George’s stomach turned.
The occasion, officially, was a celebration of the Prince’s upcoming marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Unofficially, it was a calculated maneuver to woo the landed gentry back into the Prince's good graces and curry support for his latest financial petition to Parliament. The heir to the throne had managed—yet again—to empty his coffers through a combination of racing debts, mistresses, and elaborate architectural renovations.
George had not wanted to come. He had delayed as long as possible. But as one of the more influential Catholic landowners in Derbyshire—and a man known for quiet charity—he could not refuse outright. Especially not after receiving Mrs. Fitzherbert’s letter the week prior.
He had read it twice. Then burned it. But the words remained etched in his mind.
“They say my marriage to the Prince is not valid. That it was unlawful, unbinding, invisible. That my very presence in his life is now an embarrassment. I beg of you, Mr. Darcy, as a man of conscience—support my petition to the Holy Father to recognize what God already has.”
George had responded with all the care and sympathy he could offer, but he knew the futility of it. The Royal Marriage Act had been passed nearly twenty years ago. Even if the Pope himself declared their union valid, no Catholic wife—nor her children—could ever inherit the throne of England. The Prince had chosen political expedience over honor. He had discarded Mrs. Fitzherbert like a worn coat and claimed their union had never existed.
It made George sick.
And yet here he stood—expected to nod and toast and give his silent endorsement.
His jaw tightened. He turned away from the crowd and made his way toward the back hallway, murmuring something about needing air. The corridor beyond the ballroom was dimmer and blissfully quieter. He passed a footman asleep on his feet and a pair of gentlemen arguing in hushed tones over a wager. Beyond them lay the door to the gardens—and, somewhere nearby, the “necessary.”
As he turned down the short passage leading to the latter, he stopped abruptly.
A voice—harsh, male—echoed off the stone.
“You will do it, girl. I have had enough of your tears.”
George’s body stiffened.
Another voice—soft, feminine, strangled by weeping. “Please—please, Father—do not—”
George edged closer.
“I have arranged everything,” the man snarled. “You will remain here in the library. I will tell Lord Rawdon that a message awaits. When he enters—alone—you will cry out. Rip your bodice. Say he attacked you. There will be witnesses just outside. He will have no choice.”
“I—I cannot—” she sobbed.
“You will. Or you will feel myfulldispleasure once we are home.”
George peered around the edge of the hallway.
Bartemius Fitzwilliam stood with his back to the door, gripping a young woman’s arm so tightly the flesh had already begun to darken, along with a mark on her cheek. The girl—tall, slender, no more than eighteen—was trembling violently. Her face was familiar.
Too familiar.
Anne Fitzwilliam,George realized, his stomach dropping.Sarah’s cousin. How similar they look—the same dark hair and fair coloring.
His hands clenched into fists. He watched as Bartemius shoved her into the room, slammed the door, and strode away without looking back.
He had never liked Bartemius Fitzwilliam, in spite of their estates’ proximity to one another. What angered George the most was how Bartemius treated his wife. Deborah Harcourt had been a woman with neither fortune nor powerful connections enough to refuse him, and Bartemius had never allowed her to forget it. He disparaged her family openly, mocking their obscurity and provincial ties, sneering most especially at her sister who had married a modest landowner in Hertfordshire—aBennet, as though the name itself were an insult fit for laughter in company.
And now, seeing him grip another young woman—another girl of that same bloodline—with calculated violence, George understood with sickening clarity that this was not an aberration. It was habit. This was how Bartemius Fitzwilliam moved through the world: consuming, discarding, and destroying, all while calling it his right.
When George and Sarah’s son had been born, Sarah had wished to name him after her mother’s family, to honor the woman who had sacrificed so much to see her children grow up well in spite of their abusive father.
At first, George secretly despised the nameFitzwilliam, but when Lord Matlock himself had shown up at their door, enraged at the appellation, George’s stubborn streak refused to acquiesce to the demands that the name be changed. Now, it gave him a perverse sort of pleasure to know how much it irritated the earl.
As soon as the hateful man was out of sight, George moved forward and opened the library door. The girl—startled, tear-streaked—backed away in fear. “No—please, I cannot—”
“I am not here to hurt you,” he said quickly, removing his hat. “Miss…?”
She blinked “Anne,” she whispered. “Lady Anne Fitzwilliam.”
