The Duke Was Forced to Marry the “Ugliest” Somerset Sister, a Woman Hidden Behind Black Crepe for Ten Years — But When He Removed Her Veil Before the Entire Court, Everyone Finally Learned Why She Had Been Hidden

PART 3

He didn’t look away — but he didn’t step toward her, either. He simply waited at the altar, hands clasped behind his back, jaw set like a man enduring a court-martial rather than a wedding, while Henrietta walked the aisle alone, her bad leg scraping loud against the cold stone.

“Time to go,” her father had whispered at the vestibule door, gripping her arm hard enough to bruise, courage borrowed from a brandy flask. He walked her three steps and let go, as though the transaction were already complete and his part in it finished.

When she reached the altar, she turned her head slightly, searching the mesh of her veil for his eyes. He kept his fixed on the priest.

The ceremony passed in a blur of Latin and clipped English. Her own voice came out a dry croak. His was a low, resonant rumble, spoken without hesitation, without tremor — a man reciting a casualty list, not a vow.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The priest looked profoundly relieved it was over. This was, traditionally, the moment for a kiss. A lifting of the veil.

Arthur did neither.

He turned on his heel and offered her his elbow without a glance.

“The carriage is waiting.”

His first words to her. Henrietta rested her gloved hand on his sleeve — the muscle beneath the wool felt like iron — and let her husband walk her out of the church and into the storm.

The journey north lasted four days of bone-rattling silence. Arthur sat across from her, taking up most of the floor with his long legs, staring out at the gray downpour with the hypervigilance of a soldier expecting an ambush. He did not read. He did not sleep.

Henrietta sat with her hands folded, the cold biting into her bad leg until it throbbed in a sickening rhythm. She refused to shift. She had learned long ago that displaying pain only invited pity or irritation, and she suspected her new husband possessed an abundance of the latter and none of the former.

On the third day, a violent jolt threw her forward. Her hands landed on his knee before she could stop them.

He didn’t flinch. He looked down at her gloved hands, then up at the black void of her veil.

“The axle is slipping,” he said, voice raspy from disuse.

“I beg your pardon, your grace. The mud—”

“Do not apologize for the roads. You did not build them.” He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, bringing his face closer to hers. “And you needn’t call me your grace inside this carriage. Arthur will suffice. We are tied together now. For better or worse. Mostly worse, I suspect.”

It was the most he had said to her since the altar.

“Very well, Arthur. I am Henrietta.”

“I am aware.” He leaned back, arms crossed. “Your father was eager to sell you. Told me you were quiet. Unobtrusive.” A pause. “Told me you hide because the world cannot stomach looking at you.”

The bluntness of it landed like a blow. Society couched its disgust in whispers and averted eyes. Arthur delivered it like a musket shot.

“My father is a pragmatic man,” she said, her voice shaking only slightly. “He speaks the truth.”

“Does he?” Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “I find men like your father rarely speak the truth unless it profits them.” His gaze dropped, unhurried. “You flinch when the carriage hits a rut. Your right leg pains you.”

Henrietta went still. She’d thought her stillness absolute.

“It is an old injury. It requires no attention.”

“I did not ask if it required attention. I stated a fact.” He reached down, grabbed a heavy wool lap robe from the floor, and tossed it into her lap. “Wrap it. If you freeze to death before we reach Westford, the crown will tie me up in probate for another six months.”

He turned back to the window. Conversation over.

Henrietta looked down at the coarse gray blanket smelling of horses and rain, then unfolded it slowly and tucked it around her aching leg. The warmth was immediate, unexpectedly comforting. She studied her husband’s sharp profile against the dirty glass. A brute, exactly as her sister had promised — but an observant one.

They reached Westford at twilight on the fourth day. Through her veil, Henrietta watched the estate rise out of the dusk — massive, dark stone choked in ivy, but dying. The roofline sagged. Whole wings sat dark, windows shuttered like closed eyes. Weeds strangled what had once been gardens. It looked exactly like the man across from her: imposing, battered, entirely devoid of softness.

The carriage halted before a great oak door. Arthur stepped out first and did not wait for her, striding up the stone steps, stripping off wet gloves. A severe woman in black bombazine stood in the doorway with a candelabra.

“Mrs. Reed,” he barked, his voice echoing in the cavernous foyer. “Fires in the master suite. Prepare the adjoining chambers for my wife.”

Henrietta navigated the steps alone, favoring her bad leg, and stood a moment in the driving rain, looking up at the towering facade of the place that was now, apparently, hers. No welcoming committee. No introduction. Only the wind howling off the moors, and the full weight of her isolation settling over her like the veil itself.

She pulled her pelisse tighter and limped up the stairs into the dark mouth of the manor — not knowing yet that within a single morning, she would begin the slow, unglamorous work of saving it, and that the man who had married her sight unseen was about to discover exactly what he’d purchased.