George’s breath slowed. He had expected something like this, but not as promising.
“In addition,” the solicitor went on, “the bonds you purchased last year have matured earlier than anticipated. Combined, you will be able to repay Buxton in full before the end of the month.”
George closed his eyes briefly. For the first time in weeks, perhaps months, the pressure in his chest eased.
“Are you certain of this?” he asked.
“Entirely,” the solicitor said. “There will be no need to liquidate additional assets. Nor to seek… alternative means.”
George knew precisely what he meant.
“There will be no use of the dowry,” the solicitor added, carefully.
“No,” George said at once. “There never was.”
“Of course.”
They spoke briefly of logistics; dates, transfers, signatures required, and George absorbed it all with practiced efficiency, but his attention kept drifting to the singular fact that mattered.
The debt would be gone, and Buxton would be satisfied.
One weight, immense and suffocating, had been lifted cleanly from his shoulders, but there was another in its place. When thesolicitor finally took his leave, George remained standing by the fire, hands clasped behind his back, staring into the flames.
Relief came first. After months of threats and taunts, he was in control of his estate once more. He had solved the mess that his father had left behind, and with that he hoped that a time could come where he could grieve his death. He had always been so angry that he never allowed himself to think of anything good about him.
His father had almost ruined everything, and had George not been as careful as he had been, they would have been ruined entirely. But the debt, for all its severity, had been a problem he understood. It had demanded sacrifice, discipline, and he knew how to possess that. He had been doing so since the moment the title had passed to him. The other burden, however, was less obedient.
His betrothed.
Cassandra Burrow, who challenged him at every turn, who resented the arrangement openly, who had nearly drowned herself rather than submit quietly to the role assigned to her. She threatened his family as much as the debt had, but he could not seem to blame her for it.
He simply saw her again as she had stood in her room; hair loose, cheeks flushed, beautiful. The thought irritated him. He had not chosen her. He had not wanted a wife at all, and certainly not one who unsettled him so completely, and whoforced him to confront instincts he had spent years pushing away.
She still wished to break the engagement, that much was clear, and yet she looked at him now with something different than she had at the beginning. There was less hostility, but more confusion as though she, too, felt the many conflicting feelings that he did.
George exhaled slowly.
He had freed himself from financial ruin, but he remained entangled in something far more dangerous– an attachment he did not understand with a woman he was not supposed to want.
And the growing, unwelcome realization that duty alone might no longer be enough to keep him away.
Chapter Fifteen
Cassandra had only been looking for the library.
She knew she should have asked a servant, but the house had been unusually quiet since the afternoon’s excitement, and she preferred not to draw further attention to herself. The corridors were warm from the fires, and she followed what she assumed must be the right direction with more confidence than accuracy.
But the door she opened was not the library. She realized it the moment she stepped inside. This room was smaller, more private. Papers were arranged neatly on a broad desk. A fire burned steadily in the hearth, casting a golden light over leather-bound books and dark wood.
George stood near the desk, coat unbuttoned, his attention still turned toward the door his visitor had just left through. Cassandra froze.
“I am so sorry,” she said at once. “I was looking for the library. I did not mean to intrude.”
She reached for the door, intent on escaping before the situation could deepen.
“You may stay,” he said.
She paused, looking at him in surprise for she was quite convinced that she was the last person he wished to see.
