6. CHAPTER 6 #2
"She's right." Margaret spoke from her corner by the tea tray. "I know you didn't mean it like that, but once you open that door, my dear boy, you can't control who walks through it. A diagnosis is a weapon. Even in kind hands."
Paul looked at Margaret, then at the rector, then at Vivienne. He sank into the remaining chair and put his head in his hands.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't thinking.
" He broke off. Drew a breath. When he looked up, his eyes were bright.
"I have spent seven years trying to keep you safe.
The thought of handing you over to a stranger who could do anything he likes with you once he has you on English soil…
I cannot bear it. But that was a monstrous thing to suggest, and I am ashamed of myself for saying it. "
The apology was so bare, so unguarded, that her anger loosened despite herself.
She sat back down. Picked up the teacup again, more for something to do with her hands than because she wanted tea. The office settled into quiet. The mantel clock ticked. Gulls cried somewhere beyond the window.
"What do you think I should do?" She turned to the rector. "Do you believe I should go with the duke?"
He took his time answering. She trusted him for that.
"As a man of God," he said, "I must tell you that marriage is a sacred vow. If the duke is your husband, then your place is with him."
Paul opened his mouth. The rector raised a hand .
"However. I also recognize that the situation is extraordinary.
You do not remember him. You cannot verify his claims from here.
And you deserve protection while the truth is established.
" He paused. "For that reason, I propose that Paul and my mother accompany you to England.
As chaperones. They can ensure his claims are legitimate and that he treats you with the respect you deserve. "
"Chaperones." Paul's voice was flat. "And what could Mrs. Carteret or I do if he proves he's her husband and is unkind to her?"
"Witness," the rector said. "You would be witnesses. A man is less likely to mistreat his wife if she arrives with a physician who can testify to her condition and an elderly woman whose son is a clergyman. It is not a perfect protection. But it is something."
Vivienne turned the plan over. Paul as chaperone. Paul, who had been her almost-husband this morning, traveling with her to meet the man who claimed to be her actual husband. The thought was absurd. And yet the rector was right. She should not go alone.
"There is one more thing," she said, and heard her own voice steady as the decision took shape. "I asked for a fixed trial period, and the duke proposed seven weeks. One for each year."
The rector nodded. "That seems wise."
Seven weeks. Enough to learn the truth. She would not be trapped forever if it proved unbearable.
"Paul." She turned to him. He was sitting forward, elbows on his knees. "You don't have to come. I would understand if you'd rather not. The situation is—"
"Unconscionable," he supplied. "Absurd. A bloody farce."
"I was going to say difficult."
A smile crossed his face. Sad enough to ache.
"Of course I'm coming," he said. "You think I would let you walk into that man's house without someone who knows your medical history? Without someone who—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I'm coming. "
There was something in the way he cut himself off. Words he chose not to speak. But the day had already held more than she could bear, and she let it pass.
"Then it's decided," the rector said.
"Not quite." Vivienne stood. Smoothed her skirts. "I need to tell the duke. I should tell him myself."
Paul pressed his lips together and said nothing.
She had promised an answer tomorrow, but she found Dalton in the churchyard and saw no reason to delay the inevitable now that her decision was made.
He was standing by the stone wall, his back to the church. He had shed his mud-caked coat and stood in his shirtsleeves, still damp and creased from his journey. The wind pressed the linen against his shoulders. He was not moving. Not restless, not at ease, every line of him taut with waiting.
She came up the gravel path. He turned at the sound. And there it was again, that expression. The one that had arrested her in the vestry. He looked at her the way a man looks at something precious he expects to lose.
"I'll come," she said. "For seven weeks. On my terms."
She saw the exhale. The way his shoulders dropped, and his jaw lost some of its rigidity.
"Thank you," he said. Just that. As though she had done him a kindness rather than agreed to the bare minimum of what duty required.
She told him about Paul and Margaret. She told him about the trial period. She looked for resistance in his face, for the aristocratic entitlement Paul had warned her about. There was none.
"Whatever you need," he said. His voice was level, but his breath came deeper, and she understood he had been bracing for refusal.
Then the brief, unguarded moment was gone, and the composure returned.
She nodded. Turned to walk back to the church, where Paul and Margaret and the rector were waiting, where the sandwiches were going stale and the wedding flowers were wilting on the altar .
She paused at the church door and looked down at her hand. Paul's ring. Thin gold, slightly too large.
She did not remove it. Not yet. But she was aware of it now in a way she had not been that morning, when it was only the next step in a sensible plan. Now it felt like a question.
She pushed open the door and went inside.
She was doing this. Not because duty demanded it, or because the rector counseled it, or because Paul's objections had failed. She was doing this because for seven years she had been a woman without a past, and her past had just walked into a church and called her by name.
She could hide no longer. Whatever lurked in her past, she had to face it head-on.