The Fearless Miss Dinah by Laura Rollins

Chapter Six

The next morning, the sky was clouded over.

Dinah got up early, having hardly slept at all, and was already halfway dressed by the time her abigail showed up. The maid apologized profusely for not coming to her sooner.

Dinah hardly said a thing in reply. She wasn’t upset with her abigail, only too overwrought to care much either way.

Eliza and Adam, as well as Rachel and Christopher, were all there. Her sister and cousin gave Dinah smiles as she walked into the church, but she could still see the concern in their eyes.

These were not the smiles she’d expected to receive on her wedding day.

Lord Stanton was there, as he’d promised he’d be. There were also several individuals Dinah didn’t know. Probably his family, only they were all men. She glanced their way once, but they all seemed to blur together—a collection of unfamiliar masculine faces, fake smiles much like those worn by her own family, and troubled eyes.

How had this ever been allowed to happen?

Dinah reached the front of the room, and their vows were read.

He agreed.

She agreed.

They were married.

It was all so simple. So fast.

Dinah couldn’t believe it. In the space of less than an hour, her whole life had altered. The townhouse Father rented was no longer her home. She was no longer his responsibility, but another man’s. She had a new last name. She wasn’t any of the things she’d been only that morning.

So fast.

Everything she’d known had been stripped from her so fast.

She turned to walk down the aisle, out of the church, and into a strange life. She didn’t reach for Lord Stanton’s arm, and he didn’t offer it.

The man beside her was a complete stranger.

What was she to do?

Who was she now?

Dinah breathed in but couldn’t find enough air. Her corset wasn’t that tight, and yet, her lungs couldn’t seem to fill. And it was so hot. Summer was a most unpleasant time to get married.

Dinah stumbled. There was a rushing in her ears, as though waves of the great ocean were suddenly beating against the walls of the church house.

And the room was fading into black.

Surely that wasn’t normal.

The floor beneath her tipped.

Someone cried out.

Dinah could have sworn arms wrapped around her . . . but that could have simply been her imagination.

Wasn’t she still standing, though?

Or was she lying on the floor?

It almost felt as though she were floating . . .

. . . floating . . .

Then all she knew was darkness.