“Tripleton!” Lord Birchwood bellowed. “Tripleton, assist me,now!”
But Phoebe’s father only stared coolly at the Marquess before turning away casually. Phoebe rushed to her parents, her face blazing with humiliation, but her heart settled with relief. Lord Birchwood was gone.
Gone.
She would not dance with him this evening.
Or ever again for that matter.
The exquisite relief that flooded her soul seemed too good to be true. Her mind was filled with the truth Sebastian had given her two days prior.
Was he right? How did he know?
“Mama!” she said desperately. “Papa.”
“Phoebe, do not cause a scene.”
“I do not understand what is going on.”
Her parents turned to one another, then pivoted so they both might face her. “What is going on, Daughter, is that we are no longer beholden to that wretched, greedy lord. We are free of him.”
Her father’s smile grew wide.
“Yes, but the scandal, dearest,” her mother said. Tonight, she had carried a periwinkle blue fan and now she used it to stir the air around them which felt stagnant. “What will people say when they learn of this.”
“Mama,” Phoebe croaked out.
She was done with being ignored. She wanted to know the truth, from her parents’ lips, and she did not wish to feel like an outsider in her own family.
“There will be a scandal, yes,” her father agreed, “but now that Briarwood is out of our hair, we can easily sell Phoebe to another suitor. A respectable one. With Birchwood locked behind the walls of Newgate, my debts will be erased, and we will start afresh with our daughter.”
“Papa!” Phoebe cried. “Papa,please.”
“Hush,” he snapped. He focused an intense stare on her then, and she could see how his eyes glittered triumphantly. “We should not discuss these private matters in such a public venue.”He held out his hand to his wife, then he offered his other arm to Phoebe. “Come with us, if you insist on making a scene.”
“I do not mean?—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Phoebe’s wrist was ensnared in her father’s vice-like grip, and she was pulled from the ballroom.
She caught the viciously angry glare of Sebastian’s right before her parents yanked her into the corridor and shoved her into an off-room, private, and concealed from anybody else. It looked like some sort of guest parlor.
The door slammed closed, and her parents rounded on her, fury blazing in both of their eyes. Phoebe cowered against the door, wrapping her arms around herself, crushing the bodice of her pale pink gown to her chest.
“What were you thinking?” her mother spat. “How could you cause such a scene?”
“Me?” Phoebe cried. “I did nothing! If Lord Birchwood was taken by the authorities, that has nothing to do with?—”
A hand cracked against her cheek, and Phoebe staggered back against the door. Her knees threatened to buckle more from surprise than pain. She stared in shock at her father, whose hand was still mid-air.
“You,” her father hissed, “will be wed soon enough, Daughter, and when you are, your mother and I will finally be freed from your sharp tongue.”
When Phoebe wished to protest, her father jerked his hand back in another threat.
“Remember your place,” he snarled.
Phoebe rubbed her cheek with the flat of her hand, then squared her shoulders and pierced her father with a livid stare.
“I will not be passed from suitor to suitor of your choice.What about my choice?”
