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“I owe you an apology for that night,” he pressed on. “I handled myself poorly. But that does not take away from the fact that you are indeed beautiful, Madeleine.”

Madeleine gave him a reproachful look. “You mock me, frequently. So how am I to believe that is the truth?”

Percy frowned in confusion. This conversation was not going as he had planned. “When?” he demanded to know.

Madeleine took her hand away from his, her eyes flaring their stubborn light. “Every time that you call me Monkey, you mock me for my childhood form.”

Percy’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I do not call you Monkey to mock you. It has nothing to do with your childhood form, as you say.” Percy was truly lost in the conversation.

“You told me yourself that Monkey in Cant means five hundred pounds. A large number of pounds…” She waved her hands at her body for emphasis.

“You cannot call me that and beautiful at the same time, Your Grace.”

Percy’s brows shot up in shock. He had never once meant it in the way that she had perceived it. “That is not what I meant,” he informed her. “It was meant as a compliment.”

“How is it a compliment?’ she demanded to know, challenging him with fire and pain in her eyes. “You teasing me about my weight has affected me my entire life. There is nothing complimentary in that.”

“I was not teasing you about your weight, Madeleine. I have always found you to be adorable and a person of great worth.” He put emphasis on this last part, hoping that she would understand the word association. The confused look on her face told him that she was not yet able to grasp his true meaning. “The name Monkey was meant to represent an adorable person of great worth. That was how I viewed you then. It is how I view you now.”

The stunned look on Madeleine’s face was more than Percy could handle. He lifted his hand to gently cup her cheek. “I havealways believed you to be a beautiful woman beyond compare.” He wanted desperately to kiss her, but that was not what he had come to the ball to do. He had come to help her secure a future for herself that was sustainable. He stepped back, letting his hand fall to rest at his side. “And your future husband will feel the same.”

“My future husband?” Madeleine looked up at him, her eyes still dazed from his earlier revelation.

“I have been thinking of our arrangement since the night of the opera. I was not lying then. These men will not give up on you. You must marry, and you must marry the safest choice. It is the only way this will end. I will help you choose if you like. I only wish that you not end up with a monster.”

Madeleine shook her head in refusal. “I have no desire to wed. You know this. We came to our arrangement so that I could avoid just such a fate.”

Percy shook his head. “We started this arrangement to give you time so that your father would not wed you to Herbert Mowbray. When our ruse has come to its close and I have not proposed to you, your father will accept Mowbray’s proposal on your behalf. We cannot maintain this ruse forever. What did you believe was going to happen when you released me from our agreement in the letter that you sent me? Did you think that your father would just allow you to remain unwed?”

Madeleine’s eyes filled with angry tears. “I do not wish to wed, and you know that.”

The pain in her voice was evident, and Percy had to turn his head from the intensity of it.

“It is unavoidable now, Madeleine,” he replied hoarsely. “I am truly sorry that our plan did not work, but I realized that it would not the night of the opera. I thought you had too, seeing how you released me from it.”

“That is not why,” she hissed. “I only wished to release you as I realized that our association might have been causing you further pain where Francis’ death was concerned.”

The mention of Francis from Madeleine’s lips was a shock to Percy’s system. He stepped back. “How do you know about Francis?”

A look of regret passed through Madeleine’s eyes before she answered.

“There has been gossip about a curse among the ton. Lady Laura Knight informed me that it had to do with the death of a Miss Francis Belmont, your betrothed.” She tactfully left out the death of his parents, he noted. It was a small mercy.

“My brother confirmed it when I asked him about her,” she went on. “Upon hearing Cecil’s account of the events, I felt it best to withdraw from my agreement with you so as not to cause you further pain. You need not pretend to love me anymore. I am certain that it could not have been easy for you.”

Anger flooded Percy’s heart and mind, but he stopped himself from saying something that he would regret. Squaring his shoulders, he looked her full in the face.

“My curse and my history have nothing to do with this conversation. You must wed to protect yourself. You can no longer live in foolish denial. I will remain in our agreement until such a time as you have found a suitable gentleman to be your husband then I will bow out of the way. I believe Hamish MacElroy to be a respectable candidate. He appears to have true affection and respect for you.”

Percy thought that Madeleine might spit fire she looked so angry with him. “I do not need your help or your opinion! I release you from our agreement whether you wish to be released or not!”

She moved to storm away, but Percy reached out and grabbed her arm pulling her to him. “Do you wish to be held in the arms of Herbert Mowbray? Do you wish to lie beneath him every night for the rest of your life with his drunken fetid breath upon your skin?”

“How dare you!” she seethed.

The strike of her hand was quick—so much so that he had no time to register that it had even lifted to his eyesight before her palm came slapping profoundly across his face. It stunned him as much as it aroused him, and he froze for a moment—just a moment. Just enough time for her to rip loose from his grasp and take off running down the terrace steps.

Seconds ticked by as he let the pain of her slap absorb into him, but then he was going after her. He knew he was being crass and deserved to be slapped, but he needed to get through to her. She needed to understand the true impact of the decision she would soon be forced to make, one way or another.