Page 35

The whole of this arrangement, from the very first night at his grandmother’s door, had been for her sake and no one else’s. He had watched Marian slip through companion after companion, each of them fleeing within the week, and he had watched something in her grow smaller and more frightened each time one of them left, though she would never have named it fear if asked. She was proud. She had always been proud, long before her mind had started slipping sideways on her, and pride did not go quietly into an old age spent alone with nothing but cats for company and a grandson too buried in ledgers to notice how lonely she had actually become. He had built the whole scheme to spare her that. A companion who would stay because she believed herself family rather than staff. A woman clever enough to hold her own against Marian’s sharper moods, and kind enough not to abandon her the moment those moods turned difficult.

He had not expected it to spiral quite this far. He had not expected an audience of several hundred people to hear his grandmother announce a wedding that did not exist, to a woman who had signed on for three months of companionship and nothing whatsoever beyond it.

“You are still cross,” Marian said, watching him from across the carriage with an expression that was not nearly contrite enough for his liking.

“I am considerably more than cross.”

“You are cross because you asked for one small thing, and I did not give it to you, and you have never once in your life been able to tolerate that from anyone, least of all me.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Do you know what I think, Anthony?”

“I have a feeling you are going to tell me regardless of my answer.”

“I think you are frightened of loving anyone loudly, the way your parents loved each other, and so you have arranged your whole life around small, careful, contained things instead. You keep everything at a manageable size, because a manageable size cannot hurt you the way the unmanageable kind hurt you as a boy.” Marian’s voice had gone gentler, though no less relentless for it. “I did not raise you to live so small. I raised you to be a better man than your father, and a wiser one than your mother, not a more frightened one than either.”

“This is not about fear, Grandmother. This is about you agreeing to something and then doing precisely the opposite of it the moment it suited you.”

“Perhaps.” She did not look away from him. “Or perhaps it is both things at once, and you would rather argue about the first because the second is considerably harder to win.”

Anthony said nothing to that, because there was nothing he particularly wanted to say, and the carriage rolled on in a silence that suited him.

He was aware, distantly, of Leonora sitting beside his grandmother, quiet through the whole of the argument, though he had not properly looked at her since they had climbed into the carriage. He did not trust himself to. Whatever was on his face just now was not fit for her to see, not when none of this was truly her doing, not when she had done nothing this entire evening but play her part exactly as asked and endure a great deal more than she had ever signed on for in the bargain.

The carriage drew up at last before the house, and Anthony stepped down first, offering his hand to his grandmother out of habit, his mind already moving ahead to the conversation he still meant to finish with her the moment they were indoors.

“You cannot simply announce a wedding to half the ton and then retire to bed as though nothing has happened, Grandmother.”

“I can, in fact, and I intend to.”

“We are not finished discussing this.”

“You may discuss it with yourself all you like. I am rather tired.” Marian started toward the front steps, and Anthony followed after her, still talking, still turning the whole tangled mess of it over out loud because the alternative was turning it over in silence, and silence was considerably worse company just now.

“Anthony.”

He heard his name from somewhere, but he did not stop. He was still half a sentence into whatever he had been saying to his grandmother, some point about discretion, about consequences, about the difference between a private hope and a public announcement, and none of it felt finished yet.

“Anthony...”

He heard it the second time, closer now, but his mind was still fixed on Marian’s retreating back, on the argument he had not yet won, and he did not turn.

Then a hand closed around his, and every other thought in his head went abruptly, entirely still.

He turned, and found Leonora looking up at him with an expression that held none of the exasperation he had braced for, nothing that resembled reproach at all, only... patience that undid something in him far more effectively than an argument could have.

“Breathe,” she said simply.

He did, before he had properly decided to obey her, a long breath that reached somewhere deeper than he had realized needed reaching, and something in his chest loosened by a fraction, though the anger did not leave him entirely, only settled into something more... bearable.

They had reached the threshold of the house by then, the door already open, a maid waiting just inside. Leonora turned to the maid without releasing Anthony’s hand.

“Would you see Her Grace to her chambers, please? I believe she is rather tired.”

“Of course, Miss.” The maid moved to Marian’s side at once, guiding her gently toward the stairs, and Marian went without protest, though she cast one last look back at Leonora before she disappeared around the turn of the staircase.

Anthony stood in the entrance hall, his hand still in Leonora’s, and found he did not particularly want to let go of it.

“Everyone should rest,” Leonora said, quietly, once the maid and Marian had gone. “You most of all. Whatever needs saying between you and your grandmother will still need saying in the morning, and you will likely say it better after some sleep than you would say it now.”

“She had no right.” He shook his head. “Everything I have done, I have done for her.”