughter out of eight it hardly seemed like it would negatively affect her two younger sisters. She could simply be the wayward Harrington.
But then Eliza, her dearest friend in the world, would still be forced into this marriage. Still bound to a man she did not love, to a life she did not want—still pacing some shabby room in Dover at this very moment, white-faced and clutching that ridiculous valise with both hands, waiting for the packet that would carry her across the Channel and into the arms of the only man who had ever made her laugh as though laughter were a gift instead of a duty.
Imogen lifted her chin beneath the veil.
No.
If there was to be scandal today, she would bear it. She had promised. And Imogen Harrington, whatever else might be said of her, kept her promises.
She had known all of her life that grand romance was not for her. She was the sixth of eight daughters and possessed no great beauty or wit to distinguish her. Her face was—in her mother’s words—pleasant enough, though her body was far rounder than was currently popular. In fact, the only noteworthy thing about her at all was that she was exceptionally well-read. A quality that—she had been assured numerous times—was almost as unappealing as her figure.
So, no. Imogen had no hopes for a great romance, but oh, how she longed for one. If not for herself, then at least for Eliza.
Of course, there was also the matter of the blasted red envelope. The one that gave her the dying wish of her father for his sixth daughter.You shall travel abroad, but only as a married woman.
Traveling abroad sounded divine and, frankly, would be quite beneficial should today’s antics explode in her face. But this, her charade ashisbride, would also take care of that married requirement. Providedhedidn’t call everything off the minute he suspected something was amiss.
Her gaze rose, settling on the man waiting at the altar.
Tristan Somerset, Duke of Winfield, stood tall and composed, his broad shoulders perfectly set within the tailored lines of his dark coat. The candlelight caught at his temple, his dark hair the color of a raven’s wing, with not a single strand out of place. The strong, clean line of his jaw was set in an expression of polite, ducal patience. He did not fidget. He did not shift his weight. He did not even glance at the small clock above the vestry door, though by now they were a full quarter hour past the appointed time, and a lesser man might have allowed himself the small discourtesy of looking irritated.
He simply waited, with the quiet, unwavering confidence of a man entirely certain of his place in the world.
Of a man entirely certain of how this day would unfold.
A faint, almost hysterical laugh threatened to rise in her throat, and she had to press her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth to keep it from escaping.