Chapter 24
“There can be no compromise on this point,” Edward’s voice emerged flat and final.
The pleasant mask he had worn all evening lay in pieces at his feet, and he could not bring himself to care.
Miss Stanton’s composure flickered. “Your Grace, I meant no offense. I was merely being practical.”
“Oliver is my brother’s son.” Edward held her gaze. “He is my responsibility. Any wife of mine will treat him as family, not as an inconvenience to be shuffled away when it suits her.”
Miss Stanton’s eyes widened. She understood. Nothing had been announced, no promises made, but she understood what this meant.
For a moment, something like anger flashed across her features. Then it vanished, replaced by the smooth mask of a woman who knew how to navigate social disaster. She would not make a scene. She was too well-bred for that.
“I see.” Her voice remained steady, though color rose in her cheeks. “Then I believe we have nothing more to discuss.”
She curtsied with perfect grace. “Goodnight, Your Grace.”
She walked away, her spine straight, her dignity intact. Edward watched her go and felt nothing but relief.
He turned back to the ballroom, his eyes scanning the crowd. He needed to find Sophia. The urge rose unbidden, instinctive, impossible to ignore.
He needed to see her face. Needed to tell her that he had rejected Miss Stanton. Needed to understand why that decision felt less like a failure and more like the first honest choice he had made in months.
He searched the dance floor. She was not among the swirling couples.
He searched the edges of the room, the clusters of guests chatting near the refreshment tables. She was not there either.
His pulse quickened. She had been here moments ago, dancing with Drakeston.
He had watched them from across the room, had seen the rigid set of her shoulders, the way she held herself like a woman bracing for a blow.
He had meant to intervene, but Miss Stanton had appeared at his elbow, and by the time he looked back, Sophia was gone.
Where had she gone?
Edward moved toward the edge of the ballroom. Lord Pemberton tried to catch his attention. He ignored him. Lady Blackwell called his name. He kept walking.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones, in the tight knot forming in his chest, in the way his skin prickled with warning.
He slipped through a side door and into the corridor beyond. The noise of the ball faded behind him, replaced by the hollow echo of his footsteps on marble. Candlelight flickered in sconces along the walls, casting long shadows.
He checked the sitting room. Empty.
The library. Empty.
The small parlor where his mother had once taken tea. Empty.
He turned down another corridor, his pace quickening. The music room lay at the end, its door closed.
Edward heard a voice from the other side of that door. Low. Male. Threatening.
Then a cry. Female. Frightened.
Edward ran.
He burst through the door, and the scene before him burned itself into his mind.
Sophia, her back to the wall, her hair tumbling from its pins.
Drakeston, his hand fisted in the fabric of her bodice, his face contorted with fury.
The sound of silk tearing as Sophia wrenched away, the pale curve of her shoulder exposed, her eyes wild with fear.
Edward did not think. He did not hesitate. He crossed the room in three strides.
And drove his fist into Drakeston’s face.
The impact sang through his knuckles, sharp and satisfying. Drakeston’s head snapped back. His grip on Sophia released. He stumbled, arms windmilling, and crashed to the floor.
Edward stood over him, breathing hard, his fist still clenched. Blood roared in his ears. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to hit the man again, to pound him into the floor until he stopped moving.
Drakeston raised himself on one elbow, his hand pressed to his jaw. Blood trickled from his split lip. His pale eyes blazed with fury and humiliation.
“You fool!” Drakeston spat blood onto the carpet. “You have no idea what you have done!”
“I know exactly what I have done.” Edward’s voice came out low and dangerous. “I have stopped you from assaulting a woman in my house.”
“Assaulting?” Drakeston laughed, ugly and sharp. “Ask her what she owes me! Ask her about her family’s debts! Ask her how much she has paid me over the past three years to keep her father’s disgrace a secret!”
Edward went still.
He turned to look at Sophia. She stood pressed against the wall, clutching the torn edges of her bodice together, her face pale as marble. Her eyes met his, and in them he saw the truth.
Shame. Fear. The weight of secrets she had carried alone for far too long.
Drakeston pushed himself to his feet, swaying. “She is mine, Heatherwell. She has been mine since her fool of a father gambled away everything and came crawling to me for help. I own her. I own her mother. I own every pitiful shred of respectability they cling to.”
Edward shrugged off his coat. He crossed to Sophia and draped it over her shoulders, covering the torn gown, shielding her from Drakeston’s leering gaze. She flinched at his touch, then stilled, her fingers curling into the lapels.
“And when I tell the ton what I know,” Drakeston continued, his voice rising, “she will be finished. Her mother will be finished. No one will receive them. No one will speak to them. They will be outcasts, ruined, destroyed—”
Edward turned and punched him again.
Drakeston had barely risen to his full height. The blow caught him square on the cheekbone and sent him sprawling. He hit the floor with a grunt, his head cracking against the wooden leg of the pianoforte.
Edward stood over him, his chest heaving. “Get out of my house.”
Drakeston stared up at him, hatred burning in his eyes. Blood smeared his chin. His silver hair had come loose, hanging in disarray around his face.
