Chapter 30
My most cherished Lady Lavinia,
Words cannot contain the rapture that seized my breast upon reading your reply.
From the first moment I beheld your form across the assembly floor, I knew Providence had destined us for one another.
To be joined to such a woman is not merely an honor, but a benediction upon my life, and upon my house.
I will call at Pembroke Manor on Thursday, and have made arrangements for the ceremony to be performed at St. Anne’s within the week. My solicitors await your pleasure regarding settlements; rest assured, you need have no further worry about the Fairwick debts, or about your sister’s dowry.
Yours, in feverish anticipation,
Lucien, Lord Dawnford
Lavinia refolded the paper and laid it on the dressing table beside her hairpins. She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, as if it were possible to summon color by force of will alone.
But that did nothing to distract from the hollow space inside her.
Nor did it prepare her for the heavy tread coming down the hallway; a sound like the approach of a particularly vengeful bailiff.
The door crashed inward and scraped the rug with a squeal, then Lady Montfort filled the room in one sweep with her fan half-unfurled as if she might use it to duel the air itself.
“You cannot possibly be serious,” she announced, not waiting for the room to acknowledge her. “You have gone mad. It is the only explanation.”
“I assure you, Aunt Petunia,” Lavinia said, pinning the last of her hair, “I am in full possession of my faculties.”
“Then explain yourself.” The words snapped as sharply as the fan she brandished. “You accept Lord Dawnford, after weeks of spurning him, and only hours after he proposes to your sister? You must be deranged, or else possessed of the worst sort of pride.”
Lavinia turned from the mirror, smoothed the sleeve of her robe, and said, “Frances is not of age. She will not be for another year. As I told you, repeatedly, the match was never meant for her.”
Lady Montfort scoffed, her face contorting into a rictus of incredulity. “If you believe that, you are more of a fool than I suspected. Dawnford is now besotted with Frances.”
Lavinia refrained from responding to that and instead picked up the letter and extended it toward her aunt. “If you require confirmation, here is the correspondence. You are welcome to peruse the raptures at your leisure.”
Lady Montfort seized the letter as though it might struggle, and scanned its contents, the movement of her lips betraying her as she read. The seconds stretched. Then, as she neared the end, her eyes widened so far that the whites seemed ready to overtake the iris entirely.
“He intends to marry you by Thursday,” she said.
“That is the plan, yes.”
Lady Montfort set the letter down, and in that instant, Frances appeared in the doorway, drawn, perhaps, by the prospect of disaster. She hovered with her hands braced against the frame and eyes still faintly red from the day before.
“I am sorry,” Frances whispered, “I did not mean to interrupt—”
“Nonsense,” Lady Montfort said, recovering her stride with a snap of her fan. “You are the star of this particular melodrama, my dear. Your sister has graciously offered herself to Lord Dawnford.”
Frances’s gaze darted from Lavinia to her aunt, then back again. “You truly mean to marry him?”
Lavinia allowed herself a small, brittle smile. “I truly do.”
“But why?”
“Because,” Lavinia said, “it is the only option remaining.”
Lady Montfort’s mouth twitched. “Well, that is very noble of you,” she said, in a tone that implied the very opposite. “But I do hope you will not expect gratitude. Dawnford is a notorious libertine, and you are—” she broke off, as if the conclusion were so self-evident it required no articulation.
Lavinia supplied it anyway, “A well-worn spinster of declining value. Yes, I am familiar with the argument.”
Frances’s breath caught audibly. “You are not—”
“Oh, hush, darling,” Lavinia said, crossing to her sister and smoothing the flyaway curls from her brow. “This is how the world works. Better you learn it from me than from any man.”
Lady Montfort clapped her hands, as if concluding a business deal. “Well, it is done, then. We must call for the modiste at once. It would not do to be married in mourning colors, however much they flatter your complexion. Perhaps the blue.”
“Whatever you think best,” Lavinia said.
Lady Montfort narrowed her eyes, suspicious of the easy acquiescence. “I have not finished with you, Lavinia. Not by a long shot. But for now, I must salvage what is left of the Pembroke name. If you have any shame at all, you will at least try to look pleased.”
“Delirious with joy,” Lavinia said, but Lady Montfort had already swept from the room, the feathers in her turban bobbing like the prow of a ship in high seas.
Frances waited until the door had shut, then rushed to Lavinia’s side. “You cannot do this,” she whispered. “You cannot give up your life for me.”
“I would give up far more,” Lavinia replied, “if it meant you would never know what it is to be at someone else’s mercy.”
Frances’s lips trembled. “I don’t deserve—”
Lavinia pressed a kiss to her sister’s forehead. “Deserving has nothing to do with it. Now go on, let Mrs. Down see to your breakfast. I must prepare for my last day at Evermere Hall.”
