“This cannot be.” Her voice was flat, drained of colour, a voice that had been wrung out and hung up to dry. “He assured me that —”
She stopped. The sentence died in her throat like a candle guttered by its own wax, and in the silence that followed, David heard the click of her teeth as her mouth pressed shut. Her eyes were open but unseeing, fixed on a point somewhere above his shoulder where nothing of interest existed.
He leaned forward in his chair, lowering his voice with a carefulness that spoke of his awareness of her fragility. “I am sorry, truly.”
Frederica blinked — a slow, deliberate motion, as if she had to remind her body how to perform it — and when her eyes refocused, there was something new in them. Not grief, exactly. Something deeper: the particular devastation of a person who has built their entire structure of safety on a foundation they had just discovered to be sand.
“Father told me.” Her voice cracked on the second word. She did not cry. She was past crying, or before it, suspended in the terrible clarity that precedes a collapse. “He told me that we would be bound together in marriage. That the codicil was there to ensure —” Her right hand flew to the settee arm and gripped it, her knuckles going white, the handkerchief forgotten. “— to ensure my future was safe.”
She said the word safe with such ferocity that David almost flinched. It was a word that had been turned into a weapon, used against her by a father who believed he was protecting her and, in doing so, had caged her with loving hands.
He kept his hands flat on his knees and held the silence open between them. To move closer would be to crowd her; to speak would be to interrupt the careful work she was doing of not breaking apart. He had never been particularly good at the precise calibration of silence — Nora had always done it better — but he tried, now, for Frederica’s sake.
Frederica’s breath came out in a shudder that started in her chest and ran down through her arms to her fingers. Her eyes closed.
When she opened them again at last, her composure had been rebuilt — fragile, brittle, but reassembled. David steadied himself for the rest of what he must say.
“Lady Nora is coming to join us for afternoon tea, Frederica. I am expecting her at any moment.”
Frederica’s eyes widened in clear astonishment as she spun around to face him. “Lady Nora?” she repeated, her voice hoarse. “Why would you bring her to this house?”
“There is no reason for you to have anything against her, is there?” David asked, surprised at her sudden fervour, at the anger which burrowed gentle lines into her forehead.
“Of course there is!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “She is the one young lady that would pull you from me, the one who would seek to take my place. I cannot allow that to happen. What possible reason do you have to have her join us?”
David took in a deep breath and then rose to his feet. “Frederica, what do you know about Lady Nora and I?”
“I know that you were pursuing her last Season,” she said, the red in her cheeks fading quickly to white although her eyes stayed fixed to him. “I know that you were forced to step away from her and join yourself to me instead. That must have been terribly difficult for you, I am sure, but you have made a promise to me and – ”
“I love her still, Frederica.”
She snatched in a breath, her hand going to her mouth.
“You and I are like brother and sister, are we not?” he asked, as her chin wobbled. “If you were to be truthful, you would admit that there is no love or affection between us, aside from the familial love which binds us. Can you not think of making your own match, Frederica? One where you are able to love and to love freely?”
She caught her breath again, the colour leaving her face as she reached out one hand and grasped the back of the chair, using it to steady herself. “You intend to leave me with nothing then, do you?” she whispered, sharp tears in her eyes. “You think to step away from me and allow my father’s threats to fall upon my shoulders instead of your own.”
David took a step towards her. “There is more to the conversation than simply my choice,” he said, holding her gaze. “This has never been about my choice, nor has it ever been about your choice. I do not like that, Frederica. I believe that – ”
The knock at the door brought him welcome relief. Striding to the door, he opened it and shooed the butler away, letting Nora step into the room, her maid being asked to wait in the hallway. She smiled up at him but David gave her the smallest shake of his head, trying to tell her that all had not gone well thus far.
She frowned.
“Miss Longleat.” Coming into the room, she moved towards Frederica who took a step back from her, making it quite plain that she did not want to be in Nora’s company. “You are troubled, I can see that.”
“I am troubled because I hear that my betrothed intends to end our engagement and leave me to battle the consequences alone!” Frederica exclaimed, stepping back from Nora again. “You are the cause of this, no doubt. You have inserted yourself into his life once more and have encouraged him not to follow the path of duty and responsibility.”
Those words sounded so very much like her father, David’s eyebrows shot higher. Was she aware of all of this, then? Had she known from the beginning of her father’s plan and how he intended to force David’s hand? They had never spoken of it and David had always presumed she had simply been told what was to happen for her future, just as he had done, but what if there was more than that?
“Did you know of this?” As Nora sat down, David strode back towards Frederica, searching her face. “Did you know about the codicil?”
Frederica looked back at him, her lips trembling as her eyes settled on his. “Father told me of it.”
“You did not ever tell me that you were aware of it. I presume he spoke to you about it before he spoke to me?”
Her silence was her confirmation.
“Then you knew he was going to force my hand,” he said, slowly, as Frederica dropped her gaze to the floor rather than look at him. “You were aware of his intentions.” He shook his head. “You think it perfectly acceptable, then, for your father to have done as he did?”
