“And yet you resist it,” Sylvia pressed. “Why?”
Cassandra hesitated. She did not want to divulge such information to a lady that so clearly disliked her, but then she also wished to no longer be perceived as a threat.
“Because I want more than a name,” she said. “I want to belong somewhere. I want affection and love, not just duty.”
Sylvia was quiet for a moment.
“I was meant to be in your place,” she whispered.
The words were not sharp. They were stated simply, as fact.
“Our fathers were close,” Sylvia continued. “They intended for George and me to marry to unite our legacies. It was discussed for years. You were never meant to know, of course. Nobody was.”
“I had no idea…” Cassandra said slowly.
“Yes,” Sylvia replied. “Everything was as it should have been until you came and ruined the plan.”
Cassandra absorbed that in silence. She was too kind to remind Sylvia that she had done it to herself by bringing the group to find them alone together. Had she not done that, Cassandra would not be in her situation to begin with.
“I do not say that to wound you,” Sylvia continued. “It is simply how things were arranged. I do not mean to offend you, but you know as well as anyone else that a man like George would never choose someone like you.”
The words were spoken calmly, without malice, as though stating the weather, but Cassandra felt them land nonetheless.
“I know,” she said.
She had known, and she had told herself the same thing many times, but hearing it from someone else, framed as inevitability rather than cruelty, hurt in a way she had not expected.
“I only hope,” Sylvia added, “that if you insist upon this union, you will not waste the chance you were given.”
The carriages began to move. Voices called for places to be taken.
Cassandra did not reply.
As they passed into the village, she caught sight of a small church set slightly apart from the main road. Stone-worn, modest, framed by trees, it looked untouched by expectation.
She slowed. Then, without comment, she turned away. She left the others behind and walked toward it alone.
The church was cool and dim, the air carrying the faint scent of stone and old wood. Sunlight filtered through narrow windows, striping the worn floor. It felt removed from the noise of the village, from the expectations that followed her everywhere else.
She had taken only a few steps down the aisle when she heard movement.
George stood near the front, his back to her, one hand resting on the back of a pew as though he had been standing there for some time. He turned when he heard her, his expression unreadable.
“I did not mean to intrude,” Cassandra replied automatically.
“You are not,” he said. “This church belongs to the estate.”
She glanced around again, suddenly uneasy.
“Do you come here often?”
“Occasionally,” he said.
They were quiet for a moment, and all the while he did not look at her. Then, he cleared his throat.
“This is where we will be married.”
The words landed with unexpected force.
