The finality in his voice struck harder than any insult. Before Amelia could respond, he inclined his head once more and turned away.
“Now come, your family is expecting us, and I do not condone tardiness,” he said.
She watched him disappear down the corridor, his footsteps fading into silence. Left alone, she felt colder than before. For the first time, she wondered if being left at the altar had truly been the worst fate that could have befallen her.
Amelia Shirley sat in the blue sitting room at Mansfield Manor, awaiting her future to be dictated to her as it had been since she came of age.
Her sister, Bethany, stood at the window, watching the rain outside. Amelia stood up and paced the room; her nerves forced her to walk, then sit, then walk again.
“He is not so terrible,” her sister said.
“No,” Amelia said. “He is not terrible. He is something considerably more difficult than terrible.”
Bethany turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“A terrible man you can argue with,” Amelia said. “You can point to what he has done and say, there, that is wrong, that is cruel, that is not acceptable. But he has not done anything wrong. He has been perfectly honest and perfectly fair, and he looked at me as though I were a chair he was deciding whether to keep.And there is nothing I can say about it because he has not been unkind.”
She looked at her hands. “He has simply made it very clear that I do not matter. Not as a person. Only as a function.”
The Duke of Mansfield is simply another betrothal forced upon me by my parents. Nothing more.
Amelia has already endured many engagements. One was called off because her sister Marina made a scandal of herself, and another was left at the altar after Bethany interrupted the ceremony to declare her objections. Amelia had been thankful for every single one that was called off. She did not want marriage, not like this.
“He said he would be fair,” Bethany said.
“Yes,” Amelia said. “He did.”
Amelia wrapped her arms around herself, which was not something she usually did.
Amelia stood straight. She kept her hands folded, her chin level, and her expression arranged. She did not stand in the middle of rooms holding herself together with her own arms like something that might otherwise come apart.
Her breathing was shallow and too quick, the kind that did not reach the bottom of the lungs, the kind that preceded something.
“Amelia,” Bethany said.
“I am perfectly well,” she said immediately, which meant she was not.
“You are not perfectly well. Look at me,” Bethany said.
Amelia looked at her, feeling panic rise up inside her.
“I need a moment,” she said. “Just a moment. I simply need …”
She stopped. Pressed her lips together. Breathed in through her nose very carefully, the way a person breathed when they were trying to keep something down.
Bethany crossed to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “Sit down.”
“I do not want to sit down.” Amelia shook her head.
“Amelia. Sit down.” Bethany put her hands on her shoulders.
Amelia sat. Bethany crouched in front of her and watched her sister breathe. Watched her fight for it, watched her press one hand flat against her sternum as though she could slow her own heart by force, and she did not say anything because there was nothing useful to say, and Amelia did not need words right now.
I need air and stillness and someone who will not pretend this is not happening.
After a long moment, the breathing began to even out. After another, Amelia lowered her hand from her chest.
“I cannot do it,” she stated.
