in0 by Luciana

Author:Luciana
Language: eng
Format: epub

“I’ll ready the chamber,” the woman Andres assumed to be Mrs. Laing said.

Her words brought color to Abby’s cheeks, which was not such a bad thing.

Within the half hour, Andres found himself standing with Abby before Laing in the front room of Laing’s low-ceilinged cottage. Both Andres and Abby had removed their coats and freshened up the best they could. A fire burned in the grate, and lanterns had been lit against the gloom.

Abby placed her gloved hand in Andres’s. Mr. Laing began the ceremony.

He started by asking for their names and addresses and if they were both single.

“Are you here of your own free will, miss?” Laing asked Abby.

“I am.”

“Go ahead now and pay me then,” Laing said. “Have her make the payment,” he instructed Andres. Seeing Andres’s frown at the suggestion, he explained, “If she pays, no one can come back later and claim she was married against her will.”

It embarrassed Andres to have to pour out his meager hoard of coins and pass two guineas to Abby—one for Laing and the other for their witness, Whitacre.

She seemed as dazed about the whole affair as he. She paid and the ceremony continued. It was nothing fancy—certainly not as thorough and inspiring as the clergy would have given.

There was one awkward moment when Laing asked if there was a ring.

Andres felt like a fool. He had no ring. “I don’t have one,” he murmured.

The mood in the room changed. Laing and the witnesses didn’t speak; this was an important detail, one that a man of means like the barón should have anticipated.

And he could feel himself drop in their esteem, sensed himself the bastard again.

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