Chapter 8
“Oh, bugger,” Anastasia cursed after the needle pricked her finger for what felt like the millionth time this afternoon. A bright bead of blood welled against her skin, mocking her efforts. Compulsory embroidery at Frostmore was less a pastime than a punishment.
“Watch your tongue, dear,” the dowager duchess said mildly, her hands never faltering as she stitched a tidy spray of violets.
Anastasia sighed. “Embroidery is just so dreadful. Why do men get all the fun activities while we sit here, poking at fabric?”
Aunt Hyacinth chuckled, still focused on her work. “It is an essential skill that eligible young ladies should have. Men admire women who are good with needlework.”
Anastasia huffed, stabbing the hoop as though it had personally offended her. “Well, that is just positively criminal. If I were ever to take holy vows, they should not be for chastity or poverty or obedience, but for a lifelong abstention from needlework.”
Aunt Hyacinth lifted her brows in that particularly arched way only widows of a certain age seemed to master. “You exaggerate.”
“I do not think I do, Aunt. I am certain more young ladies than you imagine despise needlework just as much as I do. They lack the courage to say so. It is only right.”
Aunt Hyacinth sighed, though her needle kept its steady, graceful rhythm.
The sun streamed through the tall windows of the solar, glancing off the spines of books and casting golden light across Anastasia’s lap, where unruly skeins of thread tangled themselves.
She jabbed at the hoop with more force than grace, attacking the linen as though it were a sworn enemy.
If the Duke saw this, he would scowl for an hour. And I would almost welcome it. Anything to break this dreadful silence.
It had been several days since Benedict’s departure, and Frostmore felt strangely hollow without him.
The corridors were too still, the meals too predictable.
She would never admit it aloud, but she found herself missing him—not fondly, of course, but in the way one might miss a thunderstorm after too many days of dull skies.
His composure had been maddening, yet it had given shape to her days. Without it, she felt unmoored.
At last, her aunt leaned over to inspect her work, and—shockingly—laughed. A warm, unguarded laugh that made Anastasia blink in surprise.
“My dear girl, what is this?” Aunt Hyacinth dabbed delicately at her eyes. “No lady in her right mind would choose such colors. It looks like… a riot upon the canvas.”
“It is a sunset,” Anastasia said defensively, turning the hoop for inspection. The stitches were uneven, the hues clashing boldly, but to her mind, it was full of life.
Aunt Hyacinth shook her head in amusement. “Wild imagination, indeed. A proper lady would have stitched roses.”
“I thought this would look more impressive. A sunset is far more memorable than another dull bouquet.”
“Speaking of memorable things, Anastasia. You might have spoken more kindly when Mr. Gray called yesterday. It was no small thing, his traveling all this way.”
Anastasia’s needle stilled mid-stitch. “Mr. Gray called… on me?”
“On Benedict’s instructions, I suspect. No one else would have thought of inviting a gentleman so far from London for tea. And he definitely did not come all the way here for me.”
Ah. Of course. Even in his absence, Benedict found ways to manage her fate. The realization stung more than she cared to admit.
“He is considered eligible,” her aunt continued gently. “Well placed, with steady prospects.”
“He was polite,” Anastasia allowed, though her lips quirked faintly.
“But if you had heard him speak, Aunt… You would think he wanted a wife with less wit than the furniture. He barely drew breath long enough for me to answer. If the Duke sent him as some sort of trial, then I failed it most spectacularly.”
Her aunt gave her a long look, half exasperated, half amused.
Anastasia shrugged a little sheepishly. “I tried, truly I did. But I could no more sit quietly under his endless lectures than I could sew roses instead of sunsets.”
“Well, I have to admit that it does look… unique.”
Anastasia’s lips curved despite herself as she turned her attention back to her work. “I wonder what His Grace would say if he saw it.”
Her aunt’s brows rose, but Anastasia hurried to add, “Not that it matters,” hoping that this would quell any thought that had taken shape in her aunt’s mind.
“Why should I care what he thinks? It amuses me, that is all. He carries himself as though he were a god and the earth were just a mere universe he had found himself in.”
And still… I like imagining his face when he sees it—disapproving, severe. It is very diverting to picture him frowning at every stitch.
Even though he was certainly not kind to her, he did not do what others did.
He did not drag up her past and use it like a weapon, did not look at her as though her scandal were the sum of her.
When he judged her, it was for what she did—her words, her choices, her behavior—and there was something almost clean about that.
Honest. Dangerous, too. And when she managed to earn his disapproval on her own terms, the thrill of it was sharp and unsettling—as though she had found a way to matter to him without ever meaning to.
Aunt Hyacinth gave her a look that was far too knowing. Anastasia shifted in her chair, heat rising in her cheeks.
“Do not look at me that way, Aunt.”
“Which way?”
“As though you know something I do not. I mean only that I like to vex him. That is all.”
“Mm,” her aunt murmured, but her smile lingered as she bent back over her neat violets.
Anastasia stabbed her needle through the cloth a touch too fiercely, as if punishing the thought of Benedict’s frown. Yet her aunt’s silence weighed more heavily than any lecture. At last, Aunt Hyacinth spoke, her voice calm but pointed.
“Diverting, is it? To imagine a man’s disapproval?”
Anastasia felt her cheeks warm. “Yes. Entirely diverting. Like teasing a cat. He bristles so beautifully, and I—” she broke off, realizing she had said too much. “It is harmless. He is insufferable, Aunt, and I simply enjoy opposing him when he insists on order.”
