"But you'll do it? Oh please, Lily, I'll die if I have to go through with it. You are my last, my only hope."

Lily Cosgrove looked at the distraught, tear-stained face of her cousin Betsy. She was pale in the candle-light, her eyes dark hollows from sleepless nights. Outside the wind howled and a tree rattled against the window panes.

It was a wild night for a wedding.

But wilder still was Betsy's plan. For Lily to swap places with her, and marry the unknown man who was coming that night to save her family's honour. He had never met either of them: how was he to know if a substitute Elizabeth Cosgrove stood before him at the altar?

Lily wanted to help her cousin but she was conflicted.

"What if we were discovered? Would it even be a valid marriage?"

"I am sure it would. Oh, Lily, if I am forced to marry him it means I can never, ever be with Tom. I simply couldn't bear that!"

No thought was given to Lily's own fate, but then she had never enjoyed the same expectations as Betsy. Orphaned and penniless, her uncle had reluctantly taken her into his household, avoiding spending a farthing more on his niece than required.

Lily didn't care if Sir Robert was cold and indifferent to her, for she loved Betsy and was grateful for a home. She reminded herself that he was her father's only brother and had done his duty by her.

So the two girls grew up together, Lily a year younger than Betsy. They had been happy enough. But then Betsy had her first Season - there were no such plans to waste money debuting Lily in Society - and met the Honourable Tom Farrington.

She had allowed herself to be seduced by him, and worse, got caught in flagrante delicto. The less-than-honourable Tom had bolted to the continent at the first opportunity, leaving Betsy bereft.

Although it soon became apparent that there wasn't going to be the complication of a child, Betsy was nonetheless ruined and her family's name tainted with her.

Darkness descended on the household. Invitations were cancelled. Weeks followed of furious silence from Sir Robert and hand-wringing and recrimination from Lady Maud. She even managed to cast blame on her niece though Lily hadn't even been there. Not being out in Society, Lily had never even met the infamous Tom Farrington. But her aunt was too distraught to acknowledge this. How could her beloved daughter have had this happen to her? Others must surely be at fault!

The servants, well aware of everything that had gone on, remained tight-lipped but they cast one another glances and Lily knew they must gossip about the scandal behind closed doors.

Poor Betsy. One foolish mistake and she carried all the burden of censure and condemnation. And despite Tom running out on her she still adored him. She was still convinced he would come for her, though Lily feared this was very unlikely.

Then a surprise offer of help arrived. Tom's cousin, the Marquess of Westford, had written to Betsy's father proposing marriage to save her family's honour. A very private man who rarely left his country estate, he had expressed shame and embarrassment at his young relative's actions and wished to make good the situation.

Sir Robert was only too glad to take him up on his offer. The marriage would be held in the chapel of his own home. He and his wife were away at the time the correspondence took place. Lady Maud was taking a "rest cure", unable to bear the proximity of neighbours and staff who knew all about their dishonour.

"We will remain at Buxton due to my wife's condition. It is desirable that this event takes place with the least delay," Sir Robert wrote.

He preferred to distance himself from the entire affair and his daughter's disgrace. If in time her reputation was redeemed in the eyes of society, he might again acknowledge her.

So Betsy would get married alone. The local curate would give her away. There would be no wedding gown, no trousseau. It was purely an arrangement.

Lily smoothed the worn muslin of her own gown over her lap. It was a cast off of Betsy's, she was rarely given new clothes of her own. Her uncle considered that she didn't need them as she wasn't out in society. Now she probably never would be.

The candles flickered. The evening drew on. Tonight the Marquess would come for his bride.

"They say he's a confirmed bachelor, he must be ancient, Lily! And I know Tom means to return, he loves me Lily, I am certain! This horrid cousin and his disapproval are the very reason we had to keep our love secret, and why he had to flee abroad."

As inexperienced as Lily was, she doubted this. But she did not want to upset Betsy further.

Betsy's accusations against the Marquess hardly encouraged Lily to agree to take her place, but she knew her own fortunes were very different to her cousin's. Lily had no money for a dowry, so with his duty done, her uncle planned to send her to live as the companion of a distant relation. This lady, an elderly dowager of irascible temper, lived in the remote Highlands far away from society. A bleak and gruelling future lay ahead..