Frances nodded, tears threatening again, but left without argument. Lavinia closed the door softly behind her, then pressed her palms to the edge of the dressing table and stared at her reflection.
She saw, for a moment, the ghost of the girl she had been: hopeful, unbroken, still believing in miracles. She had not known then what it cost to love someone enough to give up everything.
She brushed her hair and arranged it into a bun at her nape, pulled on the neatest of her day dresses, and fastened the buttons so slowly one would think she was dressing for her own execution. As she reached for her gloves, she realized her hands were shaking.
She would not let it show. Not for anything.
“Enter.”
Tristan did not look up as he spoke. The tapping on the study door was not the insistent sort that announced an emergency, nor the tentative kind employed by servants.
Lavinia stepped into the room.
Tristan rose, knocking his chair against the runner in his haste, and was forced to catch it by the backrest. “Lady Lavinia,” he began, “I had not expected you this morning.”
She did not cross the threshold, only lingered at the very edge. He cleared his throat, gesturing to the seat before his desk. “Please… do sit.”
“I will not be long,” Lavinia said. Her gaze traveled along the shelves, the mantel, the empty grate, but she did not look at him directly.
Tristan, caught entirely off guard by the chill in the air, tried to recover. He remembered the conversation at their last meeting, the way she had recoiled when he’d corrected Sophia, the storm that had crackled in the space between them. It was clear, even now, that she had not forgiven him.
Taking a breath he said, “Lady Lavinia, I must apologize for my outburst yesterday. My words—”
“Today shall be my last lesson with Lady Sophia.”
The room contracted around the words, its dimensions suddenly two sizes too small. For a moment, he could only stare. “Your last?” He kept his tone even, but he could not quite suppress the urge to steady himself against the desk. “Is this… have I—?”
“You have done nothing,” Lavinia said, her voice so dry it might have been baked in the sun. “The decision is my own.”
He drew a slow breath. “I am sorry, nonetheless, if I have caused offense.”
“None taken, Your Grace,” she replied. “You were quite clear about my station and the limits of my role.”
He caught the barb, but let it pass. “May I ask, then, why you are leaving?”
Lavinia’s eyes found his at last, cool and blue and unassailable. “I am to be married,” she said, as if discussing the weather or the price of coal.
It landed with the force of a rifle shot.
“To whom?” The words slipped out.
“Lord Dawnford.”
Tristan’s hand closed around the edge of the desk. “Dawnford,” he repeated, as if the syllables were an affront to decency itself. “I was unaware you had accepted his suit.”
“It seemed the sensible choice,” Lavinia said, “under the circumstances.”
The logic was impeccable. She was in financial ruin. Of course, it would be Dawnford, who had the instincts of a shark and the morals to match.
“May I ask why,” he said, “when I know you detest him?”
A faint shadow crossed her face, but it vanished so quickly he thought he imagined it. “He has shown adequate interest,” Lavinia replied.
Tristan nearly recoiled from the force of it, but he refused to let the moment slip away so easily. “You are making a mistake,” he said.
Lavinia’s mouth quirked. “You, of all people, are lecturing me on mistakes?”
“I am warning you,” Tristan said, “that Dawnford is not what he seems. His reputation is in shambles, and I have it on good authority that he is being forced to marry for appearance’s sake, to stave off financial loss.”
Lavinia did not so much as blink. “Then we shall be ideally matched, will we not? Frances shall be secure.”
The irony stung. Tristan stared at her, uncomprehending. “You are willing to be a sacrifice, simply for her sake?”
Lavinia’s posture never shifted. “I have been a sacrifice for years, Your Grace. This is merely a more efficient method.”
Something inside him gave a little way. He tried to find the words, but they tangled on his tongue. “Nothing shall sway you?”
“No,” Lavinia said. “I am a woman of strong and independent will, if you recall.”
The words were a direct challenge. He met them as best he could, straightening his spine and letting his mask fall back into place.
“Very well,” he said. “May I at least thank you, Lady Lavinia, for your service to my daughter?”
She nodded. “It was my pleasure. Lady Sophia is a remarkable girl. I hope you will tell her that.”
He tried to say something else, but all that came was a stifled, “Does she know yet?”
“No. I have not had the heart to tell her.”
She turned to leave, and an unusual sort of panic rose within him. Tristan held out a hand without meaning to, and called, “Lavinia.”
Lavinia turned, and her eyes rounded as though she was surprised.
And for the life of him, he did not know what to say to her, or why he stopped her. After a moment, she left and shut the door behind her.
Tristan stared at it for a long time, his hands braced on the desk, and his whole-body trembling with a fury that had nowhere to go.
He was not certain if he was made of ice or stone.
Or perhaps nothing at all.