I am not a lady of many words—spoken ones, at least—but I can write well. But I want you to know that I am happy that I will become your wife by the end of the week. It is not the sort of marriage I would have wanted, but it is more than I expected for myself.
I wish to ask you a favor, but it is better that I tell you when we see one another. I need you to tell me to say it, for when the time comes, I may not be able to. I hope that is not too great a burden.
Sincerely,
Lady Adelaide Wynn.
Cassian chuckled at the note, before folding it in half and putting it in a drawer. He wondered just what she would ask of him, for if it were too much, he did not doubt that she would not ask him at all.
He wished that she were not so timid. But then, given her circumstances, he could hardly blame her.
What struck him, though, was just how much she had to say once she was able to write it. He had known people like that, but very few, and he found it rather endearing.
His face fell. He was not supposed to find her endearing.
It was the night before his wedding, and he was already dreading it. He did not want to be stared at, nor hear the whispers about him and his new wife, all the judgment about things that people knew nothing about. It would be maddening, and he could not stomach it.
And that was why he decided to go to his club. White’s was a second home to him when he was in London, for it was the club he found the best gentlemen attended. There were fewer liars and cheaters, and the vast majority of them paid their debts, which meant that he was able to talk to them for more than ten minutes.
“Ashford!” another duke greeted when he entered. “I see you are preparing for your wedding.”
The Duke of Urkinshire was one of the gentlemen whom Cassian could speak to the longest. As a fellow duke, he was less likely to want something from him, which already meant that he was far better than most. He was also older, and someone that Cassian admired more than he did most men.
“Urkinshire,” he returned, signaling to a waiter that he wanted a drink as he sat. “Yes, I thought it might be wise. Are you here celebrating your own marriage?”
“Saturdays are mine,” Urkinshire explained. “My wife and I each like to take a day for ourselves—something your betrothed knows.”
“Is that so?”
“Indeed. She stayed with us on Wednesday, though I saw very little of her. She seemed to think that I would loathe her.”
“She expects that of everyone, it would seem. I can hardly blame her, given what is said about her.”
“And unjustly at that,” Urkinshire said firmly. “Those duchesses have their group, but so do we dukes, and we talk just as much as they do. If you ask me, Hargrave ought to tread very carefully.”
“You all seem to like Lady Adelaide a good deal.”
“Of course. Cecilia—the Duchess of Pridefield, that is—thinks very highly of her, and I have yet to meet a judge of character as good as her. If she says that we were misled, then I will take that as the truth.”
Cassian agreed wholeheartedly, and it only made him feel worse about what he had done.
He would not be a good husband. He could not be, and though he could not change that, it did not make it any easier to inflict that fate upon Lady Adelaide. She had one final night where she could picture herself falling for someone, and the following day, that dream would be squashed, all because of him.
“You do not seem excited about getting married,” Urkinshire noted. “Believe me, I know that we men are supposed to view marriage as the end of our lives, but it is not like that. Marrying my Beatrice was the greatest thing I have ever done—aside from having our children, of course.”
“And I am happy for you. I can only wish that I wanted all of this for myself. I never planned to do this, and the fact that I must do it to her makes it even worse.”
“Then why did you propose? If you did not want to get married, you could have let her be. We are not pressured like the fairer sex.”
“What else could I have done? I had caused a scandal by helping her, and that meant I had to fix it, which meant I had to propose. There was no other way.”
“And why did you offer her protection, to begin with?”
“Because I am a gentleman. Any good man would have done the same.”
Cassian ordered another drink, for he had downed his first without thinking.
“And yet,” Urkinshire grinned, “you walk among dozens of good men every day. It is our duty to protect ladies and to ensure that everything that happens around us is both fair and just, yet none of them were watching her closely enough to see her slip away. You were the only one who had been paying attention to her. Why is that?”
