“What have you not told me?” she demanded to know, hating that she had been made to feel small. Knowledge was power, and any lack of it was unacceptable to her.
James blinked. “I do not know what you mean.”
“He said there are things you have not told me. What are they?”
James shrugged her off. “This match will erase a great debt. A debt that, if not erased, will be catastrophic.”
“You areusingme to erase a debt?” she spat, grabbing his sleeve again. “If you think I am going to marry that brute to clean up a mess you caused, you may think again. He does not even seem to want a wife, so I doubt he shall be too wounded by it. Either way, I will not be your pawn. Never!”
James’s eyes glinted with anger as he grabbed her sleeve in return. “You have no worth, Matilda—do not flatter yourself. You are a spinster. You have made yourself intolerable to the ton. You have no value there, butheis willing to overlook that. And ifyoudo not overlook your own self-importance, you shall find yourself turned away from this house and will have to watch as others reside here, for I will have no choice but to rent it to anyone who will pay to give back what is owed. Perhaps, I shall even have to sell it. If you do as you are being asked, nothing here will change.”
Matilda’s grip loosened, her resolve slipping with it. Ifthosewere the stakes, then she truly had no choice. The trap had been set much earlier than she had realized, and she had been caught in it from the moment James inherited, bringing his debt with him. Shewashis pawn, and he had just made her last move on the board.
* * *
Albion would have taken the worst battles he had faced over another ten minutes in pretty gardens with Lady Matilda. It was not merely the fact that she was not the sweet and nice girl he had imagined but that she clearly did not wish to be married to him… or, indeed, to anyone.
The last thing he wanted to be was a hypocrite. He had not said so in her company, but he, of all people, could understand the agony of having a role thrust upon you that you did not ask for.
Yet, he did not know if this would be the end of their acquaintance. She had confirmed something he had long suspected but had not thought about when he was surrounded by men who did not see scars or care about them. In a battalion, even as Captain, everyone was equal. Everyone was in the same boat.
I am beastly here… I am monstrous.It had shown in the way she could not look at him for longer than a few seconds without lowering her gaze or veering away to wander a different path as if his closeness was as repulsive to her as his face.
“Judging by that winning smile on your face, it went so well that there’s to be a wedding tomorrow,” Ben said, tossing an apple from hand to hand as he rose from the back step of the carriage.
Albion sighed. “Hilarious, as ever.”
“She isn’t keen?”
“I think she said something along the lines of, if I were the last man in existence, she still wouldn’t deign to marry me,” he replied, and he could not blame her. She was a beauty; he was a beast—a happy ending only existed between such people in fairytales.
CHAPTERFOUR
“Iam as horrified as you. More so,” Matilda said, hiding her shaking hands in the pockets of her apron. “It is my worst nightmare come true and believe me when I say I have thought of every possible way to escape it. I have pages and pages of ideas, but none are possible. If they were, I would have begun a scheme by now.”
The Spinsters’ Club was silent. Leah had taken a bite of a scone two minutes ago and had yet to chew it. Olivia held her spoon in her tea, braced to stir, but had made no movement. Phoebe clasped her hands as if she was praying—for the Duke, most likely. And Anna looked like she might cry though Matilda did not know if it was from relief or outrage.
“The wedding is set for three weeks from now,” Matilda continued, sounding more courageous than she felt. “If any of you have any ideas I have not thought of—admittedly, I have been somewhat distracted—then please do speak them aloud now, for I am at my wit’s end. Oh, and if you see so much as a smirk upon James’s face, do me the great honor of smacking it off his face.”
The last few days had been a whirlwind of the most brutal kind, twisting her and tossing her this way and that. She had raged and argued with James until her skull throbbed with pain, but it had always circled back to the same point: if she did not marry Albion Winter, the Duke of Whitecliff, she would be thrown out onto the streets and Montale House would be rented or sold.
She would lose her home in more ways than one. She would lose the one thread that still tied her to her father if she did not do as she was told.
So, when James said he was going to write to Albion and tell him that there had been a change of heart and that Matildawoulduphold her part of the bargain, she had not stopped him. Nor had she stopped any of the wedding plans that had unfolded since, mostly orchestrated between her aunt and Albion’s mother, everything rushing past her so fast that she had become unanchored.
“He is a spineless toad,” Phoebe was the first to speak. “I shall do more than smack him if I cross paths with him. Indeed, I did wonder why he was not here to welcome us, the wretched coward.”
Leah nodded vigorously. “Shall I speak with Nathaniel? I am certain he could speak with some people and prevent this from happening.”
“We could join our resources,” Olivia agreed. “We can put together the sum of this debt and pay it on James’s behalf. I do not want to easehisburden, but as he has lashed it to you, there is nothing I would not give to free you from it.”
Anna bowed her head. “I cannot offer coin, but I can offer vengeance,” she said softly, shocking everyone.
As the meekest, gentlest, most softhearted of the Spinsters’ Club, it was always jarring when Anna decided to unleash some of her well-hidden fire. Indeed, Matilda had fully expected Anna to be the only one of the five women to be optimistic about the match. Or, perhaps, she had been hoping Anna might have some encouraging words, to bolster her courage.
“What?” Anna raised her head, seeing the startled faces of her friends.
“We just… did not expect to hear that from you,” Phoebe replied gently.
