Chapter Eight
The ring box sat before him on the polished mahogany. William stared at it for a long moment, dread settling low and cold inside him.
It had been several days since he’d returned to London, fleeing Ashford Manor the very moment he ended things with Violet, unable to remain another second on the grounds where her heart had broken beneath his words.
He could still see the shock in her eyes, the way his forced cruelty had hollowed her.
His mother’s voice cut through the silence. “It is time you stopped fighting, William. Victoria Whitcombe will make an excellent countess. This ring will seal the match.”
At last, he forced the lid open.
The emerald winked up at him, green as spring, green as Violet’s eyes when she smiled at him beneath the oak. He remembered her laughter in the summer light, the soft scatter of freckles across her nose, the way she had whispered his name when he made his vows.
And then, the way those same eyes shattered when he tore those vows apart.
The way she stumbled back as though he’d struck her.
The way she ran from him, rain swallowing her slight form.
He had once dreamed of slipping this very ring onto her hand, dreamed of her face alight with joy.
Now, in his palm, it felt like a promise turned to ash.
Victoria’s eyes were brown. Just brown. No flash of green to catch the light, nothing about them to inspire this choice.
His mother had selected the emerald for her own reasons, but William knew the truth, this ring had always belonged to Violet, if only in his heart.
To see it handed over now, at his mother’s bidding, was another act of control.
Another way of crushing what little hope he had left.
His heart bled at the thought of another woman wearing it. At the thought of Violet believing he had never cared at all.
That afternoon, his father summoned him, his tone brooking no argument. “It is time. We will call on Whitcombe and make it formal.”
William found himself carried along by duty, seated in Victoria’s father’s study while the two patriarchs discussed settlements and alliances as if he were a pawn to be moved across a chessboard.
He sat rigid, haunted by Violet’s last words—You were never my friend.
You were never who I thought you were. And you were never mine.
He had earned every one of them. When the men stepped out, leaving him alone with Victoria, he set the velvet box on his knee and, after a long moment, flicked open the lid, the emerald catching the light like a verdict.
She smiled when she saw it.
“Oh, William,” she breathed, delight brightening her eyes. She reached to touch the emerald, her fingers grazing the stone. “It’s exquisite. And you mean to give it to me?”
The words tangled in his throat. He could not form them, the rehearsed speech, the vow of a man who had chosen. Because he had not chosen. He had been cornered. Cornered into hurting the only person he had ever truly loved.
Finally, he forced the words out, low and rough.
“I have accepted the future laid out for me. That is all this is.”
Her brows lifted, but her smile did not falter.
“I will not lie to you, Victoria. My heart… it belongs to another. It always will.”
For a moment, something flickered in her gaze, but she smoothed it away with practiced poise.
“Love can grow,” she said lightly, almost indulgently, as though speaking to a child.
“You will come to care for me in time. I am everything you need: fortune, influence, stability. A man in your position cannot live on sentiment. And I am sure enough that I will win your heart.”
Her hand lingered on the ring as she added, with a note of quiet scorn, “And really… Violet Hayes? A servant’s daughter? Did you ever believe such a match could endure?”
The name landed like a blow. He looked down at the emerald, and for a moment he thought he might shatter it with his bare hands. Instead, he snapped the box shut and pushed it toward her.
“Keep it,” he said hoarsely. “You will wear it, and the world will see what they expect to see. But know this, Victoria—no one will come out a winner in this arrangement. Least of all you.”
She only smiled, lifting the box with careful fingers as though she had already claimed victory.
And William, watching her triumph, felt the splintering of something once whole—the hollow ache of a man who had lost everything long before the vows were ever spoken.
And though the emerald now belonged to another, it was the two truths Violet had left him with that would haunt him —coward and liar. She had spoken them as only the wounded can… and he had earned every word.