Page 34

CHAPTER 34

“ D id you hear?” Hester leaned in, her gloved hand deftly balancing a glass of lemonade as she whispered to Fiona.

Fiona turned her head slightly, arching a brow. “Pray, what have I missed?”

They stood beside the refreshment table, where delicate glass pitchers glinted beneath the chandeliers, and Fiona poured herself another glass, though her hand paused mid-motion, curiosity now piqued more than thirst.

“Canterlack has, it seems, become the black sheep of the English aristocracy,” Hester said with a look that suggested she was most pleased to be the bearer of scandal.

Fiona’s brow knit. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Thrown out of a gentleman’s club on Bond Street,” Hester supplied, her voice dropping even lower. “Made quite the drunken exhibition of himself. Loud, disorderly—utterly disgraceful.”

“Indeed,” said Nancy, arriving with a practiced glide, her own cup in hand. “He has been all but exiled from society. They say he brings shame upon the peerage.”

Fiona blinked, the name sending a prickle across her skin. Canterlack? Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. So that thread has unraveled at last.

“That gentleman’s character has always been rather suspect,” Hester continued, shaking her head. “I daresay he has received precisely what he was due.”

“Shall we declare it divine justice, then?” Anna interjected with a soft laugh, slipping into their circle like a breeze through a lace curtain.

“Someone is fashionably late,” Nancy observed, lifting her glass in a mock toast.

“When one is married with a child, punctuality is often more ambition than reality,” Anna said, her smile apologetic.

“Fiona was early,” Hester pointed out, shooting a look at her with a knowing gleam. “And she is married as well.”

“But the only child I have is a parrot,” Fiona said with a soft laugh, though it escaped her lips with a trace of self-consciousness.

The others laughed lightly in return, but Fiona’s smile lingered only briefly. At the mention of children, something pulled within her—an ache she had become too familiar with.

If only...

“Goodness, Hester. You make it sound as though arriving half an hour late is a criminal offense,” Anna said, shaking her head.

“It is, if it means you miss the first helping of scandal,” Hester replied, arching a brow. Laughter rippled through the group.

“Speaking of scandal... Colin was at the pub when Canterlack made his spectacle,” Anna continued, returning them neatly to the subject at hand. “He said it was appalling. Loud, crude. Quite beneath even Canterlack.”

“He’s grown quite pitiful,” Nancy added with a grimace.

“Perhaps now society shall finally know some peace,” Hester said.

Fiona listened to their voices, the cadence of them softening to background noise. Her gaze had drifted. I narrowly escaped that fate, she thought, watching the dance floor with an unfocused eye. Whatever I must live without now, at least I am not bound to him.

Even if it meant no children. Even if it meant yearning for something that might never be. At least she was safe—with Craton. With Isaac.

Later, after indulging in more lemonade than was strictly ladylike, Fiona excused herself to the retiring room. The cool hush of the corridor was a welcome balm to the din of the ballroom.

As she made her way back, the sound of her husband’s name caught her ear.

“Craton—”

The voice was muffled, and she slowed. A second voice followed, lower, yet familiar.

“You met with Craton then?”

Fiona stopped. That was her mother.

She turned her head toward the ajar door, her pulse skipping.

What in heaven’s name...

“Yes. Although I am not certain it was a fruitful meeting,” her father replied, and there was no mistaking the edge of dissatisfaction in his voice.

Meeting with Craton?

Fiona’s breath caught. When had her father called at the house? And why would Isaac conceal such a meeting from her?

As if her mother had plucked the thought from her mind, she asked, “Did you see Fiona when you called?”

“No, woman. I met the Duke away from his residence. Fiona must not know,” George said sharply.

Fiona stiffened, her entire body going still.

What is this?

Isaac had met with her father and not breathed a word. What could possibly demand such secrecy? Apprehension settled over her like a fine mist, curling around her limbs and drawing tight.

“I see no harm in her knowing,” Prudence offered mildly.

“Oh, certainly. No harm at all in telling her I humbled myself before her husband and begged him for money to pay my debt to her former betrothed,” George said with scorn.

The blood drained from Fiona’s limbs.

No. It cannot be...

Her father—pleading for coin? To pay Canterlack? Her stomach turned.

“Do you know what that insolent Duke said to me when I asked him for that simple favor?” George continued, his voice rising with fresh indignation.

