Sabine crossed her arms over her chest.Oh, you will answer.It’s only fair.
He cleared his throat. “Marriage involves another person, doesn’t it? The combination of two lives? I’m certain that my life is not suitable for anyone but myself. I would not inflict it on an unsuspecting woman.”
This made her laugh. “How dashingly cryptic, but hardly an answer.Why notinflict this life?”
Another long stare. “Very well,” he said. “To begin, I was born in a brothel.”
Now he crossed his arms over his chest. His expression said,Thatshould shut you up.
“And I,” countered Sabine, “just emerged from a locked cupboard. My father is dead. My mother is going blind. My uncle is a sadistic tyrant from whom I cannot seem to escape. This is not a conversation for the faint of heart.”
He rolled his shoulders. “Right. Well, I was born a bastard, to a mother who could scarcely care for herself. I was brought up in the streets. I have seen more devastation than you can imagine. I have since acquired some means, and by some miracle I have been educated. I have an import business with two partners. I own a ship. I have sailed the world. But matrimony is not like money or knowledge or travel, is it? You don’t simplyearnmarriage and use it to your advantage. Marriage will convene all of my terrible history on another person.”
“And what if the other person does not wish to convene her life with yours? What if she wishes marriage in only a legal sense?”
He looked confused. “Every woman wants to convene.”
“I don’t.”
He cocked his chin.
“Can you not see my face?” she went on. “Do you recall the locked box from where you, only moments ago, released me? I shall never, ever, put myself in a position of obligation or subjugation to a man again. Marriage is a union of trust, and trust, for me, is gone. But I would do it for the freedom of the thing—that is, I wouldpossiblydo it. As a way out. If the circumstances were correct.”
If she was to pinpoint a moment in the conversation when she went from resisting this madcap scheme to actively campaigning for it, it was now.
The wordsI have no wish to marryhad allowed her to reconsider.
Jon Stoker said, “But a traditional marriage to a kind man could deliver you from your situation.”
“My uncle appeared kind before he backhanded me within days of my father’s funeral. Would marriage to a loving girl vanquish all of your demons?”
“I don’t have de—”
“I don’t want to know, actually,” she said, holding out her hand. “Forgive me, but I believe we might have reached some common ground. I want no part of a traditional union with any man. I could not be more serious about not wanting it. However, I would consider an alternative.”
“And so the advert was meant to...?”
“The advert was an aspirational daydream engineered by my friends. I never expected it to elicit someone like you.” She looked him boldly up and down.
“And you know what I’m like, do you?”
“I know you released me from the cupboard without ceremony. I know you have been measured and steady in a very strange moment. I know you need my £15,000 dowry—you would not have answered the advert if you did not.”
“These are but a fraction of the things to know about me.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard. “And ifyouhave no wish to marry, andIhave no wish to marry, then we could, in theory, marry in name only and part ways. I will go to London with my friends and enjoy the freedom of a married woman. You may... go wherever you will go and do whatever you do. We shall live separate lives. Oh my God, this might actually work.” Sabine felt a little breathless. The terror and humiliation of her uncle’s dominion had been so oppressive, the possibility of some deliverance, any deliverance, felt like a gag had been removed from her mouth.
“You cannot remain here,” he repeated.
It was not a refusal and Sabine forged ahead. “Swear to me now,” she stipulated, “that you will never raise a hand in violence to me, not ever. That is, on the very rare occasion that we should see each other. And I do mean very rare. Once every five years.”
“I do not strike women,” he said.
“And swear to me that, if we marry, you will take my dowry and go, leave me in peace. That we shall carry on separate existences in separate parts of the world. That we will have no sway on the life that the other builds.”
Sabine’s heart had begun to pound like she was running a race. This conversation felt very much like a race. They had begun to walk, and then he walked faster, and thenshewalked faster, and then he had begun to run, soshebegan to run, and now they were both sprinting side by side, trying to keep up.
“I swear,” Jon Stoker said slowly, and Sabine thought,My God, what if this actually works?
