The ceremony took twelve minutes. There was no poetry. There were no declarations of eternal, burning devotion. There was only the heavy, binding weight of the ancient vows. When it came time for the ring, Darius did not produce a delicate band of diamonds: he slid a heavy, solid gold ring onto her finger. It bore the crest of his family, worn smooth by centuries of wear. It felt less like jewelry and more like a seal of office.
"I, Darius Edward Pendleton, take thee, Beatrice..."
The words echoed in the cold stone room. It was done: she was the Duchess of Westmorland.
They did not linger for congratulations. Darius tipped the vicar, escorted Beatrice past her stunned relatives with a brief, terrifying bow, and handed her directly into a waiting traveling carriage. It was pulled by four massive, heavily muscled coaching horses built for endurance, not for parading around Hyde Park.
The door slammed shut. The rain drummed against the roof. The carriage lurched forward, leaving London behind.
Beatrice leaned back against the squabs and let out a long, ragged exhale. The sheer adrenaline of the past three weeks suddenly evaporated, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion. She looked down at the heavy gold ring on her left hand; it dwarfed her knuckle.
"Do you want to sleep?" Darius asked. He was sitting opposite her, watching her carefully. He hadn't crowded her; he had given her the entire side of the carriage to herself.
Beatrice looked up. "I want a cup of tea that doesn't taste like Aunt Agatha's nerves."
Darius reached under his seat and pulled out a heavy silver thermos. He unscrewed the top, poured a steaming cup of dark, fragrant tea into a ceramic mug, and handed it across the space. "No sugar," he noted. "I remembered."
Beatrice took the mug, wrapping her cold hands around the warm ceramic. She took a sip. It was perfect: strong, bitter, and grounding. She looked at the man who was now legally bound to her until death. He had wealth that could unseat small governments; he had a title that commanded the respect of kings; and he was currently sitting in a rattling carriage, pouring her tea.
"We have a four-day journey ahead of us," Darius said, leaning back and crossing his long legs. "The roads in the north will be terrible. The inns will be worse. It will be cold, uncomfortable, and entirely devoid of polite society."
Beatrice took another slow sip of her tea, looking out the window as the crowded, suffocating streets of London gave way to the open, gray countryside.
"It sounds like paradise," she said.
Yorkshire did not welcome them; it endured them.
Stonemore Hall was not a palace: it was a fortress built of dark, rough-hewn granite. It sat atop a harsh rise of land overlooking miles of untamed, wind-blasted heather. It looked like a building designed to survive a siege, not host a ball.
When the carriage finally pulled into the massive courtyard on the evening of the fourth day, Beatrice felt the sheer, crushing scale of Darius's life. The facade of the house stretched for hundreds of feet. The staff, numbering in the dozens, stood in a rigid, terrifyingly perfect line down the sweeping front steps.
Darius stepped out first, turning to hand her down. The wind immediately whipped at Beatrice's skirts, threatening to tear the pins from her hair. She did not stumble. She took his hand, stepped onto the gravel, and squared her shoulders.
At the head of the stairs stood Mrs. Croft, a housekeeper carved from the same granite as the house, and Mr. Hastings, the estate manager. Hastings was a man with a sharp nose, a patronizing smile, and the distinct air of someone who had been running the Duke's life without interference for years.
Hastings looked at Beatrice's plain traveling gown. He looked at her lack of a lady's maid. His smile tightened into something dangerously close to a smirk.
"Welcome home, Your Grace," Hastings said, bowing to Darius before turning a condescending eye to Beatrice. "And welcome, Your Grace. We had not anticipated a sudden addition to the household. I fear the northern climate can be quite shocking to a delicate southern constitution."
Darius went perfectly still. The air around him seemed to drop ten degrees. He opened his mouth to speak, but Beatrice squeezed his arm, silencing him. She did not need him to fight this battle.
She stepped forward, releasing Darius's arm entirely. "My constitution is perfectly sound, Mr. Hastings," Beatrice said. Her voice was polite, flat, and entirely devoid of warmth. "It is my patience for inefficiency that is delicate. I assume the household accounts are ready for my review."
Hastings blinked, completely thrown by the demand. "The... the accounts, Your Grace? Surely you must wish to rest. The domestic ledgers are quite complex. I handle them personally to spare the ladies of the house the drudgery of mathematics."
"I have spent the last six years stretching a single allowance across an entire household," Beatrice replied, her dark eyes pinning the manager to the stone steps. "I find mathematics deeply comforting. Have the ledgers brought to the morning room at 8:00 tomorrow. I prefer my tea hot, Mrs. Croft. Good evening."
She did not wait for a response. She turned and walked up the remaining steps, passing the stunned staff and entering the cavernous main hall of Stonemore.
Behind her, Darius stood on the gravel. He looked at Hastings's pale, horrified face. He looked at the heavy oak doors Beatrice had just swept through. A slow, deeply vicious smile spread across the Duke's face.
"8:00, Hastings," Darius murmured, patting the frozen manager on the shoulder as he walked past. "And I strongly advise you to double-check your arithmetic."