Paisley, red-faced and sputtering, stumbled back. “You women are mad. Every last one of you!”
Sera tilted her head, examining him like a curious but unpleasant insect. “And yet we, in our madness, managed to uncover your scheme and bring it crashing down before the vicar spoke a single word. Remarkable, isn’t it?”
Paisley’s mouth opened—ready to bluster, or threaten, or lie—but the sight of four furious women halted whatever excuse he’d prepared. His gaze flicked to Maddie.
She didn’t flinch.
He sneered. “This is not over. You’ll regret humiliating me.”
“Oh, you blackguard,” Ashley said, folding her arms. “I’ve been waiting since my engagement for the chance to humiliate you.”
“You’ll regret everything,” he snarled at Maddie, ignoring her.
Sebastian stepped forward. “Say one more word to her and I will break your jaw. I’m not a duke; I’m worse. I have nothing to lose. That makes me a very dangerous man.”
Paisley flinched.
Maddie stared at Paisley with a strange sense of detachment—as though the girl who once trembled beneath his threats was someone else entirely. Some pale, frightened ghost in the corner of her mind.
But that girl was gone.
Or perhaps… she had finally woken up.
She stood taller now. Straighter. Not because Sebastian was near, though his presence was balm, but because her friends stood behind her, fierce, furious, and wholly unafraid.
And for the first time in days, Maddie allowed herself to feel something that had been buried beneath fear, shame, and second-guessing: Rage.
Clarifying, righteous rage.
She’d spent too long shrinking herself, walking on eggshells around her mother, trying to survive expectations that weren’t hers.
But no more.
This man—this petty tyrant in polished boots—had tried to control her future through threats.
And now he thought she’d regret humiliating him?
No.
She regretted only ever giving him the benefit of the doubt. Her gaze didn’t waver as he hissed his final warning. Let him spit threats. Let him stew in shame. She had her voice now. And she had something more dangerous than his title or threats.
She had courage.
It had come quietly at first, like a whisper, but now, it roared. She didn’t need rescuing. She had needed the space to rise.
And she just had.
Right here, in front of everyone.
Let Paisley flinch. Let the world watch. Maddie was done playing the part they wrotefor her.
Paisley lunged.
Perhaps it was pride, or fury, or one final pathetic attempt to assert control—but he moved, quick and graceless, toward her.
And Maddie was ready.
She calmly slipped her hand into the small etui in her pocket, her fingers closing around the small glass vial of cayenne pepper she’d tucked there that morning on a beautiful, instinctual whim, and flung the powder straight into his face.