Maybe to be the mistress of a household, any household, was better?

But it was not this consideration that made Lily finally agree to her cousin's desperate plan. It was out of genuine concern for Betsy, and the faintest hope that Tom might yet return for her. Since there was no prospect of love in Lily's own life, it was surely but a slight sacrifice for her to be confined by matrimonial bonds?

Still, she wavered. What if this was the best outcome for Betsy? Even if this Marquess was elderly, he was a rich and noble man and Betsy would want for nothing. She would regain her place in society and perhaps even bear children if the Marquess was not quite as decrepit as feared.

"Very well."

As she spoke the words, she had the strangest sensation that the walls were at once closing in and crumbling down around her.

"Oh Lily!" Betsy was in raptures amid a fresh outburst of tears. Her relief, that saw her breaking down even more than before, vindicated Lily's decision. Marrying this man was almost a matter of indifference to her, but to Betsy it was a prison sentence.

Now all she had to do was go through with it. Approach the altar, speak her vows, and leave for she knew not where.

* * *

Betsy was as accommodating and as generous as she could be in the limited time left.

"You must take any of my things you like. I won't need them and I shall have new ones when I eventually have my own marriage," she offered.

Lily was reluctant to take any of Betsy's possessions. Her own were embarrassingly poor and shabby so she would at least need to borrow a newer gown for the deception to be convincing. The Marquess couldn't imagine that Sir Robert's daughter would wear frayed cotton or patched silk.

"This muslin might do for a wedding," Betsy suggested. It was one of her newer ones, she had worn it to a ball last spring. The fabric was thin for these cooler, autumn nights but Lily agreed that it was elegant.

There was something she wanted to know. Something a mother might have talked with her about, or at least given tactful hints towards. Here, there was no one she could ask except Betsy.

"What happened with you and Tom Farrington, what exactly... I mean the wedding night," Lily started. In the freer years of her childhood, before her father died, she had played in stables and around the estate. She had some sense of mares being sired and that certain things happened, though it seemed absurd to imagine it could be anything quite like that among people.

Still she knew there was something. Snatches of conversation from the giggling of a newly betrothed maidservant about the Wedding Night. An unguarded remark from the cook to one of the kitchenmaids about bedchambers, in the young Lily's earshot. She knew that men and women were different for she had caught a glimpse of men bathing in the river once or twice. Her nursemaid had gasped and quickly ushered her young charge away when this happened.

Betsy blushed. "One doesn't possibly talk about such things, Lily."

"I know. But what exactly does it involve? Surely I need to know, if I am to be married?"

Her cousin remained tight-lipped. "The man takes care of all that."

"But is it... is it bearable?" Lily had heard older women speak of "duty".

"When you're with someone you love, you won't mind anything," Betsy told her.

This was hardly reassuring. Lily might be going to promise to love and honour a husband before God, but since she had never met him she could hardly feel that she loved him. She didn't even know what he looked like.

She clearly wasn't going to get any more out of her cousin. Betsy was busy arranging her own affairs. A letter had rapidly been dispatched to her former governess. Anne Carter, a weak soul who had adored Betsy during the years she had attended to her education, would now be Betsy's refuge while she awaited Tom's return. She lived in a tiny cottage in the countryside, on a small pension, but it would be safe enough for Betsy.

"Of course my mother and father will think that it's you who are staying there. I don't think they'll ask many questions, since you were going to be leaving anyway."

Lily's aunt's and uncle's indifference to her made the whole deception much easier. They would simply be glad she had gone, even if it meant the Scottish relation lost out on her promised companion.

As Lily packed her few, pitiful belongings into a small trunk and slipped into Betsy's muslin, her cousin assisting her with the fastenings, a maid knocked on the door.

"Oh Miss Betsy, Miss Lily, the visitor has arrived."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Substitute Bride" is my first Regency Romance, being published on Radish Fiction (see link to get their free app). But you'll be able to read the first few chapters for free on Wattpad!

I'll also be publishing a new student-teacher romance novel very soon, which will be available in full on Wattpad.

Watch this space!

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