Lady Sarah's Secret

XXVI. A Wedding Night

"You should dress for dinner, my lady," Lottie called as she entered Sarah's new bedchamber. The title of 'lady' hit her ears like a gong, a reminder of what she'd done to Charles, with such finality that very morning.

"I do not want to go," Sarah muttered from her place on the window seat.

She'd spent the last few hours hiding here, crying and watching the snow pile up. How could she go out there among them? The servants knew her to be a housemaid, the guests knew her to be a desperate, unwanted bride, and Charles - well she could not bring herself to imagine what he must think now. He'd certainly been willing to marry her that day in the study, but now that he'd truly be so entrapped, he would surely resent her. Sarah felt no better than Lavinia in her plot to entangle an honorable man by posing as a maid and then falling in love with him. He would hate her, for the rest of their lives. Had she any tears left, Sarah might have cried just then, but what little energy had existed that morning had been drained by her illness and her distress sometime ago. She only wished to be left to rot here at this window sill until she died rather than face a husband who did not love her and had not wanted her, but had only ever pitied her.

"You will not have to go far, my lady," Lottie replied cheerfully, "Sir Charles has had dinner sent up to your sitting room for the two of you to eat privately this evening," the young maid explained with a smile on her face.

"Oohhh," Sarah groaned as she buried her face in her hands. She had not spoken to him directly since refusing his proposal, aside from their wedding vows. That would've been a laughable thought had Sarah at all felt like laughing. She did not want to see him, did not want to speak to him - but to eat alone with him - that would be worst of all.

"It sounded rather sweet to me, my lady," Lottie insisted, "A husband wanting to steal his bride away for an evening."

The words husband and bride felt like buckets of cold water to Sarah's mind. How could this have happened? The one thing that Charles had explicitly said he would never do - marry her. The one thing that Sarah had been sure of since he arrived at Broadcroft - she would not be thrown at his honor.

"I would not worry yourself, my lady," Lottie encouraged as she laid out one of Amelia's borrowed gowns, "Sir Charles is a kind man, and arranged marriages are often not true marriages right away."

"What did you say?" Sarah's head shot up, an idea springing from a fountain of hope in her chest.

"I said Sir Charles is a kind ma-"

"That's it!" Sarah cried with delight as she bounded from her spot by the window and hurried to dress.

Within a few minutes Sarah found herself sitting across from her new husband in front of a roaring fire. They had not spoken besides the formalities of greeting, Sarah wondered if they would ever speak as they used to again, the thought pained her heart. But she did love him, she was willing to admit that to herself at least, and she would do what should could to ease the burden that she had become.

"You looked beautiful today," he was saying, a small smile on his lips, Sarah felt her breath catch in her throat and knew she needed to speak up before he said anything that might make her change her mind.

"Charles, I was thinking," she began nervously setting down her fork, "I know this is not what you expected to be your marriage."

"It isn't," Charles admitted, "But many things have been happening in way I did not expect them," he said with small smile. Sarah didn't pause to wonder what he meant.

"I know you married me out of duty to Richard and to protect me," Sarah continued on in a stream of language.

"Sarah, I didn't -" he tried to interrupt her, but she pressed on, knowing that whatever his objections were, they would be filled with pity. He would deny it until his dying breath because he was a good kind man like Lottie had said, but it would be pity nonetheless. If she was to give up what she had dreamed of , of having Charles for her husband, then she needed to do it quickly before her nerve failed.

"We can have the marriage annulled after I receive my inheritance," she blurted finally, turning red with shame and the thought of being unwanted by Charles and the idea of leaving him forever. She waited for his response, but there was no sound. After several minutes, Sarah peeked up through her eyelashes to gather his reaction.

Charles had gone like a stone statue, just staring into the fire, his features unmoving, a hardness in his eyes that she had not seen since she'd first encountered him in the study. He looked angry, and the man she'd been so in love with a week ago seemed to have disappeared within this Lieutenant's encasing.

"Charles?" she whispered finally in small voice, for he still did not stir or speak to her.

"There are many things I would do for you, Sarah, but this I cannot. I will not grant you an annulment," he said it in a tone void of emotion, of humanness, void of himself and all without ever looking at her, "I bid you goodnight, madame," he said quickly before leaving the room without so much as a backward glance. Sarah sat looking after him for several minutes until a tear drop landed on her hand and she realized she'd been crying.

"What a fool you are, Sarah Stanhope," she whispered to the empty air, "And what a wedding night at that."