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“Yes! This is for you. It is all for you and you are not only wasting it, you are turning it into a spectacle!”

“ This isn’t for me! ” someone screamed. She didn’t feel the words leave her but the rawness in her voice revealed their source. Her body was out of control, vibrating with an incandescent rage forcing its way past her skin anyway it could.

Desperate screaming.

Ragged breath.

Furious tears.

“This isn’t for me! You didn’t take me from my home for me .

You didn’t take away my name for me . This is for you!

We are here because when I was thirteen baba gave me away to a baron and that man wanted me to be as tamed as possible.

I agreed to this for you. So baba could breathe a little easier and not feel like he failed you.

So you could hold your head a bit higher when you face those white women in the ton.

So you could sing again. So you could finally, finally smile as you used to. ”

She caught her father’s eyes and saw them wide, blood shot and glistening with tears.

At any other time, it would have shocked her into silence.

But it was too late now. The words kept leaking out of her like filth from a festering wound.

“I did this for Lillian so she wouldn’t have to hide herself like I did when her time comes.

So she can have a chance at a life that belongs to her.

I’m willing to do it for you, for her, for all of you.

I am willing to be the sacrifice that gives you the protection baba could not, because I love you.

Because I respect you. Because I understand a small amount of what you put up with.

But don’t get confused, aai. Marrying a man who doesn’t respect me enough to want to know me, who only sees me as something to possess and plunder is not for me . It was never for me!”

Her mother was silent, staring at her as if she was a stranger or a monster.

A changeling who’d replaced her obedient child with a hysterical termagant.

The words she’d spoken drifted back into her mind like poisonous petals on the wind.

Every word she strangled into a thought, every resentment she’d attempted to fashion into something else while she forced herself into the mold of Regina.

But this rage didn’t only belong to Rajani or Regina.

The work had been left undone rendering her some twisted bastardization of the two.

She couldn’t stay in that room a moment longer, raw and exposed as she was with all those terrible words hanging in the air between them.

Turning on her heel, she stumbled into the foyer, half nauseated and half numb, and made her way up the stairs.

A movement as she neared the top caught her eyes and she turned to see Lillian crouched by the banister with wide frightened eyes in a tear-stained face.

Damn. She had surely heard everything. The romantic illusion of castles and princes was shattered.

“Lili,” Regina croaked out, and the little phantom scrambled away without a word.

She stood frozen, watching her run away, and the regret washed over her.

What the hell had happened to her? What had she done?

Never before had she felt like more of a failure.

*

Night had already fallen by the time Leo trudged into the home he shared with his mother.

He had walked from Mayfair to Pimlico. He walked up the stairs, physically exhausted but his mind still reeling from the events earlier that day.

He didn’t know what to do with the information he had.

At the top of the stairs, he saw a light in the salon. She was still awake.

For a moment he wondered if he should simply take himself to bed. He wasn’t sure he could withstand a debate with his mother. Then there was a creak in a floorboard, and she was in the doorway.

“Mother.”

“You look exhausted,” Naomi commented, watching him with worried eyes. He nodded and followed her into the room, seating himself on the couch and rubbing his face roughly with his hands.

“I have a question to ask you.”

“Go ahead, son.”

“It’s about the title.”

“The one you refuse to accept?” she asked with some ire.

He couldn’t help the smile her tone triggered. “The very same. Certain things have happened since, and I find myself wanting to change my position.”

“Yes.” She moved over to sit beside him, taking his hand in hers.

“But doing that will create upheaval for us. The adjustment to a new way of living among those people. It will make us a target of gossip and even spite.”

“It is also a tremendous opportunity, one that you are more than equal to.”

“But the cost of it.” He rubbed his free hand roughly over his face. “The expectation to say nothing of the responsibility placed on us, on me.”

He was afraid. At the end it was as simple as that.

Because he did want it. He liked being important.

He wanted power and prestige and all the rest of it.

But he was sick of people coming for him because of his accomplishments.

Staying low had served him well in the past, over-achieving had not.

What price would he have to pay, would his family have to pay for his vanity?

“Why are you considering changing your mind then?”

Regina. Rajani. Her tear-filled eyes filled his mind.

The desire and fear. She had been pushed into the spotlight against her will and had risen to the occasion despite her antipathy for the circumstances and her personal wishes.

She had to be terrified, but she wasn’t flinching or turning away as he was.

If she was up to it, surely he could be as well.

He could at least be as brave as a twenty-two-year-old woman facing down a lifetime of mistreatment. “There is a young woman—”

“If she will not take you as you are, then she is not worth it.”

“I—” he laughed and shook his head. The fist around his heart loosening slightly.

“I know that much, mother. Her family has tied her hand to a title and estate. I have felt something for her for some time, knowing that there was no way I could force her into choosing me over them. That would be the choice for her.”

“But?”

“But I didn’t know she was tied to this barony.”

“And she is worth it to you?”

“She is… she is extraordinary. You would love her. She is so brave and clever and loyal. Filial. She knows her mind and stands her ground. She is everything a young woman should be.”

“Is she pretty?”

An image of Regina appeared from earlier that day flecked with rainwater. Her wide, flashing, coffee-colored, eyes, supple brown skin and black hair full of soft curls. Her warmth and isolation, her passion and resolution. “She is exquisite.”

“When did you decide to ask for her?”

Tonight . “That’s the point. I haven’t decided. I want to know what she feels for me before I take that step. But once I have, there will be no going back for any of us.”

“Do you want my blessing?”

“I want to know how you feel about being the mother and grandmother of a baron. I want to know if you would be uncomfortable in that life.”

She slipped an arm behind him to rub his back and tightened her grip on his hand.

“I would not be. I’ve wanted to box your ears ever since you told me you refused that title.

Of all the things to be pig headed about.

But I understood your reasoning. If you are now telling me that you are willing to take on a role that would suit you down to your bones, for the sake of a woman who is your match, then I am ready to stand behind you. ”

“Beside me,” he corrected.

She smiled sadly and slipped her arm around his waist, hugging him close, her eyes shining with love. “No, son. That place will be for your wife. I stood beside your father, and I stood beside you as you grew into the man you are. That is enough.”

His eyes were burning at the idea of leaving her behind. “Mother—”

She shook her head, and he fell silent. “It is time. It is time you took what is yours. I hope she is eager for your sake. You will make them see what you are, what you always have been, and I will stand behind you.”

“Close behind. We will still need you. I will need you.”

She released his hand and rested a warm firm palm on his cheek. “My brave beautiful son. I’m not going to disappear, I promise you. But…”

“What?”

She looked away for a moment a frown creasing her brow. “Is she the only reason?”

“What do you mean mother?” He removed her hand from his face and held it loosely.

“I do understand your reasoning for not taking it, but I worry that she will not be enough. You love her and that is good but you cannot do this for her sake alone.”

“I have no need of it otherwise.”

“It is about more than what you need now. It is about taking what you are owed because you are owed it.”

“I know that.”

“You need to find a reason to take it for yourself, for your own sake. Otherwise any inevitable problems will only stir up resentment between the two of you. Marriage is hard enough without the added pressure you will both face.”

He nodded but didn’t reply. He didn’t agree but he didn’t want to argue with her about it. He had discernment, he would never blame Regina for the actions of someone else and if he continued thinking along those lines, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to do what he needed to do.

It would all be well. He would take the title, marry Regina and do whatever it took to help her attain her goal.