“I would make a terrible duchess.” She couldn’t do any of the things society expected for that role. Worse, she would slowly wither and die under their constraints.
He reached over and took her hands. “You are the most intelligent, most hardworking, most capable woman I have ever met.”
She shook her head. “I cannae marry ye. Think of the scandal it will cause. Think of what it will do to Charlotte. This is nae what I want.”
He thumped his fist on the table. “Fi, be reasonable. You’ve turned both our lives upside down with this charade of yours, all because you desperately want ‘security.’ What I’m offering youisthat. As my duchess, you will never not have a roof over your head again. In fact, you’ll have your choice of twenty-three different roofs, and if you don’t like any of those, I’ll buy you a different one.”
The fury that thrummed through her was so charged she was shocked the air around her didn’t crackle. “That’s not thepoint.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Itisthe point. You say you want safety and security, that’s what I can give you. You’ll never have to work for it again.”
“Ilikeworking. I dunnae want to give it up.”
He pushed back from the table, his cheeks blowing out in frustration. “You cannot work if you’re dead. And without my name to protect you, you might be. For God’s sake. Stop being so idiotically stubborn.”
She couldn’t be his duchess. He needed a wife who could play the part of society hostess. A woman whose grace and accomplishments made her an asset to his work. Someone who could plan a perfect dinner and hold proper conversation with lords and ladies and politicians.
She needed a life that didn’t confine her into the tightly bound definition of what a lady ought to be. She would suffocate in that role. She knew it.
“There has to be some other solution. Find my da. He’ll tell the magistrate that I was nae involved.”
“He is gone. His apartments have been cleared out. I will not find him in time.”
It couldn’t be. Edward could do anything. He could find anyone. He was the bloody Duke of Wildeforde, for Christ’s sake. “If I explain to the magistrate what an idiot I’ve been…If I tell him the truth about what happened…”
He rubbed his hands on his thighs, as though the friction were an outlet for his exasperation. “Youmightwalk free. Or you might be convicted.”
She tapped the backs of her fingers on her lips.Think, Fiona. Think.But she couldn’t see an answer. “I cannae marry ye,” she whispered, shaking her head and trying not to let the tears flow once again.
She could see the impact of her words as he flinched. His face slackened, as though he’d been dealt a heavy blow, and then it hardened. “Do you think I want towantto marry you? I’ve worked hard my entire life to fix the damage my father did to the Wildeforde name. I’ve spent decades putting out my brother’s fires, keeping his antics out of the papers and away from gossips.
“I’ve made every right choice, danced every right step, said every right word, and reached the point where our family’s name is the most respected one in England. And in less than a month you’ve destroyed that.” He dropped his head into his hands, his fingers digging into his scalp.
She had ruined him. He’d been right in leaving her five years ago, given this was the damage she’d wrought.
He looked up at her, his torment writ clear, and it killed her.
“Then that is every reason ye need not to marry me.” She tried not to let her voice splinter as her heart just had.
“I will not have you hang. That is not how this is going to end. And if the only way to prevent it is to marry you, then that’s damn well what I’m going to do.”
There was a soft tap at the door before it opened. One of the guards stuck his head in. “You have fifteen minutes’ visiting time remaining, Your Grace.”
“Send the archbishop in,” Edward replied. He had pulled back from the table, putting as much distance between the two of them as it was possible to achieve in such a small space.
“The archbishop?” Fiona said. “He’s here? At this hour?” She could just imagine Edward hammering on the front door of the archbishop’s London residence in the middle of the night. Few men could get away with it. The duke was one.
“I was never going to be given the option, was I?” she asked as realization dawned. “Regardless of what I said.”
His lips thinned and he shifted in his seat. “There is no other way to ensure, without a doubt, that you will go free.”
But it wouldn’t truly be freedom. She’d be trapped into marriage with a man who no longer wanted her.
Chapter 35
For the two hours that she was in the dock waiting for the judge and jury to hear her case, Fiona pressed herself against the wall closest to the bailiff and tried to ignore the looks the other accused sent her way.
She wasn’t sure if it was the quality of the dress Edward had sent over that morning—more opulent, even, than the one she wore to last night’s ball—or if her story had gotten out to other inmates, but something was inspiring bitter, angry stares from the dozen men in the dock with her.
