“Pardon?”
“It is that everyone else is too gaudy. If they were plants in nature, all would be poisonous,” he replied. “And a few would have terrible thorns. You’re mistaken if you think I don’t see the way they have been looking at you. It’s why I asked you to dance. If you don’t lift up your chin and show you’re unafraid, they win.”
Matilda frowned. “You want me to perform for those witless apes?”
“Not perform. Pretend. It’s tactical,” he replied.
“If I need your opinion or protection, I shall ask for it.” She danced away from him, moving around two other ladies in a horseshoe before skipping back to the center to press her palm to his once more. Even through her silk glove, she could feel the rough graze of his calluses, snagging on the fabric.
“One shouldn’t ever be too proud to accept advice,” he told her, picking up where they left off.
She met his gaze, glowering. “Then, take mine. Here it is—marrying me will be the greatest mistake you ever make. I will not obey, I will not be submissive, I will not be pleasant, I will not be a companion to your mother, and I will not warm to you. It is impossible. My cousin sold me to wipe away his debt. I have allowed myself to be sold, so that my father’s house will not be lost, even if I must lose the gift of living there. It is as simple and awful as that.”
“Don’t become a problem, Matilda,” he warned, raising their hands as she danced in a circle around him. “That is all I ask.”
She withdrew her hand. “Then, Your Grace, I am afraid you ask too much.”
Knowing the gasps it would cause, knowing the embarrassment it would inflict upon Albion, knowing that itwaspetulant and not caring anyway, she turned on her heel and stalked away from the dance floor, leaving him alone to face the baying groundlings who had finally been given their calamity.
CHAPTERSEVEN
“If you had not defied your father and I, you might not be in this situation,” Constance complained on the eve of Albion’s wedding. “My friends cannot fathom why you are doing this. As such, they have informed me that they will not be attending this farce of a wedding. Why, even I would not be attending if I had a choice.”
Albion stared into the glass of brandy he gripped in his hand. “I’m surprised my neck hasn’t broken yet,” he muttered darkly, his sour mood souring further at the mention of his father. Even dead, he haunted every cranny of that manor.
To his right, in a matching armchair, Ben sat very still, every muscle tensed as though ready to leap in and prevent chaos if Albion finally snapped.
“Your neck? What is the matter with it?” Constance said, pulling a face.
“I’m surprised it hasn’t broken with all of the this-way, that-way, back and forth that I have been doing since my return, trying to smoothen this transition,” Albion replied, his voice barbed. “You encouraged this. Indeed, your words were, ‘Youhaveto do this, Albion, because if you don’t, you might very well die alone, and Iwillhave grandchildren, one way or another.’ I don’t know what your ‘other way’ entails, but your meaning was clear.”
Constance paled, her hands trembling as she hurried to hide them behind her back. “I do not like her. Is it not a mother’s prerogative to speak when her son is making a mistake?”
“You are making things difficult,” he growled. “If you changed your mind about this match, you should have said so weeks ago, not the night before the wedding. A wedding you’ve thrown yourself into arranging, harassing me with a thousand questions a day about things that don’t matter to me in the slightest. I don’t even know what an orchid is, for goodness’ sake.”
Since his return, Albion had been careful not to raise his voice to his mother, regardless of how she spoke to him or how inane the questions were. But she could not hide the fleeting flash of fear on her face as easily as her hands; he saw it and regretted his tone.
“She insulted you at your engagement party,” she said quietly. “She has not responded to any of your letters or mine. Who is to say she will even be there tomorrow? I do not want to see you humiliated—thatis why I am speaking now. I do not think she will attend.”
Albion sighed. “Yes, she insultedme. I have forgiven it. As for her attendance tomorrow—she will be there.”
He did not mention that that was what heldhisnerves in an ever-tightening vise, that shewouldbe in attendance.
“I do not trust her,” Constance insisted.
“You don’t have to. I trust that she’ll uphold her side of the bargain as I’ll uphold mine.” He sipped his drink. “Now, please retire to bed before the hour grows too late. You should’ve been asleep hours ago. This worrying won’t do you any good.”
Constance pursed her lips. “I shall retire, but I assure you, I will not sleep.”
She marched out of the study with a thunderous expression upon her pinched face, but she did not take all of the dark clouds out of the room with her. A tension lingered in the air, crackling with threat.
“Quite the celebration we’re having tonight, eh?” Ben raised his glass.
Albion slumped into the armchair. “There were supposed to be others, but it seems they’ve been waylaid.”
“You mean, their wives don’t want you talking to them?”
“Something like that.”
