Page 55 of A Lady’s Rules for Seaside Romance (The Harp & Thistle #3)

He had misspoken. Why in the blazes would he refer to Anne and the children as his family?

Christ, he really needed sleep. “Lady Mary will not be able to debut next year. Despite her station, she will likely not find any gentleman willing to marry her after this mess you caused. She ran away to elope in Gretna Green, Ashby, and didn’t end up marrying!

That isn’t a silly trip to the carnival—it’s practically a death sentence with the repercussions it will have over her entire life. ”

Ashby straightened his back and put his hand over his heart. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“That’s a load, and you know it.” Victor was getting to the best part.

Ashby’s mother knew the ramifications of her son’s idiotic escapade.

This all could simply be an unspoken embarrassment kept secret between the two families.

But Ashby was a boaster. And there was no chance he would keep it to himself, even if he did at first. He would absolutely go around and lie that he had sullied Lady Mary then left her behind.

It wasn’t a risk Victor was willing to take. “Here’s what you’re going to do.”

“Yes?” Ashby whispered.

“You are going to go pack your bags and head to America.”

Ashby’s eyes went wide. “I beg your pardon!”

“You heard me.” Victor growled again, relishing in the flicker of fear in the cad’s eyes.

“You are going to get on the first ship that will take you across the pond. Multiple ships head that way each day. Go to the docks, buy a ticket, send me the bill and I’ll pay you back if that gets you over there.

But you’re leaving English soil forever, and you’ll die on American land. ”

Ashby laughed cockily. “You can’t make me do that.”

“Do you know who my grandfather is, Ashby?”

The cad furrowed his brow as if searching his memory. “No?”

“The Duke of Invermark. His only son, my father, is dead. I am next in line and he is currently on his death bed.” That last bit was a lie but also could be argued to be true in a sense.

“Once the title passes on to me, I can do anything. I could keep you locked up in my cellar like a prisoner if I so wished. Once I release you, you could go and tell whomever you want to about it. I would simply deny it. No one would believe you over me.”

Ashby swallowed and went pale. “B-But I’ve never heard anyone call you ‘Lord Victor’?”

“I don’t give a fig about titles. You are, of course, welcome to go research the claim yourself—however, the clock is ticking and I don’t have time to spare.

If you leave today, we will never speak to or see each other again.

But if what you did to Lady Mary ever gets out, I will hunt you down, even if I must go to the Wild West, even if you’re on the other side of the world, and I will make sure you regret it. ”

Ashby looked off to the side as if contemplating the position he was in and then cleared his throat. “Right. Very well, then. I suppose I should pack up.”

“And write a letter to your mother.”

Ashby grimaced. “Of course.”

“Admitting full fault, denying you touched her in any way, and asking it never be discussed again.”

Ashby didn’t respond for a moment, but when Victor bared his teeth, the cad yelped and immediately agreed.

With that business taken care of, and once convinced Ashby would genuinely comply—it did take a bit of coin to convince him, unfortunately—Victor left to return to his home to prepare for the departure to Brighton.

He would not be staying there for the remainder of the summer, however, and had to break the news to Anne and Mary.

Upon stepping through the front door, he could hear loud conversation of the women somewhere in the house.

He stopped to listen, to get a feel of how they were faring this morning.

But when he heard laughter, his chest filled with warmth.

It was odd to walk into his home to find it filled with loud conversation and laughter.

Normally, he was greeted with silence, aside from the odd shuffle or knock from a servant. But it was strangely…pleasant.

Immediately, he remembered the reality of his situation: he was moments away from putting Anne in his past. It would put a wedge between him and the rest of the family, especially if their marriage did end up legitimate, but he wouldn’t be able to see Anne again, even in half measures.

All holidays, alone. All dinners, alone.

There would be no more antics for him to read in Freddy’s letters home.

No more girlish giggling between Mary and her mother.

No more Anne . His confidant, his truest friend—blast it all, the woman he loved would be gone.