Her aunt only hummed, her sharp eyes watching far too closely.
“I said, do not look at me like that,” Anastasia said, defensive now. “You act as though I have confessed something scandalous. I cannot abide the man, and he cannot stand me either.”
“Cannot abide him?” Aunt Hyacinth’s lips twitched. “My dearest girl, a woman who cannot abide a man rarely speaks of him so often.”
Anastasia gasped, scandalized. “Aunt Hyacinth! How could you even suggest such a thing? I merely find him irritating, as any sensible woman should. I would sooner wed Lupita or Pepita than Benedict Straton.”
At the mention of the dowager’s beloved Pomeranians, Aunt Hyacinth chuckled, but her eyes softened.
“Perhaps. Yet I hear more than irritation in your voice, Anastasia. I hear… attention. And attention is a dangerous seed if left to grow.”
Indeed, she had missed his bright blue eyes and his face, which she was convinced belonged in a museum somewhere, even if she would never admit that out loud. He looked too handsome to be as uptight as he was.
He was unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.
Anastasia dropped her embroidery hoop into her lap with a sigh. “Attention or not, I will never marry. Not the Duke, not anyone. There is no man alive I can trust.”
Her aunt’s needle stilled. “Those are strong words, my dear.”
“They are the only words I have,” Anastasia said, her voice low.
“I was foolish not once but twice. The first time I thought I was in love, and I eloped with that man. That ended in disaster, and I should be glad Evangeline and I are both safe and hale. The second…” She swallowed hard, forcing the words out.
“The second time, I trusted a gentleman’s attentions only to find myself ruined by them.
How am I to believe in marriage after that?
How am I to give myself to any man without fear that he will become another version of my father—controlling, belittling, cruel? ”
The question hung heavy between them. For a moment, only the sound of birdsong filtered in through the open window.
Aunt Hyacinth reached across and laid her hand gently over Anastasia’s. “Your mother has learned to manage your father, heaven knows how. But you must not believe every man is like him or the ones you have met.”
“Perhaps not,” Anastasia murmured.
But how could I tell? How could I ever be certain until it was too late?
“I would sooner remain unmarried forever than risk binding myself to a man who would break me piece by piece.”
Her aunt’s eyes softened, but there was iron beneath the sympathy. “Then listen to me. I shall protect you. And if not I, then Lupita and Pepita will. Those two would chew the stockings off any man who dared harm you.” Her smile faded, her voice dropping. “Just as I once did with your uncle.”
The laughter faded into quiet, and for a long moment neither spoke. Aunt Hyacinth’s eyes had grown distant, shadowed with memory. Anastasia realized with a pang that her aunt’s words had not been spoken lightly. She had proven that before.
I remember the night too clearly… she had saved me. She had saved herself.
She forced a laugh, though her throat tightened around it.
“I daresay they would. Barking and nipping at his heels until he fled in terror.”
Aunt Hyacinth’s embroidery lay forgotten on her lap, her hands folded tightly together. For the first time that afternoon, her voice lost its usual arch composure and took on a quiet gravity.
“You jest about those dogs guarding you, Anastasia, but I mean what I say. I would not let any man harm you. Do you know why?”
Anastasia tilted her head, sensing something deeper behind the words. “Because you are my aunt?”
“Because I know what it is to be bound to a cruel man,” Aunt Hyacinth said, her tone stark.
“To the world, your uncle was a duke, a gentleman, a patron of the arts. But behind closed doors…” She stopped, her lips pressing into a thin line.
For a moment, Anastasia thought she would not continue.
Then, with a slow, steady breath, her aunt went on.
“He made my life a prison. A gilded, silken prison, but a prison all the same. There was no cruelty visible to others—only to me. And no one ever suspected or cared.”
“Aunt…” Anastasia whispered. “That sounds dreadful.”
Aunt Hyacinth sniffed, regaining some of her iron composure. “It was. Which is why I will not let Benedict—or anyone—decide your future as though you were some pawn on a chessboard. You are my sister’s daughter, and I shall not see you sold off to the highest bidder in the name of respectability.”
Emotion rose sharply in Anastasia’s throat. “But that is exactly what the Duke intends. He speaks as though a husband is my only key out of Frostmore. He cannot fathom that I might choose another way. Rather, it is his key to his inheritance.”
Her aunt squeezed her hand firmly. “Then he shall have to learn. You will not be bartered like cattle. You will have a husband worthy of you or none at all.”
Anastasia blinked rapidly against the sudden sting in her eyes. None at all. She had thought it so often, but hearing her aunt say it aloud steadied her.
“And if none at all is what I choose?” she asked softly.
“Then none at all it shall be,” Aunt Hyacinth said without hesitation. Her lips curved into a small, almost fierce smile. “Though I warn you, my dear, I will not let you slip into spinsterhood without at least testing the waters. I should like to see the men of London quail before your wit.”
Anastasia gave a watery laugh. “That would be worth the price of a Season.” She leaned her head briefly against her aunt’s shoulder, drawing comfort from her nearness. “Thank you, Aunt. You always know how to make me feel less… alone in all this.”
“You are never alone,” Aunt Hyacinth said simply. “And you never will be.”
Anastasia lifted her embroidery hoop again and studied her blazing sunset with new eyes. Perhaps her aunt was right. Perhaps she was not so alone as she had believed. But the thought of Benedict returning with his rules and his order and his unshakable plans still made her bristle.
If he thinks I will be easily married off to the first man he finds, he has another thing coming.
She stabbed the needle through the cloth once more, as if to punctuate the thought.