“You have ruined my son,” my father says, his tone calm, his voice deep and earnest. “What will become of him now? Once you are done with him?”
“I will provide for him,” Annabelle says. “Similar arrangements are made for young women with rich men every day in England—you are too much of a man of the world not to know it, Mr. Saintsbury. And this arrangement is no different. He will be takencare of, even if our association ends.”
He scoffs.
“Do you think that is what my boy cares for? He has been raised to be the best of men. Worldly possessions are nothing to him. He cares for his soul. He cares for his family. With your vile seductions, you have wasted one of the best young men in Britain. He was meant for so much more.”
“You have kept him in a cage,” Annabelle says, her voice rising. “And you have asked him to torture himself. How can you speak of his wellbeing?”
“If you care for him,” my father snaps, “then you will marry him.”
Annabelle recoils slightly at this proclamation.
“It is the only thing that can protect him now,” he continues, “and it is what I have come here to beg you to do, Miss de Lacey, if he would not leave you. You are a woman of business. A rich and powerful woman. The richest and most powerful woman in all of England. If you marry him, he will not be wholly redeemed. He will still be infamous. But I may see him privately without disgrace.”
“I will not obeyyou,” Annabelle spits out. “And neither will your son.”
“Father,” I say, unable to bear their fighting. “I have made my choice.”
“Yes, you have. Because you love this woman. You were made for love. Perhaps I was too strict with you. But I wanted what was best for you. I wanted to avoidthis.”
I shake my head. “You should have trusted me. You should have listened to me.”
“Yes,” he says. “Yes. I should have. But I love you. I am your father. You should not suffer your whole life for my mistake.”
“It is not your mistake,” I say. “It is not a mistake at all.”
“You will see it is,” he says. “When you see how the world treats you.”
He turns to Annabelle.
“Please,” he says. “Do the right thing. Marry him. Not for me. But for him. You know just as well as I do what he is. He is good. Truly good. He does not deserve to suffer.”
“We are done here, Mr. Saintsbury,” Annabelle snaps.
He sighs.
“I have intruded on you long enough. If you ever need me, Alfred, please write. I will always do what I can for you.”
Then my father gives me one last look and sweeps from the room.
Chapter 34
Alfred
My heart slams in my chest.
And I cannot meet Annabelle’s eye.
I expected my father’s anger.
But his worry—that I had not prepared for.
I close my eyes for a moment. I think of all the times I shared with my father, the easy and the difficult and the boring and pleasantly mundane.
My father was so proud when I took my degree from Oxford and became a curate for the bishop of Newcastle. When I was a young boy we used to take tea together, and he explained the inner workings of the church, that world which he spent most of his time thinking about. He explained the hierarchies and the systems and the beliefs and the different factions that agreed and disagreed and agreed again.
When my mother died, he was kind. Despite being a strict man, he did not scold me when I wept. He folded me into his arms.
