The chapel sat at the edge of the estate like a forgotten relic, draped in creeping ivy and the hush of cold stone. It wasn't meant for weddings, not truly. Not for celebrations, at least. It felt more like a tomb.
Edeana stood at the threshold for only a breath, then stepped forward, her spine straight, her chin high. The chill in the air coiled around her ankles, but she paid it no mind. Her slippers made no sound on the worn flagstone floor. Candles flickered in narrow sconces along the walls, casting shadows that reached like fingers toward the vaulted ceiling. Two servants waited at the back pews—silent, unimpressed, there only to sign the register and bear witness to the farce. That was fine. It wasn't like she had expected smiling faces to greet her as she walked down the aisle.
Her dress was plain—a cream muslin, simple and unadorned. Not quite the thing a girl dreams of wearing on her wedding day, but she wasn't brought here to dream. The Duke - her father if she could call him that, had arranged it, as he had arranged everything.
Her hair, despite Agnes's earlier efforts, had mostly escaped its pins. She imagined she looked half-wild and tired and far too pale. The man she was to marry stood near the altar. He hadn't turn when she entered.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Still as a statue, save the slight shift of breath in his chest. His charcoal coat was worn at the cuffs, tailored well once but lived in now. Dark hair cropped close to his skull with a full beard covering half his face, Edeana's eyes were drawn to the tension in his shoulders. A man used to bearing weight she guessed—and not just the physical kind.
He was supposed to be a servant—but he didn't carry himself like one. There was something in the way he stood—spine straight, head high—that suggested something nobler. Could he also have been born illegitimate like her? That would explain his posture. And his gall in pursuing someone far above his station.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as she approached the altar, he gave her the briefest nod before turning his attention back to the clergyman in front of them. That didn't bother her. She had expected it.
The stories told to her by the other servants had prepared her to expect someone crude and unsociable—someone barely willing to engage with anyone. But upon closer inspection Edeana also observed that there was a quiet confidence about him. It intrigued her. Not because she found him handsome—though he was, in a rugged pretty boy sort of way—but because, despite also being forced to be here, his face betrayed not a single emotion.
The clergyman—a tired old man with ink-stained fingers and a voice like paper—cleared his throat and began droning through the ceremony. The words were rote, forgettable, but Edeana listened anyway. She wanted to hear every step of this strange path she was walking. She wanted to remember.
As she stood beside her would be husband—Devlin, she'd been told—and folded her hands in front of her, Edeana allowed herself another glance upward, just for a moment. A strong brow. A profile like carved stone. He held himself too still. She had seen that look before, in the soldiers who sometimes passed through the estate grounds. Men used to watching everything without letting anything show.
"I take it neither of you care for vows?" the clergyman mumbled, his eyes flickering between the both of them.
They answered almost in unison, their voices carrying the same steady resolve.
Devlin's was deep and calm. "No vows." Edeana's was firm, yet just as unwavering. "No vows."
She felt, more than saw, the brief turn of his head. A flicker of surprise, quickly concealed.
The clergyman gestured toward the register along with two sets of official looking parchments. "Sign."
Devlin reached for the quill and wrote in a practiced hand: Devlin Percival.
She took the quill next and didn't hesitate. Her pen moved smoothly: Edeana Marylton.
She made sure the letters were large and legible. If her name was going to be on official papers, she would not have it questioned for legitimacy due to its visibility.
The clerk declared them wed with one sentence.
"No kiss required, I presume?"
Edeana didn't answer. Devlin gave a short nod.
The servants signed without a word and turned to leave the premises. The record was tucked away; parchments with their signatures were handed over to Devlin as proof of the marriage. That was it.
Edeana gathered her skirts as she turned around, walking towards the door, into the dawn that waited outside like a clean slate.
But just as she reached the threshold, she felt it—that shift in the air. She turned her head.
His eyes were on her.
Not curious. Not cold. It was almost like he was searching for something.
For a breath, they simply looked at each other. Two people studying the shape of a future neither had chosen but would have to carry. In the quiet space between them, Edeana noticed the faintest softness in Devlin's eyes, an almost imperceptible warmth that contrasted with the distant mask he wore.
It was fleeting, but it was there—a silent invitation to bridge the gap between them, a quiet question that neither spoke aloud. She wondered if, perhaps, there was more beneath the surface, something buried beneath the cold walls they'd both inadvertedly built.
And still—she didn't look away. Could they grow into something other than cold indifference between them? Edeana wondered as she held his gaze. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the flicker of reaction was gone, shuttered behind a blank expression.
Shaking her head as she chided herself for such thoughts, she once again turned her back towards her husband and stepped into the chill of morning, her breath curling in front of her like smoke. She didn't shiver. She didn't pause. She had to retrieve her belongings for the long journey ahead of them.
Devlin stayed behind a moment longer.
Whatever he'd expected when he stood in the chapel earlier today, it certainly wasn't that.
He'd assumed they would find some quiet, grateful servant—paid off to play the bride for a day. A name on parchment. A placeholder in a play he never signed up for.
But she had met him with her chin raised and her eyes sharp. No trembling. Just a quiet, unflinching determination.
Red hair like firelight. A gaze like a question he wasn't ready to answer.
And Marylton. The name echoed like a faint drumbeat. Not a scandal, exactly—but a name that had probably once belonged to a noble house. Absorbed, perhaps, into another line through marriage or inheritance. Quietly faded. It was the kind of name one might see buried in the footnotes of old court records or treaties. It scratched at a corner of his mind… but offered no answers.
Still, it wasn't a servant's name. Perhaps one day he would find out.
But today was not that day.
The Queen awaited him in the capital, and he'd already stayed three days longer than he'd intended—thanks to the unfortunate circumstance with the Duke's daughter.
Nothing was going according to plan. And yet, as he followed his new bride out into the cold, frosty air, he couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face.