“Now.” Edward raised his fist again. “Before I forget that I am a gentleman and give you what you truly deserve.”
Drakeston scrambled backward, his dignity abandoned. He lurched to his feet and stumbled toward the door, one hand pressed to his bleeding face.
“This is not over.” He paused at the threshold, his voice thick with venom. “You will regret this, Heatherwell. Both of you. I will—”
Edward took a step toward him, his fist clenched and ready for another blow.
Seeing that, Drakeston fled out of the room.
His footsteps echoed down the corridor, growing fainter, until finally they disappeared. Silence settled over the music room, broken only by the distant strains of the ball and the ragged sound of Sophia’s breathing.
Edward turned to face her.
She stood where he had left her, wrapped in his coat, her arms crossed over her chest. Tears tracked down her cheeks, though she made no sound. Her hair hung in tangles around her face.
She looked shattered. Broken. And still, somehow, unbowed.
“You have made everything worse,” her voice cracked on the words, and Edward almost winced at the pain in them.
“He will tell everyone. He will destroy my family. Everything I have worked to protect.” She pressed her hands to her face.
“Three years. Three years I have paid him, kept him at bay, kept his hands from—” Her voice broke. “And now it is all for nothing!”
Edward stood motionless.
She was right. He knew she was right. He had acted on instinct, on fury, on a desperate need to protect her, and he had not considered the consequences.
“Is this why you became Lady Fairhart?”
Sophia lowered her hands. Her eyes met his, red-rimmed and exhausted.
She nodded.
The pieces fell into place. The secret identity. The late-night work. The money she earned, funneled into payments to keep Drakeston at bay. She had built an empire of matchmaking to save her family from ruin, and she had done it alone, without help, without complaint.
Edward crossed the distance between them. Sophia tensed, but she did not retreat.
“Marry me.”
The words fell into the silence like stones into still water.
Sophia stared at him. “What?”
“Marry me.” He held her gaze. “As soon as possible.”
Her breath still shook as she responded, “You cannot be serious.”
“I have never been more serious in my life.” Edward stepped closer. “Your family’s debts. How much are they?”
Sophia shook her head. “You cannot simply—”
“How much, Sophia?”
When she told him the amount, Edward did not flinch. The sum was significant, but it would not make a dent in his fortune. He had spent more on renovating the east wing of this very house.
“I will pay it.” His voice was steady, certain. “All of it. Tomorrow. Drakeston will have no hold over you. No hold over your parents or your sister. The debt will be cleared, and he will have no power to threaten you ever again.”
Sophia’s lips parted. She looked at him as though he had begun speaking in tongues.
“Why?”
Edward hesitated. The truth pressed against his ribs, demanding release. But he was not ready to speak it. Not yet.
Perhaps not ever.
“Oliver is fond of you.” He fell back on safer ground. “He needs someone who cares for him. Someone who will not see him as an inconvenience or a burden.”
Sophia’s expression flickered. “So, this is about him only.”
“This is about protecting your family.” Edward held her gaze. “This is about ensuring Drakeston can never touch you again. This is about giving you the security you have fought for alone, for far too long.”
She was silent for a long time. The moonlight caught the tears still glistening on her cheeks, the tremble of her lower lip. She clutched his coat around her shoulders as though it were the only thing holding her together.
“And the only thing you gain out of this is someone to care for Oliver?” she asked.
Edward thought of Oliver’s face lighting up when Sophia entered the room. He thought of her laugh at the spring fair, bright and unguarded. He thought of the way she challenged him, pushed him, and refused to let him hide behind his walls.
“Yes. As I told you before, I need a wife who will care for the boy.” The words felt insufficient, but they were all he could offer. “A partner who understands duty and sacrifice. A woman I…”
He stopped. The rest of the sentence lodged in his throat, too dangerous to speak aloud.
Sophia watched him, her green eyes searching his face. Whatever she found there seemed to decide something within her.
“Very well.” Her voice was quiet, steady. “I have no other choice. I accept.”
The words hung between them. Edward felt something shift in his chest, a loosening of tension he had not known he carried.
“We will marry as soon as it can be arranged.” He spoke before the moment could slip away. “I will acquire a special license first thing tomorrow morning. Drakeston will not have time to act.”
Sophia nodded. She looked exhausted, drained, held together by nothing but will. And yet, beneath the weariness, Edward glimpsed something else. Relief. Hope.
And that soothed him far more than he’d ever anticipated.
“We should return to the ball.” His voice came out rougher than he intended. “Your absence will be noted.”
“I cannot.” Sophia gestured at her torn gown, hidden beneath his coat. “Not like this.”
“Then I’ll escort you to your rooms.” Edward offered his arm. “We can announce our engagement tomorrow. Tonight, you need rest.”
Sophia hesitated. Then she placed her hand on his arm, her fingers light and trembling.
They walked together through the darkened corridors of Heatherwell Hall, the distant music fading behind them, the future stretching uncertain and terrifying before them.
But for the first time in longer than Edward could remember, he did not feel alone.