“You decided to remain a tradeswoman,” her father interrupted, shaking his head as he reached back for his paper. “To keep that... matchmaking idea of yours. You had a chance to fix everything, Lucy. To finally be someone, and you threw it away for what? Your pride?”
The disappointment was a familiar and crushing tug. They didn’t ask if she was hurt. They didn’t ask why it had ended. They only saw the loss of the crown she was supposed to wear for them. Lucy looked at her parents and realized with a heartbreaking clarity that while Rowan’s boys might miss her for who she was, her own family only missed who she could have made them.
“I am tired of this, Lucy,” Marianne sighed. She turned to her husband, her voice rising. “I told you we shouldn’t have let her stay with Selina. We should have married her off the first chance we got. Now, all of this has filled her head with such grand, impossible notions that she cannot even recognize a golden opportunity when it hands her its hand.”
“What was I to do?” her father barked back, his irritation finally boiling over. “She was always headstrong. Let’s not forget that you were the one who suggested that Lucy stay with Selina in the first place. Now, you’re turning this on me?”
The familiar, jagged rhythm of their bickering filled the room, a sound that had been the soundtrack to Lucy’s childhood. It was a cycle of blame that always circled back to her failures. Lucy felt the walls closing in.
She turned to leave with desperate haste, but Marianne’s hand shot out, catching Lucy by the elbow. “Don’t you dare walk away while we are speaking of your future. You owe us more than this silence, Lucy. After everything we have provided?—”
Lucy snapped. She wrenched her arm back, her chest heaving as she finally met her mother’s gaze with a fire that silenced the room.
“I know!” Lucy cried. “I know I have had a better life than most! I know I was never sold off to the highest bidder or forced into a marriage with a man I loathed just to pay a gambling debt. I am thankful for that every single day. I am thankful for the education and the suffocating freedom you allowed me.”
She took a step toward her mother, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears and years of suppressed frustration. “But does that mean I forfeit the right to want anything for myself? Does my gratitude have to be paid in a life I didn’t choose? Can’t I simply make a choice, even a difficult one, even a mistake, without being made to feel like a disappointment because I didn’t secure you a title?”
Marianne opened her mouth to protest, but Lucy pushed on, the words pouring out of her.
“I am a person, not a piece of currency to be traded for prestige! I wanted something real, and if I couldn’t have that, I chose my work. Why is my independence a tragedy to you? Why can you not, for once, see me instead of the person you wanted me to be?”
The room went deathly still. Her mother looked as though she had been slapped, her face pale and her lips trembling with unspoken retort. Lucy didn’t wait to hear it. She couldn’t stay in this room for one more second without breaking entirely.
“It wasn’t even my choice,” Lucy whispered, the admission finally tearing free from her throat like a jagged breath. The anger in her eyes flickered out, replaced by a raw, naked vulnerability that made her mother recoil in surprise. “The Duke was the one who broke off our agreement. Not me.”
She looked from her mother to her father. “For years, I told you I didn’t want a husband. I told everyone that I was content with my independence. But for the first time in my life, I actually wanted to stay. I wanted to marry him. I wanted those boys. I was ready to give up everything I had built just to be part of that family.”
The shock on Marianne’s face was absolute. For all their arguing, her mother had never once suspected that Lucy’s heart was actually involved.
“But he didn’t want me,” Lucy choked out, a single, hot tear finally escaping and tracing a path down her cheek. “He told me I was free to go. He told me he didn’t need me. So please, stop acting like I have failed a test of ambition. I have lost something much more important than a title, and I cannot bear to hear you mourn the loss of a crown while I am mourning the loss of a life.”
She didn’t wait for their pity. She couldn’t stand to see the way their expressions would shift from anger to that suffocating,patronizing sympathy. Before either of them could utter a word, Lucy turned and fled the room.
Lucy didn’t stop until she reached the sanctuary of her bedroom. She slammed the door and threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in the pillows to stifle the ragged sound of her breathing.
The words she had shouted downstairs echoed in the room, sounding foreign and terrifying. She had said that she wanted to marry Rowan.She had never said it out loud. To admit she wanted to be part of Rowan’s world was to admit she was no longer the master of her own. It was the strangest, most honest thing she had ever uttered, and now that it was out in the open, she felt completely undone.
As the hours bled away, the golden afternoon light faded into a bruised purple, then deepened into the heavy, suffocating ink of night. Lucy didn’t move. She didn’t light a candle. She simply lay in the dark, watching the shadows of the trees dance across her ceiling, feeling the phantom weight of Brook’s small hand in hers and the memory of Rowan’s voice calling her name.
A soft, hesitant knock at the door broke the silence.
Lucy didn’t answer, but the door creaked open anyway. A warm, flickering glow spilled across the floor as her mother entered, carrying a single silver candlestick and a small tray with tea and bread. Marianne set the tray on the nightstand and stood there for a moment.
“You haven’t eaten, Lucy,” Marianne said softly. Her voice lacked its usual sharp edge. She sounded drained, perhaps even a little humbled.
“I'm not hungry, Mama,” Lucy replied into the pillow, her voice muffled and thick.
Marianne sat on the edge of the bed. For a long time, she didn’t say anything; she just watched the flame of the candle. “Your father and I, we have spent a great deal of time tonight talking. Or rather, I spent a great deal of time thinking about what you said.”
She reached out, her hand hovering tentatively over Lucy’s shoulder before she finally rested it there.
“I know I am judgmental, Lucy,” Marianne admitted, the words coming out slow and difficult. “I know I have been harsh to everyone. Not many people like me and for good reason. I can be difficult. I looked at your life, and I saw a series of missed opportunities because I was measuring your success by my own regrets. But the truth is, I wanted you to have the security I never felt I had. I thought that if you were a duchess, you would finally be ‘safe.’” She sighed, a heavy sound that seemed to fill the dark room. “But I never stopped to ask if you felt safe in your own skin. That was my mistake. I didn’t see that you were building something for yourself because I was too busy looking for what you were lacking. So, this is me saying that I am sorry, Lucy. I have been a difficult mother to a brilliant daughter.”
Lucy turned her head slightly, looking at her mother through the gloom. The apology was so unexpected, it felt like the world had shifted on its axis.
Marianne squeezed Lucy’s shoulder, her touch unexpectedly tender. “I only ever wanted the best for you, Lucy. I just didn’t realize that the best wasn’t something I could define for you. You can talk to me. In fact, please... talk to me. I won’t judge. I won’t talk about titles or business. Just tell me what is happening in your heart. I will just listen and try to understand you.”
Lucy adjusted in the bed to face Marriane with teary eyes. “You promise, Mama?” she asked with a quivering voice.
