Graham took the glass, just as Edward’s grip on it loosened, and he poured his own drink before taking a seat in the chair opposite. “Are you well?” he asked, concern filling his voice.
Edward chuckled. Was he well? No. His heart had been torn from his chest and ground into paste. His wife had left him, his family was torn, and the very fabric of his life—his name, his esteem, his moral code—had been rent apart. The only silver lining had been his mother’s immediate departure from London.
“No. I am not well. But it’s what I deserve.”
Because he did deserve it. He’d written to his brother and General Hastings in an attempt to reverse the commission he’d purchased for William and bring him home.
His brother had returned his letter unopened, and Hastings had responded only to politely inform Edward that William had signed on for an enlistment of seven years and, by law, 1828 was the earliest he could be released from his duties.
Edward didn’t know which despicable act was worse—forcing his brother into the military or forcing Fiona into marriage. William might be facing gunfire from enemy forces, but only for seven years. Fiona would be his duchess for the rest of her life, and Graham’s presence was a reminder that it, too, could be deadly.
“Talk to me, cousin,” Graham said. “One moment you were choosing a perfectly respectable bride from the latest crop of debutantes and the next you’re married to a woman of working-class background who was traipsing around London in men’s clothing. Surely, you can appreciate my confusion.”
“You married a shopgirl.”
“Ahh.” Graham winced. “So, youloveher? You’d better start at the beginning.”
And so he did. Over the course of an hour and several more glasses of scotch, he told his cousin everything, from the moment he met Fiona five years ago to the message she’d passed on through Rollins when she left.
Graham’s expression morphed from curiosity to shock to pity. “So, just to clarify, you forced Miss McTavish—a woman you’ve described as stubborn, self-reliant, and bloody-minded—to marry you.”
Edward snorted. “Foolish, huh?”
Graham swirled the remaining few drops of his drink, studying them as though the answer to this debacle could be found in the patterns the liquid formed as it clung to the glass. “Under normal circumstances, yes. That would be idiotic. But I can’t see any other option that would haveguaranteedshe be released from prison.”
This had been the argument Edward had been having with himself for days now. An argument he couldn’t win from either side.
“I could have found Tucker or her father and forced them to tell the magistrate that she had no part in it.”
Graham shook his head, lips pursed. “How? Where? There’s been no talk of their arrest in the paper. If the Home Office hasn’t found them in a week, how were you going to find them in hours?”
“I could have paid the magistrate to release her regardless of what the evidence was.”
Graham’s headshaking grew more determined. “When her arrest was so public? He wouldn’t have done it. Not even for you. His career and reputation would both have been ruined.”
Patterson had known exactly what he was doing when he chose to arrest Fiona at a ball. Any chance Edward had had to make the situation go away quietly was scuppered by the sheer volume of witnesses.
“We could have gone to trial and I could have sworn under oath that she was with me at all times.”
“And she would have been in prison for weeks before it came time for a verdict, and even then, it wouldn’t be guaranteed.”
Edward ran a hand through his hair. The very mention of Fiona in prison was enough to dredge up the same breath-sucking, stomach-clenching dread that had gripped him the night she’d been led away by officers.
“There must be something I could have done differently.” Something that didn’t result in the complete implosion of his life.
Graham raised his eyebrows, pinning Edward with a you-bloody-idiot stare. “Well,yes. You could have had a reasonable, rational conversation with her outlining all of the above points rather than telling her that you didn’t actuallywantto marry her, but she would have to do it anyway.”
And there was the crux of his problem. Once again, he’d simply acted, doing what he thought best without caring for anyone else’s opinion on the matter. He’d done it five years ago when he’d chosen to leave Fiona instead of explaining to her the dangers of thetonand giving her the choice to face them or not, and he’d done it again when he bought William a commission against his will.
I am a foolish, arrogant bastard who didn’t deserve the people I had in my life.
“The thing is,” Graham continued, “you’ve already left her once. Five years ago, you had a choice between her and society and you chose society. How can she be sure you won’t leave her again? How can she trust that you won’t push her needs aside to appease the good opinions of others?”
She couldn’t. Their entire relationship he’d been sure to point out all the ways she didn’t fit society’s mold. “Damn, I’ve made a mess of things.”
His cousin nodded his assent. “You need to tell her how you feel. You need to apologize, profusely, and you need to show her that you value her more than you value what others think of you.”
Edward rapped his fingers on his desk. “And I need to do all of that while still respecting her wishes for me to not contact her.”