Her smile, her voice, her honeysuckle scent, those pale-blue eyes he could pick out in pub crowd from across the room… It would all be gone.

Anne would become another ghost from his past.

The lightness he had just felt was quickly replaced by the clouds that always seemed to shadow him. As Victor followed the laughter, his heart began to race with nerves at seeing Anne again after their emotional argument earlier.

He found the pair in the dining room, and they appeared to have recently finished eating.

Both Anne and Mary froze upon his appearance. Would Anne have told Mary what had happened?

Feeling awkward, he stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. “Felton Ashby will no longer be a problem.”

Mary perked up. “Did you kill him and throw him into the Thames?”

Victor’s mouth quirked. “Unfortunately, no. But I have convinced him that the best course of action is that he leave for America today and never return. That our family would not tolerate ever seeing him again if he dared show his face here again.”

“ Our family?” Anne said with an arched, blonde eyebrow.

Victor stammered. He had done it again. “Said for clarity only.”

Anne and Mary looked at each other. “So that’s it? It’s over?” Anne asked.

“It’s over.”

Mary put a hand to her mouth. “I’m not going to be the scandal of the decade? I can still debut next year?”

He bowed his head. “Yes.”

Mary stilled for the slightest of moments but promptly flew out of her seat, over to Victor, and placed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Uncle Victor.” She smiled up at him with misty eyes. “I don’t know what else to say, as that hardly conveys how thankful I truly am.”

“You don’t need to say anything else.” Really, he didn’t need Mary emotional now, too.

Mary looked over her shoulder at Anne. “Good idea. I’ll leave you two to talk, then.” With one loud giggle, Mary hurried out of the room before anyone could protest.

So, she did have some idea of what had happened. Lovely.

Victor, now feeling even more uncomfortable, looked at Anne and then her plate. “I hope the food was to your liking?”

“It was,” she said, sounding a bit guarded. “Did you enjoy it as well?”

“I haven’t eaten yet.”

Normally, Anne would have had something to say about this but this time kept any comments to herself. “Thank you. For what you did with Mr. Ashby.”

“I had to do something.” Before saying goodbye.

She shook her head. “But you didn’t.”

“I did, but let’s not argue over it.” An empty place setting remained—his—but he remained standing, too nervous to sit.

He shifted on his feet. “The important thing is Mary has learned her lesson, I believe, and Ashby will never be an issue again. It’s in his mother and brothers’ interests as well to not let the scandal get out, if Mrs. Ashby wants her other sons to marry well. ”

“What, exactly, did you say to him to get him to leave for America?” Anne cocked her head.

Victor slowly inhaled through his nose. “A little of this, a little of that. Flexed some muscle, made some threats.”

Anne gave him a small smile. “Good work. I’m assuming you had to pay him off as well?”

Victor looked down. “Unfortunately, I think that was his biggest motivator. That and finding out I would be the Duke of Invermark someday.”

“I will pay you back. It’s the least I can do.”

“No. And I will not budge on that.”

Anne studied him for a moment before looking down at her plate. “Look, Victor, about earlier.”

“There’s nothing to say. You and I want two different things, and there’s nothing more to it.”

Anne pressed her lips together tightly. She knew he was right.

“I’m very sorry for the argument, though. And I wish you saw it my way of course. But you don’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

Victor’s throat became tight. Hearing this from her, it was like the gavel falling. She’d said it so easily.

Anne lifted her head. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why the whole ‘secret admirer’ bit? Why did you hide your feelings for me and not just come out with it? The uncomfortable air between us, I think, would have been avoided if we’d started off with an honest conversation.”

Victor was quiet a moment as he considered the question. “Both Mary and Vivian told me you were hoping to find companionship this summer.”

Anne pulled back a bit. “They did?”

“Yes. I figured, since you were open to that, perhaps it would be a good time to finally approach you about…us, I suppose. This would be the summer to finally determine if we could have a future together. You would have panicked if I were straightforward about my affection for you. In fact, I had to be straightforward with myself first. It took time for me to accept I had affections for you, and much longer for me to accept that I…I love you.”

