Page 11

CHAPTER 11

“ I never thought I should live to rue the day I ever sired a child!” her father’s voice thundered through the marble hall, rattling the very air. He bore down upon her mother, who shrank back as though the very walls might shelter her. “This is why I always wished for a son. Was that too much to ask, madam?”

Prudence flinched, her gloved hands wringing together, but no reply escaped her lips. She did not need to speak. His fury merely sought a target, and once the initial blow had been dealt, it shifted—as Fiona knew it would.

“And you ,” her father growled, turning his fury upon her with the swiftness of a striking snake. His face was red, his cravat askew, his eyes bulging as if they could no longer bear the force of his rage. “Are you satisfied now, Fiona? You have succeeded in dragging my name through the mud and smearing my honor before all of society!”

Fiona stiffened, her fingers clenching around the edge of her pelise. She refused to cower, though her heart thudded painfully against her ribs. Stay upright. Stay composed. Do not give him the satisfaction.

“A scandal,” he spat the word as though it burned his tongue, “and with that beast of a Duke, no less! Is that what you have long desired? To throw yourself into the arms of a brute and make yourself a spectacle?”

She drew herself up, her chin lifting in quiet defiance. “I did attempt to tell you, Father,” she said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts, “that I care for another.”

George let out a bark of laughter, a cruel, hollow sound that echoed through the hall. “And I heard you, each pitiful time you said it,” he roared, taking a step nearer until she could feel the heat of his fury searing her skin. “I simply did not care.”

Fiona’s breath caught, a cold knot tightening in her stomach. He never cared. He never even pretended to.

“All for the fancy of a silly, sentimental girl!” he shouted. “Your love—your fleeting, childish love—would have withered and died as surely as summer roses in winter. And then where would you have been? Where would we have been?”

He advanced another step, forcing her to retreat until her back struck the cool, unyielding paneled wall.

“You were my only child,” he snarled, “my only bargaining chip.”

Fiona’s hands curled into fists at her sides. Her cheeks burned, but not with shame—with fury so sharp she could scarcely breathe past it.

“I am your daughter first, sir,” she cried. “Before I am any man’s bargaining chip!”

The words rang out, a desperate volley against the crushing tide of his scorn. Her chest heaved with the force of her emotion, but George only stared at her as though she were a disappointing ledger entry, a poor investment gone to ruin.

He will never see me. Not as I am. Only as what I failed to be.

“And what duties have you fulfilled as the daughter you claim to be?” he demanded, his voice like a whip crack in the stillness.

Fiona opened her mouth, but her mother, desperate to intervene, spoke first. “Oh, George, do understand that?—”

“It is all your fault for raising me a little whore!” George thundered, slicing through Prudence’s words without so much as a glance in her direction.

Fiona’s hands curled into tight fists at her sides. The humiliation scorched her skin, but she refused to bow under it. She lifted her chin, forcing her voice to remain steady. “I am not a whore, Father,” she said, her words sharp as glass. “And I refuse to stand here and listen to your insults. No matter the circumstances.”

Her father’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “You are just as shameless, are you not?” he growled, his tone dropping into a menacing rumble.

Fiona held his gaze, though her heart hammered painfully against her ribs. “It is not a lack of shame,” she answered evenly, “but a simple act of self-protection. Your words are too cruel.”

“Cruel?” George echoed, feigning disbelief as though the very notion were absurd.

He took a step closer, and Fiona’s every muscle tensed. “Cruelty,” he hissed, “is the shame you have brought upon my pristine name. Cruelty is you owing me everything and yet setting it all ablaze before my very eyes.”

The heat of her anger surged, mingling with a sorrow so deep it hollowed her out. “Oh, but you left me no choice, Father,” Fiona cried, her voice breaking.

The words seemed to strike something deep within George. A stillness fell over him, thick and foreboding. His eyes, wide with realization, flashed with renewed fury.

Before Fiona could draw breath, his hand struck her across the face with a force that snapped her head to the side.

Pain bloomed hot and fast across her cheek, and she stumbled, catching herself against the edge of a side table. Her hand flew to her face, cradling the sting as tears sprang, unbidden, to her eyes.

“You planned all of this,” her father spat, his voice low and shaking with rage.

Fiona did not answer. What would be the use? He will see only betrayal where there was survival.

Prudence rushed to her side, her arms coming around Fiona in a protective embrace.

“How dare you strike her, George?” her mother cried, her voice rising in a rare, desperate defiance that made Fiona’s heart twist anew.

Her father tore Fiona from her mother’s embrace with a glare so venomous it chilled her to the bone.

“How dare you give me a lightskirt for a daughter?” George thundered at Prudence, his words slicing through the room with savage finality.

There was nothing left to say. Nothing that might undo the damage.

Turning on Fiona once more, he pointed a trembling finger toward the staircase. “You will go to your room, girl.”

Fiona’s throat constricted, her chest rising and falling in uneven jerks.

“I shall decide what is to be done with you come morning,” her father added, his voice cold as iron.

