Benedict laughed. “Taking full advantage of the circumstance then, I see.”
“The cause of it, you mean.”
“No,” Thalia spoke up. “Laurent did nothing wrong. I am the one who stopped the wedding. Me, not him.”
Damien looked warningly at her. “No need to remind me, Thalia. Of that, I am more than aware. As is the rest of the ton, for that matter.”
Thalia swallowed, sensing her brother’s anger brimming.
It warmed her heart to know the good that had come from her actions. That Rosaline and her brother were now free to pursue their feelings for one another. Or that they would be, once the backlash of the cancelled marriage faded.
That, as much as anything, was why Thalia was so determined to take the blame herself. If it fell on her shoulders only, then her brother and best friend would hopefully be free to marry. And she had told Damien this, needing him to know that when the time for punishment came, it was to be for her and her alone.
Truly, she just wished it would happen already.All this waiting…
“It does raise the question though, doesn’t it,” Benedict continued. He was sitting with just a glass of juice, having arrived too late to eat, and sipped it as he narrowed his eyes in thought. “Whyhasnothing been done?”
Damien made sure to look right at Thalia. His expression was flat; his eyes were cold. “Do not worry yourself there, Northwick. My sister will be dealt with shortly.”
“Not by you.” Benedict waved her brother down. “Think about it. If I was Amberhall, the last thing I would do is sit back and allow my fiancee to run off with another man. That I would donothing! At the very least, he ought to have started some sort of smear campaign against young Lady Rosaline…” He scoffed and took a sip of juice. “Citing her as a harridan or somewhat to soften the blow of –”
“That is not true!” Thalia cried before she could stop herself.
“Obviously,” Benedict sighed. “But the point is the right one. Why has nothing been done or spoken about since you…” He flashed his eyes at her. “Since you saw fit to tear down the walls of this nice home so they might collapse on your poor brother’s head.”
Thalia winced and looked away with shame.
She had not meant for her actions to blow back on her brother. And she was resolute in her decision to take her punishment as it came.
All I wanted was to help! Am I to blame that my friend was put in such a situation in the first place? Am I to blame that this world… these people… that they look at me and my friends and see only tools to be used?
That was at the heart of Thalia’s frustration, and why she had done as she did.
She could not help but narrow her eyes as she looked between her brother and Benedict, as she thought of her father, and of Rosaline’s father too. They were the reason for this, the way they used women for their own gains, they way they looked upon marriage as nothing more than a means to further their reputation and position among their peers.
It was just so unfair!
Thalia’s father was the worst of them. He had been a cold, manipulative creature. Not wicked. Not evil. But calculating, the way he prized that which affected him above even his own children… and his wife, for that matter. Theirs had been a loveless marriage, a lonely one, and while Thalia had never been able to prove it, she knew as well as she knew anything that her mother had died because of it.
“I will think of something,” Thalia said, speaking into her chest.
Her brother looked at her. “No, I will think of something. You have done enough, Thalia.”
“All I did –”
“Was exactly what I told you not to do,” he snapped and then groaned with frustration. “As I have told you already, for now,we wait. I do not know why Amberhall has remained silent. But there is a reason.”
Benedict scoffed. “Of that, we can be sure. That man…” He shuddered. “He is not to be messed with. But I suppose it’s too late now for that.”
Thalia bowed her head, knowing it was better not to test her brother in this. As children, they had been close, and she looked back on those years fondly. But the older that Damien grew, the more like their father he became, and a part of her truly worried what he might do if he felt that he had to.
“Your Grace…” a voice spoke from the doorway to the breakfast room.
“Ah, Mr. Carter,” Damien greeted the butler. “What is it?”
Mr. Carter hovered by the doorway, a nervous look in his eyes. “Forgive me for interrupting, Your Grace, but you have an unexpected visitor.”
“I do?” Damien frowned. “Who?”
