“A father,” Nathaniel replied, “should have considered his daughter’s reputation before selling her to a seventy-two-year-old man to settle his debts.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Evelyn watched her father’s face cycle through several shades of red before settling on a mottled purple.
“How dare you?—”
“How dare I speak the truth?” Nathaniel stepped forward. “Tell me, Lord Lowey, where exactly were you on your daughter’s wedding day? Off pursuing another ‘business opportunity,’ I believe?”
“My business affairs are not your concern, aside from the one concerning her jointure, which I demand as well. Your solicitors have kept me waiting long enough. My daughter deserves her just reward.”
“They become my concern when they involve the well-being of a young woman under my protection,” Nathaniel said. “And they especially become my concern when you appear at my door demanding money that does not belong to you.”
Lord Lowey’s mask slipped. “That money is mine by right. She is unmarried, living in scandal?—”
“She is a widow,” Nathaniel corrected. “And she is hardly living in scandal. She has been treated with every courtesy befitting her station.”
“Living under your roof! Unchaperoned! The scandal sheets are full of your sordid misadventures day after day!”
“Then perhaps,” Evelyn said quietly, “you should have thought of that before you disappeared immediately after arranging my marriage and left me to face the consequences alone. And if they are full of scandal day after day, why have you only come now?”
Her father whirled on her. “You ungrateful girl! Do you think I wanted any of this? Do you think I had a choice?”
“You had choices,” she replied. “You could have lived within your means. You could have stopped spending not only your money, but also your mother’s and Aunt Eugenia’s. You could have put your family’s well-being before your own desires. Instead, you chose to gamble away everything until nothing was left but my virtue!”
“That’s enough!” he roared. “I am your father! You will show me respect!”
“Respect is earned,” Nathaniel said. “And from what I can see, yours was spent long ago.”
Her father turned on him with fury. “You self-righteous—you think because you inherited a title that makes you better than me? You are only heir by chance anyhow, because others passed before you.”
“Is that not how anyone comes into their titles? Through the misfortune of others? Only some of us manage better than others, my lord,” Nathaniel replied with a small smile.
“Do you not think it immoral, shacking up with your dead uncle’s bride?”
“I think that a man who would sell his nineteen-year-old daughter to the highest bidder has no right to lecture anyone about morality,” Nathaniel replied. “I think that a man who abandons his family, then returns only to demand money, has forfeited any claim to respect or obedience. And most certainly has no claim to his daughter’s fortune.”
“I need those funds,” Lord Lowey said, and suddenly his voice cracked with desperation. “You don’t understand the pressures I face, the debts?—”
“Then you should have considered those pressures before you accrued them,” Nathaniel said. “The money stays where it is.”
“You cannot refuse me indefinitely. I have legal rights?—”
“And I have excellent solicitors,” Nathaniel replied. “Who informed me that releasing the funds will require considerable time and paperwork. Weeks, at minimum. Possibly months.”
Evelyn watched her father’s face crumble as he realized he was being outmaneuvered.
“Fine,” he said. “Then Evelyn will return home with me. She can hardly remain here while?—”
“While what?” Nathaniel asked. “While she makes a respectable marriage to a man of her choosing? Which, I might add, is already in progress.”
“I—what?” both Evelyn and her father said simultaneously.
“Her Grace has more than one willing suitor who would gladly marry her and show her the respect she is due,” Nathaniel continued, his tone betraying nothing of the lie.
“Is that so?” Lord Lowey’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them. “And which of these worthy gentlemen has captured my daughter’s interest?”
Evelyn’s mind raced. She could feel the trap closing in around her, could see her father’s suspicion growing. But she also saw her escape.
“I am considering multiple offers,” she said, lifting her chin. “All of them are from gentlemen who see me as more than a commodity to be traded.”
