Page 21 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Nineteen

C ordelia sat before the small dressing table, the lamplight catching the dark sheen of her hair as she drew the brush through it with slow, absent strokes. A strand snagged in the bristles, and she winced, though it was not the tug that made her eyes smart.

Only hours ago, she had thought herself free. She thought herself saved.

Her reflection regarded her with pale, tired eyes, and she could not look at it for long.

Freedom had seemed so near she had almost reached for it; she had almost dared to believe that all the worry and vigilance might at last be set aside.

Instead, she was returned to the same old prison, and worse, it was a prison that wore her guardian’s smile.

How foolish she had been to let hope grow so large in her chest. Vernon always won. Whether by cunning words, legal trickery, or sheer persistence, he found his way back into command. She had told herself this morning that the future was hers to shape; now, she knew it was his to govern.

The brush paused in her hand. The solicitor’s voice still rang in her ears, measured and polite, yet each syllable had fallen like cold rain.

“A fighting chance,” he had said.

And what weapons did she possess? Only herself—and what was she worth, truly?

Her mother’s voice came then, unbidden as it so often did. A woman without beauty must be useful, Cordelia, or she is nothing at all. The words sank like stones, pulling her deeper into the dark. She was neither beautiful nor free. She had failed in both.

She resumed brushing, the motion mechanical, the long black strands sliding like ribbons through her fingers.

Mason’s face rose in her mind, his steady gaze, the quiet way he had walked beside her back to the carriage, saying little yet seeming to bear some of the weight she carried.

She had wanted to thank him. She had wanted, albeit absurdly, to lean on him.

But what right had she to place her burdens upon him?

No, she must manage this herself. She always had. And if Vernon triumphed in the end, well… she would endure it. She had endured worse.

A soft knock broke the stillness, so unexpected at such an hour that Cordelia’s brush stilled mid-stroke. The household had long since gone to bed. For a moment she wondered if she had imagined it, but the knock came again, quiet yet insistent.

She straightened in her chair. “Come in,” she called, her voice steadier than she felt.

The door opened, and there he stood, frozen, as if an unseen hand had caught his shoulder. His amber eyes fixed upon her, but not, she thought with a leap of confusion, in the usual manner. His gaze had dropped from her face to the dark waves that fell, unbound, about her shoulders.

“I… ” he began and then seemed to think better of it. A faint, almost boyish awkwardness touched his features. “Your hair… I had not realized it was—” He hesitated, as though no word would quite suffice. “It is… different. Beautiful.”

Heat rose at once to her cheeks, a most inconvenient reaction, and she bent her head a little as though to resume her brushing. “You are kind to say so,” she murmured though she suspected he was not attempting kindness so much as recovering from surprise.

“May I come in?”

She gestured lightly toward the chair near the hearth. “Of course.”

He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

The click of the latch seemed to deepen the quiet between them.

He did not take the chair but came to stand beside it with his hands loosely clasped and his expression studying her in that careful way of his, as if weighing not only what to say, but whether he had the right to say it.

“Are you all right?” he asked at last, low-voiced.

Her fingers tightened around the brush’s handle. She lifted her eyes to his for a heartbeat then away.

“I will be,” she said, and the slight tremor in her voice betrayed her.

Mason’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer then he moved away, crossing the room with an easy stride.

At the window, he paused, one hand resting against the frame as though the night air beyond could provide the right words.

His shoulders were set, yet there was a restlessness in him, as if his thoughts would not be stilled.

When he spoke again, it was not the question she expected. “Why did you choose never to marry?”

Her brush faltered in mid-air. “How do you know I chose it?” she asked, keeping her tone light though her pulse gave a sudden leap.

He glanced over his shoulder, his mouth curving faintly though not in mockery.

“Because, Miss Brookes, it is plain you could have done so a dozen times over. You are beautiful,” he said this with the air of one stating a fact, not offering flattery, “but more than that, you are… bewitching. Clever. Amusing. Even an idiot would know you are a prize worth winning, and that is before one considers the fortune your guardian clutches so tightly.”

Cordelia laughed softly though the sound held little mirth. “You are very certain, Your Grace. Yet I assure you, there are those who would disagree with your assessment.”

“I should like to meet them,” he replied, turning fully toward her now, “for they would either be liars or fools.”

She shook her head, focusing her gaze on the dark strands spilling over her shoulder.

“My mother,” she began slowly, “built her world upon the attention of men and the status she secured by marrying one. She placed her value there and there alone. I saw what it made of her, how little of herself remained when that attention waned. I decided I would not follow the same course.”

His expression softened though he said nothing, and so she went on.