He swallowed and continued when she didn’t say anything.

“And if I struggled with it, I knew you would have been completely against the idea right away and denied me immediately without even a second of consideration. Maybe I didn’t go about it the right way.

I don’t know. If I went to you first as a secret admirer, as ‘the Phantom,’ as you called me, perhaps you would develop an affection for me as myself without knowing my face. ”

Was that really the best way to explain it? He shut his eyes tightly. “It sounds mad, I know, but I showed my true self to you as the Phantom. I will always be in the shadows, Anne, like I was as the Phantom. I am utter rubbish with words, so I talked to you through those drawings.”

Anne looked down, as if feeling ashamed.

“Next step, I came to you in person at the masquerade with my face covered, and we felt that draw to each other. We—” He cut it off, as he was veering back to their earlier argument.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw to re-center himself.

“All I wanted to find out this summer was if you could love me, too, if you could fall for the most honest form of me without our friendship getting in the way.”

Anne lifted her head to stare at the empty chair across from her and was quiet a long while. Torturously long. Contemplating something, he supposed. “You put that much thought into it? Into me? You strategized over months.”

“Years.” He whispered the correction.

She looked at him with wide, blue eyes. “Years,” she repeated. And she rose from her chair to stand behind it but didn’t get any closer to him. “Oh, Victor, how could I have not seen?”

He gave her a small smile but hardly felt any happiness. “I told you the truth that day, all those years ago, that I would wait for you.” The smile faded. “Maybe I approached you too soon. Maybe it never could be. But what’s done is done.” Tension pulled in his face. “Are you ready to leave soon?”

Anne blinked several times. “Leave? Oh. Yes. Brighton. Mary and I don’t really have much, so we’re ready when you are.”

“Anne…”

“Yes, Victor?”

With force, he said what he’d never wanted to hear himself say.

“Upon our return, I’ll be grabbing my belongings and coming back to London.

I cannot be there anymore. Unfortunately, I do not have faith our friendship will survive this.

I still have not heard back from my solicitor, so if you don’t mind, we will have to work out the details of our marriage at a later date if it turns out the ceremony was legitimate.

” He was desperately sure it wasn’t, but best to plan ahead anyway.

She let out a small gasp and took a step toward him. “But, Victor—”

Unable to stomach any of this further, he put a hand up. “Please. I simply cannot do it. I cannot continue on as if everything is the same. As much as it pains me, I cannot have you in my life any longer.”

Anne’s hand flew up to her mouth and her eyes started to well.

And with it, his heart shattered.

“Victor, I—” Her voice cracked. But before she could continue, the housekeeper, a cheery middle-aged woman with round cheeks, entered the room. Anne turned away and presumably swiped at her eyes while no one could see.

“Mr. McNab.” His housekeeper looked up at him with a small smile, blissfully unaware of the doom settling over the room. “Two envelopes were dropped off for you.”

Victor frowned deeply. Though he was expecting to hear from his solicitor, who else would send him correspondence here? Almost everyone knew he was on holiday. Even Keer, who had been sending his weekly uneventful updates to Brighton, didn’t know Victor was in town for a short time.

Still reeling from the end of his friendship with Anne, Victor reached out and grabbed the white envelopes. The first one was from his solicitor, as expected. As the housekeeper left the room, he stared down at the face of the envelope.

Were Victor and Anne husband and wife or not? It seemed almost impossible, and he knew he shouldn’t have felt this, but there was a glimmer of hope that maybe they were. Maybe Anne could still be in his life.

This was a stupid thought, as she was clear that she didn’t want to the ceremony to have been legitimate. But a man could dream, couldn’t he?

“Do you want me to open it?” Anne asked in a gentle voice.

“No.” Though he kept a calm air about him, his hands were shaking as he ripped open the envelope. “It’s from the solicitor.”

As he pulled out the piece of paper that could potentially upend the rest of his life, he tossed the empty envelope and the other unopened envelope over to the table.

Victor read through the solicitor’s response and promptly dropped it to the floor.