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“That is still not a proposal, merely a request.” Azriel squeezed my hand. “One I have already vehemently denied.”

“I will offer you instead my daughter, Marguerite.”

Azriel’s booming laughter drowned out my horrified inhalation of breath. “Aunt Adelaide, you are a born comedian.”

“She is perhaps not as beautiful as your wife,” Adelaide said loudly to be heard over Azriel’s laughter. “But she is still a fair prospect, she has good teeth, and most importantly, she comes from fecund stock.”

“Did you hear that, Evie?” Azriel leaned close to me again, still chuckling. “Fecund stock.”

“I am sure you are aware that Evangeline’s mother only bore one child,” Adelaide went on, completely unperturbed and certainly ignorant to my horrified face. “And that she struggled to do. She lost five children before Evangeline was born, two of them being stillbirths. Both boys.”

Azriel stopped laughing, and took a deep breath. “That is tragic indeed.”

“Whereas I bore my husband five children, all living. Four of them are now married themselves, and I am myself blessed with seven grandchildren between them, and the eighth on the way. Marguerite is the youngest of them, only nineteen years old, and is sure to be as fertile as her mother and sisters have proven to be.”

I could not speak, and the feeling in my stomach as Azriel dropped my hand was indescribable.

“Nineteen, you say?” Azriel uncrossed his legs, laying a hand on his knee. “That is rather young for her to leave your home.”

“The younger the better,” Adelaide said with a smile that was becoming more and more triumphant by the second. “You could have a child in your arms by next Christmas.”

“Indeed.” Azriel rubbed his chin, and I dared not to look at him.

He could not do this to me. He would not do this to me. Not after telling me that children meant nothing to him. Not when he had insisted that he loved me, that I was the woman of his heart. He had promised me that he loved me, that he had chosen me. But then I thought of all the men I had known in my life, all the filthy, debauched things they had done, and I felt ill as I realised that perhaps Azriel was just like the rest of them.

“And what would happen to Evangeline?” Azriel asked, and I bit my lips together to stop myself bursting into tears. He had only called me Evangeline once, in bed, when he was being earnest, telling me wanted me, only me, that he wanted to deserve me.

Adelaide smiled sweetly. “Evangeline would of course come home to Leicester to care for her father. Lord only knows the shame she has brought on the family means that her prospects are non-existent. No decent man would want her now.”

“You and your family have truly thought of everything.” Azriel nodded slowly. “Hmmm. It is quite the proposal.”

I wanted to turn to him and beg him not to do it. I wanted to slap him, or smash a vase over his head. I wanted to scream or cry or run from the house, so humiliated was I that my husband was sitting beside me and honestly consideringwhether or not to trade me for my younger cousin. My fertile cousin. The cousin that had good teeth and a fruitful womb which would deliver him a child by next Christmas.

But I sat stock still, accepting my fate. Just as I had always done.

I had no power here. Whatever Azriel decided, I would accept it. Even though I could feel my heart breaking. Perhaps I did truly love him. Only now I had realised it too late.

“And of course, in return for your lovely daughter, I would continue the upkeep of your estates, is that right?” Azriel asked.

Adelaide dipped her head. “If you would see fit to continue your connection to our family, we would of course be most grateful for your generosity.”

“I am sure you would.”

I turned away from him and clenched my eyes shut. He was going to accept.

At that moment, Adelaide shrieked, and something smashed loudly. I tore my eyes open, looking back to see Adelaide sprawled on the floor, her chair tipped over and caught beneath her skirts, her legs flailing in the air as she squawked and gulped.

Azriel stood beside me, eyes wide with rage and fists balled at his sides, the vase he had hurled across the room lying in a thousand pieces on the floor.

“You vile, hateful, conniving, greedy bitch!” His lips were pulled back, baring his teeth, and his shoulders quivered with rage. “How dare you! How dare you come into my house and insult my wife! My family! My blood!”

“You bastard!” Adelaide shrieked, trying to right herself, scrambling along the floor in a flurry of petticoats. “You uncouth bastard! You have no idea what you have done!”

“You privileged old cow!” Azriel’s blue eyes promisedviolence as he pointed his finger at Adelaide’s prone form. “You dare come here, and make obscene proposals to me, speaking of being my better, then begging for my money? The money that feeds and houses your useless family while you all clamour to protect your name?”

“I-I only meant, oh goodness, I only meant…” Adelaide scrambled and struggled to sit, pulling herself up on the sofa. “You must see that this union is doomed! She is spoiled goods! She is-” Adelaide broke off with a yelp as Azriel took a step towards her.

My arm shot out, and without even thinking, I took hold of him, getting to my feet as I pulled him back to me. “Azriel, stop. It is enough.”