“I thought… if I could prove I was enough on my own, it would matter. That I could be more than what others saw. But…” She drew a breath, setting down the brush.

“It hardly seems to matter now. All my efforts have brought me here, still bound to another’s will. ”

She kept her gaze fixed upon the edge of the dressing table, tracing the grain of the wood as though it held some answer. The silence stretched, not uncomfortable exactly but perilous, as if one wrong word might send the fragile balance between them tilting into some unknown.

At last, he moved from the window. She felt, rather than saw, his presence draw nearer. He did not come close enough to touch her, yet the nearness was a kind of touch in itself, an awareness that prickled along her skin.

“Cordelia,” he said, her name low, almost hesitant.

It startled her, for he so rarely spoke it without the formality of Miss Brookes .

“You are enough. More than enough. That you must even wonder at it…” He broke off, a muscle shifting in his jaw, as though the words had carried him further than he meant to go.

Her throat tightened. “It is easy for you to say such things, Your Grace. You have not spent years being told, directly and otherwise, that your worth hangs upon something as fickle as another’s regard.”

His eyes met hers then, and for one treacherous moment, she felt herself drawn toward him, as if his certainty might be borrowed, just for a breath. But she looked away quickly, unwilling to let him see the small fracture in her resolve.

“You are right,” he said quietly. “I have not.” His voice had lost its usual rakish lilt; it was something warmer now though edged with a weight she could not name. “But I have known what it is to be told one is not enough, to be measured against a standard no soul could ever meet.”

She glanced at him despite herself. There was no smirk now, no guarded amusement. Only a seriousness that seemed almost unfamiliar upon his face, and something else, something that unsettled her more than all his teasing ever had.

It was too much, and he was too near. She reached for her brush again, pretending absorption in the mundane task. “I thank you for your concern, truly. But I will manage. I always have.”

His hand lingered on the back of the chair, his gaze fixed upon her with a deliberation that made her pulse quicken. “What if,” he began slowly, “you were only married in name?”

Her head turned sharply. “I beg your pardon?”

“A marriage of convenience,” he clarified though the words seemed oddly unsuited to the warmth in his tone. “It would be a far better fate than squandering yourself upon a man like Vernon.”

Cordelia stared at him, certain she had misheard. Marriage… to him ? The very notion sent her thoughts scattering in all directions at once.

“That… would not be fair to you.”

“I fail to see the injustice,” he replied, stepping closer until the lamplight caught in the amber of his eyes. “You would be safe, your fortune beyond Vernon’s reach, and …” His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “… in a way, you would be helping me as well.”

She blinked. “Helping you?”

“Indeed. A duke must, sooner or later, marry. It saves me the trouble of enduring an endless parade of simpering debutantes and their scheming mamas.”

Despite herself, she laughed, and she couldn’t believe that she was laughing at a moment like this. “You are very sure of yourself, Your Grace.”

“It is one of my more tolerable faults,” he returned, the smirk becoming genuine.

“And besides, you are far too sensible to make unreasonable demands of me. Imagine the bliss: no petty quarrels over who placed the silverware incorrectly, no arguments about whether I may ride out before breakfast. A model marriage.”

She shook her head though a reluctant smile tugged at her lips. “You make it sound almost… tolerable.”

“High praise,” he said solemnly though his eyes glinted with amusement.

They both chuckled, and for a moment the air between them felt lighter, less perilous. Yet beneath the ease, she felt something linger, almost an unspoken awareness of what such an arrangement would mean.

At last, she sighed, her laughter fading into a softer, steadier breath. “Very well then. I agree to marry you.”

He inclined his head, but she thought she caught a flicker of something deeper behind his composed expression. She wondered if it was relief, perhaps, or gratitude.

“All right then,” he echoed, looking slightly disheveled, but it suited him. “We shall start the preparations as soon as tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” she gasped.

“Why not?” he shrugged. “You have free rein to arrange everything.”

Against all better judgment, she relished the idea.

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I promise not to make it overly pompous.”

“Pomp away,” he grinned. “Let’s give those wicked tongues something to dwell on.”

That was another idea she liked.

As he turned toward the door, Cordelia’s fingers tightened around the brush in her lap.

“Good night… Cordelia,” he said her name again, and something tugged at the very strings of her heart.

“Good night… Mason.” She seized the chance to do the same.

It amused him. He closed the door behind him, leaving her in the quiet sanctity of her chamber.

She could stay here now as she had so desperately wished. She could keep her home, her independence, at least in part. So why did his proposal leave a faint ache in her chest, as though some small, fragile thing within her had broken?