“I’m afraid she isn’t entirely pleased with me at the moment, having just learned that Greycote Abbey has been sold,” Ridgely said with a wince, referring to his ward’s former home and the one place she was determined to return to at any cost. “She has refused my suit, and quite soundly, too.”
Oh dear.
“If she is displeased with you, how did you also happen to compromise her?” She frowned then, a terrible thought occurring to her. “Surely you did notforceher?”
“Saint’s teeth, Pamela.” Her brother scowled. “What do you think of me? I would never harm a woman. You bloody well ought to know that.”
Of course, she did. This was Ridgely. He may be a devil-may-care rake with a collection of bedmates as large as the Serpentine, but he would never do something so unconscionable. She felt guilty for even considering it for a moment.
“I should hope not.” Pamela sighed. “Forgive me. This is all quite a shock. Not entirely a surprise, given what I witnessed in the library. But a shock, nonetheless.” She paused in her pacing, the rest of what her brother had said about Virtue sinking in. “What do you mean she has refused your suit?”
Ridgely turned away again, staring out the window, still grim. “She says she has no wish to marry me. Apparently, she intended for me to send her back to Nottinghamshire.”
Heaven preserve her from rebellious debutantes who thought they knew better. The world was made to eat up ladies like Virtue and swallow them whole.
“She cannot refuse you,” she said. “She hasn’t a choice now.”
“Then perhaps you might have a talk with Lady Virtue,” he suggested cheerlessly, “and persuade her to see reason.”
“You have created quite a disaster, brother.” And naturally, it was down to her to help him fix it.
But then, she was beginning to fear that she had created a disaster all her own. One that was brewing painfully in her foolish heart. And that particular disaster…well, she didn’t know if it could be fixed at all.
* * *
“There’snothing I can do, Stasia,” Theo told his sister flatly.
She had come to the Hunt House mews, demanding to see him, refusing to leave unless he met with her again. It had been either stand there before a host of curious grooms or follow her to her waiting carriage. After making certain his men were in place, he had settled for the latter. Now, they were rumbling over the streets of London in a carriage Stasia had borrowed from Archer Tierney after once more escaping the palace guards their uncle had sent to watch her.
The distraction from endlessly churning thoughts of Pamela was welcome. He’d spent every moment since they had parted in the guest chamber earlier chastising himself for just how ineffective his attempts at keeping her at a distance had proven. Loathing himself for wanting her so badly still.
“You can come home,” Stasia said now in their native tongue, her voice and her eyes crackling with an intensity that couldn’t have been stronger had it been fashioned from true fire. “You can come home to Boritania, where you belong.”
Home.
A bittersweet word, and with it a rush of unwanted sensation, and for inexplicable reasons he couldn’t define, it brought to mind a golden-haired goddess he longed for far more than was wise. But no, despite the desire that he couldn’t seem to control in Pamela’s presence, she was not for him, and he would never have a home with her.
He hadn’t had a true home in years. But whereas once, he would have shed every last drop of his blood to return to Boritania, he was no longer the cossetted prince he had once been.
“I don’t have a home,” he answered Stasia in Boritanian, “and nor do I belong anywhere.”
“Lies.” She shook her head, stubborn and persistent as ever. “You belong in Boritania. You are a prince of the blood.”
“I’ve been banished,” he reminded her. “My return is punishable by death. If you don’t think Gustavson would have me arrested, imprisoned, and send me to the gallows as quickly as you can blink an eye, you’re deluding yourself.”
“You know that your exile can be renounced by someone of royal blood,” his sister countered, unwavering in her determination. “I could revoke it now, here, in this moment.”
He had thought of it. Many times, over many years. Until he had eventually accepted the fact that what remained of his family had to stay loyal to Gustavson or fear a fate similar to his own. That no one would revoke his exile. Still, that Stasia offered it now made some old, lost part of him come to life. Pressure built inside him, but he ruthlessly banished it.
“Renouncing my exile would be dangerous for you,” he said. “Our uncle would have you imprisoned and tortured, just as he did to me.”
“I’m not concerned with what our uncle would do to me. Saving our kingdom is far more important than saving myself could ever be.”
“Youshouldbe concerned,” he ground out, struggling to keep the memories of his days in the dungeon from rising in his mind.
Doing so required great effort. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, his palms sweaty. It was always worst in the darkness, the shadows threatening his sanity, but when he was forced to remember, his panic heightened until his throat went tight and he almost couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t suffered from such fits in years. He’d believed himself cured of them.
But this discussion with Stasia, all the reminders of the past, proved he was not.