“He accused me of attempting to sell my own daughter to pay off my debts. And when that failed, I turned to him for aid,” George said, his voice thick with scorn.

Fiona could scarcely breathe.

“Well, you did strike a bargain with Canterlack, George,” her mother replied quietly. “And Fiona was promised in exchange for the clearing of all that you owed him.”

“Whose lavish lifestyle placed me in those debts to begin with?” George barked. “To keep her afloat during all those seasons she squandered, to ensure you retained your place among your precious peers and tea-drinking clubs, I bled our coffers dry.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from her mother, small, but not unnoticed.

“Marrying her off to balance those ledgers was the least she could do for me. For us. And for you, woman,” he added with venom.

Fiona’s fists curled tightly at her sides, her nails pressing crescent moons into her gloves. The blood roared in her ears, hot and relentless.

He truly believes that.

Her breath came shorter now, though she dared not make a sound.

He speaks of me as though I were a transaction. A debt to be cleared.

The corridor felt close, stifling, though she knew the heat clawing up her spine came not from the air, but from the storm boiling within.

Every part of her screamed to storm into that room and speak her mind. To let him know that she was no longer the daughter he could barter or belittle.

But George Holden was nothing if not volatile. She had learned that lesson before her marriage. Confronting him here, now, would be akin to lighting a match in a powder room.

And this was not the place. Not here. Not now.

She was the Duchess of Craton. And she would not bring disgrace upon her husband. Not for him. Not ever.

Thus, she drew in a long, steadying breath, schooling her expression with care before she turned from the door and walked slowly away. Her steps were measured, though her thoughts spiraled.

Why did he never speak of it?

The carriage ride home was quiet but for the rhythmic clatter of hooves. Fiona sat rigidly, her gloved hands clasped in her lap, her gaze fixed on the darkness beyond the window.

“Are you quite well?” Isaac asked at length, studying her in the dim glow of the carriage lamps. “You’ve been most silent. And you look rather pale.”

She turned her head toward him, her face unreadable.

“Why did you not tell me, Isaac?”

He blinked. “Tell you what?”

“That my father approached you for money. To settle his debts.”

Isaac’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in surprise. Before he could answer, she pressed further.

“Did he ask you to keep it from me?” she asked, recalling the furious vow her father had uttered behind that closed door. “Is that why?”

Isaac exhaled sharply through his nose. “Do you truly believe I would take instruction from him on such a matter?”

“Then why did you not tell me?” Her voice rose—not in volume, but urgency. “I had to overhear it like some stranger loitering in a hallway.”

It is bad enough that he married me from obligation. That I am already more burden than bride. And now—now my father goes grovelling to him, begging for coin. As though I’ve brought nothing to this marriage but disgrace.

“I saw no need to trouble you with it,” Isaac said with a slight shrug, his gaze fixed on the passing night beyond the carriage window.

Fiona’s brows drew together. “Do you not think I had a right to know?”

He turned to her then, brow raised. “Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill, Fiona?”

The words struck like a slap.

Because it is not a molehill to me.

Because she wanted more—needed more—than to be treated like a fixture in his life. A duty he had taken on with grim resolve. She had married him for far more than obligation, even if she had not dared to admit it aloud. Was it so much to hope he might see her the same way?

“You needn’t concern yourself. I have everything in order,” he added.

“Do not oblige him,” she said quietly.

He studied her for a moment. “May I ask why?”

“The reason matters not. I simply ask that you do not.”

She could feel it now—a resolve hardening inside her. She would find the funds herself, even if it meant parting with her personal effects. Jewelry, trinkets, whatever she could sell. She would not allow her parents to become beholden to him.

Especially not her father. George Holden was not a man to be trusted with debt—or with power.

Isaac opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the carriage slowed before Craton Manor.

Fiona moved swiftly, her hand already on the door latch.

She descended before he could offer his hand and did not wait for him to follow.

She ascended the front steps alone, back straight, chin high—but her steps felt leaden.

And by the time she reached her chambers, that brave front had thinned.

She shut the door softly behind her and stood for a long moment, her reflection staring back at her from the long mirror across the room.

She looked like a duchess.

But tonight, she felt no grander than a girl, small, dismissed, and more uncertain than ever.