Free The French Bride by Evelyn Anthony

sworn to love and cherish her in fidelity until death, and she had promised to obey him and serve him as long as she lived. She had lost her name, her title, her identity; the Marquise de Bernard had entered the chapel, now Mme. Macdonald stood in her place with a husband beside her who had not once looked at her during the ceremony. Charles wore a white tunic; a vivid sash of tartan crossed his breast, caught on the shoulder with a cairngorm brooch, and his breeches were silk tartan. Sir James Macdonald and his wife were both in Highland dress; in his bonnet he wore the eagle’s feather of the chief.
    The nuptial Mass began and bride and groom knelt in front of the altar; while the service proceeded Anne hid her face and prayed. Her parents had been married in this same church, the pretty, frivolous little mother she hardly remembered and the unbending father who was only a name to his child. They had not been happy; perhaps her father had loved his bride as passionately as she loved her bridegroom, perhaps he too had prayed for happiness as she was doing, and not known that he would never touch his wife’s heart.
    When Charles came back almost immediately from Versailles, she had not dared to question him, his mood was so savage. He had been curt with her in public, ignoring her plea that he should observe the conventions before others. The night before the wedding he excused himself, and the gossip all over the château was that he had got drunk and struck his valet while the man was trying to put him to bed.
    Now it was done; she had accepted the challenge of his hatred, risking all on her determination to change it into love. She glanced at him and saw that he was staring straight ahead, unmistakably bored and in an ill temper, his handsome face as hard as stone. Now the power was his; power to spend her fortune, power to go where he pleased and regulate her movements accordingly. She had no redress against any restrictions he chose to place upon her, no claim upon the law which recognised only the husband’s rights and regarded the woman and all her possessions as his chattels once she married him.
    At the end of the Mass they knelt again to receive the priest’s blessing: ‘And now, my children, leave this holy place in the unity of God’s blessing and the sanctity of your married state; love one another and obey God’s laws. I will pray for you both.’
    The priest had known Anne since childhood; he was a kindly old man, singularly uncorrupted by the reverence paid him. For a moment the shrewd brown eyes smiled at her, and then they glanced keenly into the face of the man she had married, searching for some sign of emotion. She could tell by the way in which he turned from Charles that he had seen nothing.
    At the door they hesitated; there was a long line of servants and tenants waiting for them and Anne blinked in the bright sunshine.
    â€˜Come, madame. Let us run this gauntlet as quickly as possible.’ They were the first words he had spoken to her that day. There was a long wedding banquet; Anne ate almost nothing. Her steward fussed behind her chair; he had served Mme. la Marquise since she was old enough to sit at table and he was worried that she might faint after the long ceremony. She looked as white as her dress. Suddenly Charles looked up at him over his shoulder. ‘Your ministrations to Madame are disturbing me. Go away!’
    â€˜Charles,’ Anne whispered. She saw the steward turn red and still he stood behind her as if her husband had not spoken. ‘Charles, please. I need some wine.…’
    â€˜You need a new steward,’ he remarked. ‘I shall find one for you in the morning. I told that one to go and he’s still there. He must be growing deaf. Have a little command of yourself even if you haven’t over your servants. You can cry as hard as you wish when we’re alone.’ He raised his glass to his sister who was sitting