“Ah,” he said in return. “So that’s what it was.”
I was no longer sure what characters we were playing.
“Come to the library tomorrow,” I said, surprising myself. “I don’t like reading to an empty room.”
He held my gaze for the briefest moment.
And then he nodded.
Chapter
10
Stephan hunted me down to make his third proposal.
I had gone to town with Callista. She had begged Father for a new dress for the upcoming ball at the baron’s estate, hoping she might catch the eye of some eligible young man, although where she was going to find one she hadn’t already met, I did not know.
I dreaded the ball with each day that brought it closer, and while Callista was measured and fitted, I waited on the street, wondering if I should fake illness to avoid the event. No one would believe me if I simply said I did not wish to attend, not when I’d sought every opportunity for Stephan’s company in the past.
As if summoned by my thoughts, he appeared on the street with me. The pounding of my heart at his company was not exhilaration. I tensed, expecting more anger and railings.
But he came to me instead with tears and apologies.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I did to make you lose faith in me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why you think I’d make such a terrible husband.”
And with each word, the guilt gnawed in my stomach until I was apologizing along with him—You aren’t terrible, Stephan. I love you, Stephan.
I thought we’d reached an amends, that everything before had been a misunderstanding, and this was the edge of a new page.
Until he said, “Beauty, I cannot live another minute without you as my wife. Please.”
Itwasthe edge of a new page.
But not the one I’d hoped for.
Instead, I felt the slicing realization that he was buying me with false contrition the way Callista was buying gowns with coins.
When he took my frozen silence as agreement to his proposal, the quick melting of his tears into satisfaction proved the insincerity.
“I won’t marry you, Stephan,” I said, so detached from my own voice that it no longer sounded like mine at all. “Not ever.”
His satisfaction turned to anger. He called me vain. He called me selfish. Only a great fool would refuse such a husband. My father would be ashamed, he said. Robert Acton had grown a fortune from dirt only for his daughter to turn up her nose at every opportunity offered her. Without Stephan, I would wind up back in the dirt, and it would still be better than I deserved.
Father wouldn’t be ashamed of me for refusing.
Would he?
When I tried to think of him, all I could think of was Astra.
She would consider anyone a fool to refuse Stephan.
Long after Stephan’s voice faded, a few of the barbs remained, tiny slivers festering in a once-confident mind.
Callista came bursting out of the seamstress’s home, calling for me, and Stephan turned to greet her as cheerfully as if nothing had happened. She squinted at the two of us having a private moment, and I could see in her eyes assumptions that churned my stomach. After Stephan left—with a lingering look at me—she reminded me none-too-gently that Astra was still without a husband.
“You can’t imagine how she feels, Beauty.” Callista heaved a sigh. “To be twenty-four and unmarried.”