Hot tears burned the backs of Fiona’s eyes, but she steeled herself against them, forcing her features into a mask of blankness. You shall not see me break. Not you.

Chin high, she curtsied stiffly—more mockery than respect—and turned without a word, climbing the stairs with mechanical precision. The moment her bedchamber door clicked shut behind her, however, her knees buckled.

Fiona slid down the door and crumpled onto the floor, the sobs she had swallowed bursting forth unchecked. Her hands covered her face as she wept, the violence of it shaking her slight frame.

I am either saved or ruined, she thought bitterly, pressing her forehead against the wood.

Most likely the latter.

Surely the Duke of Craton would want nothing more to do with her now. Surely he would not stoop to entangle himself further with a woman so marred by scandal.

At least you are free of Canterlack, a small voice whispered inside her.

But the comfort it offered was slight. For where she had wrested herself from the Earl’s cruelty, she had merely traded it for another’s. Her father’s.

And George Holden, Marquess of Holden, was a far more dangerous man to cross.

He is not a father, she realized as fresh tears welled. He is a title. He is a man who sees nothing beyond his own pride. We are not family to him. We are property. Tools. Disappointments.

“Please tell me none of this is real, brother,” Elaine said as she followed Isaac into his study upon their return to Craton Manor.

Isaac stood at the hearth, one hand braced against the mantle, his gaze fixed on the embers. He did not turn.

“I’m afraid I cannot,” he replied, his voice low and steady.

Fiona had made her choice. And he had stood beside her. No regrets. Not a one.

He had faced worse than whispers. A scandal was survivable. Canterlack’s brand of ruin was not.

Elaine let out a sharp breath and moved to stand across from him. “I cannot believe how unbothered you appear right now, Isaac.”

He finally turned then, slow and deliberate. “And how would you have me appear? Writhing in guilt for doing what no one else would?”

Her brow furrowed, but she pressed on. “A scandal is dreadful enough. But this—this involves a woman who was betrothed . To Canterlack, no less.”

Her voice quavered at the name, and Isaac’s jaw clenched.

That fear—he knew it intimately. He had lived with it ever since Mary had returned home shattered. It had never truly left him.

It was that fear that had gripped him by the throat the moment Fiona had said Aaron’s name.

It was that fear that had made his decision.

But Elaine would not see it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

He said nothing. The silence thickened.

Elaine’s arms folded across her chest. “Tell me this, then,” she said coldly. “Is this your idea of provoking Canterlack? After all these years? Are you attempting to pick a fight?”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed. Her words grated more than they should have.

She stepped closer, her tone tightening. “Is this your version of revenge?”

His temper flared, sharp and sudden. “And is this your measure of trust in me, Elaine?”

Her mouth parted, but the fire in her gaze did not falter. “I am afraid, Isaac, that you have given me very few reasons to trust you of late—and rather more causes for alarm.”

The words landed hard, but not unexpected. Not from her.

“I thought we agreed to keep away from that Earl. To move past it all, Isaac?”

There was a sheen of tears in her eyes now, barely restrained, and it twisted something painful deep within him.

Isaac crossed his arms over his chest, schooling his features into something resembling calm. “And have I not done just that, Elaine?” he asked, though the words felt brittle in his mouth.

She turned on him sharply, her skirts swirling about her ankles. “By ruining the woman he intended to marry, of course you have. You have done a truly splendid job of keeping away from him.”

The bitterness in her voice stung more than he cared to admit.

Isaac stiffened. “Do not place all the blame at my feet, Elaine,” he said, his voice low.

“Then whom shall I blame?” she cried, her voice cracking. “I warned you, Isaac. From the very moment you began to get too close.”

He met her glare with one of his own, though guilt gnawed at him. “And were you not the very one who suggested a dance with Lady Fiona in the first place?” he countered, the memory of that waltz flashing through his mind.

Would she have come to me regardless? Would I have stayed uninvolved if not for that cursed dance?

Elaine paled but lifted her chin. “That was before I knew of her connection to Canterlack,” she said, her voice brittle.

Nothing he said now would convince her. Her mind was set, her heart tangled in fear and disappointment. And Isaac—God help him—had no weapons left to fight her doubts.

Elaine’s next words were cold enough to strip the room of air. “I hope you spend the rest of your night mulling over your actions and their consequences, brother.”

With that, she whirled around and marched from the study, the door slamming with a sharp finality that echoed through Craton Manor.

Isaac stood there for a long moment, the silence pressing against him like a weight. Then, moving with slow deliberation, he crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. The glass trembled slightly in his hand.

She does not trust me.

The thought settled in his chest like a stone. But he had no right to feel wounded by it. Not when he had failed so utterly before. Not when he had failed Mary.

He drained the glass in one swallow, the burn a poor substitute for the ache he could not ease.

As his sister had so bitterly advised, the rest of his night was spent in solitary reflection, the shadows deepening around him.

By dawn, as pale light bled through the curtains, Isaac had reached his decision.

He had started this when he agreed to aid Fiona.

And he would see it through.

He would not abandon her now, not when his principles demanded otherwise.