“Christian,” she said, her voice catching on his name. “There is something I must tell you.”
He glanced at her, his expression shifting from easy contentment to quiet concern.
“What is it?”
“I spoke with Mrs Blackley yesterday. She told me…” Fiona swallowed, forcing herself onward. “She told me the talk in the village has grown worse. Specific. Ugly. Someone has been spreading stories about us—about what happens in the castle after dark. The vicar’s wife has organised a boycott of any merchant who supplies Thornwick. And the tenant farmers’ wives have begun shunning your staff.”
Christian went very still.
“I should have told you at once,” Fiona continued. “But you were so happy, and I could not bear to—” She faltered, shame rising hot in her chest. “I was a coward. I am sorry.”
For a long moment, he said nothing, his jaw tightening.
Fiona braced herself for anger, for reproach, for the cold withdrawal she had once known so well.
Instead, he took her hand.
“You were not a coward,” he said quietly. “You were trying to spare me. Just as I have tried to spare you.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
“I am not angry, Fiona. Only… tired. I had hoped—perhaps foolishly—that we might have a little more time before the world intruded.”
“I am sorry,” she whispered again.
“Do not be.”
She hesitated, then looked up at him. “What do you mean—you tried to spare me?”
Christian was silent for a moment before answering.
“I received a letter from your father this morning,” he said at last. “A reply to the one I sent announcing my intentions. The words were… not kind.”
Fiona’s stomach tightened.
“Oh.”
“I had not meant to tell you yet,” he continued. “Not today. I thought—selfishly, perhaps—that we might have a few more hours of peace before we were forced to confront it.”
They walked on a few paces in silence.
“What do we do now?” she asked quietly.
“We do what we planned.” His voice steadied, gathering quiet resolve. “I shall do everything in my power to earn your father’s favour. We will announce our engagement. We will present a united front to the world and dare them to challenge us.”
His expression hardened slightly.
“I am the Duke of Thornwick. I will not be cowed by gossip and small-minded cruelty.”
“And if my father refuses? If he forbids the marriage?”
“You are of age. You do not require his permission.” Christian’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “I would prefer to have his blessing—for your sake. But his letter has made it quite clear that blessing will not be easily given.”
Fiona looked up at him. “Was it truly so bad?”
He hesitated.
“Bad enough,” he said at last, “that I wished to spare you the reading of it for as long as I could.”
