Chapter 26
Anastasia was startled by the confusion and indignation on Benedict’s face. Didn’t he come here to ensure he would still inherit? Her furious confusion was contagious.
“The Duke of Stonevale said you sent him a request for marriageable ladies weeks ago. I thought it best to leave, knowing I was just a diversion. I do not want to prevent you from finding the woman of your dreams. Without me there, it would be easier for you to correct the mistake you made, to commit to a life you truly want.”
“Oh. And what did you think that life would be like?” he asked.
“I have gotten to know you. I have seen what you are like,” she said, her voice low. “You want someone who can provide you with the good reputation you deserve from a wife.”
He reached out to her and squeezed her hand.
“You are more important than any of that,” he reassured her, but she pulled her hand away from him.
“You do not understand,” she insisted. “My aunt had the will forged. She had the solicitor say that I need to marry for you to inherit. It is not true. She wanted only to force us together. But let it be clear to you that you were meant to inherit Frostmore anyway, without any conditions. I will not drag you down. You are free. You never needed me to marry. You never needed me. I do not have to marry, and that means I am free, too.”
Benedict stared at her. The revelation felt like a physical blow, one worse than the one he had delivered to Oxford.
He opened his mouth and then closed it again.
He shook his head and pinched his nose, as if trying to understand what was being said.
He ran his hand through his hair, disrupting the carefully coiffed strands.
“The will… was forged? All of this—the suitors, the time we wasted—was based on a lie?”
“You see, you do not have to question whether your uncle considered you worthy of his title. You had everything all along, and you deserve it. There is nobody else that I can think of who would take on the title with so much sense of responsibility,” she continued, blinking fast.
Anastasia meant every word she was telling him.
He was a man who could provide Frostmore with the discipline and structure it needed to thrive.
She realized that even though she hated the thought of marrying for the sake of doing so, she might have just gone through with it if it meant Benedict would get what he deserved.
“I am not here for that, Anastasia,” Benedict said, his voice hoarse.
“How can I be certain of that?” she asked, her voice cracking on the final word. She turned on her heel away from him before she ended up doing something stupid in front of him, like crying.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Benedict growled.
This time, he would not let her run away from him again. He had given her space because he thought that was what he needed. But he saw something in her. He saw the anguish in her eyes. No, Anastasia did not really want to say goodbye. She wanted him to get only what she thought he wanted.
But what he wanted was her.
He ran after her, no longer caring if anyone was watching—and everyone was. He was no longer afraid of scandal. Of keeping things behind closed doors.
“Stop, Anastasia!”
Heads turned toward him. He knew what they were thinking. They were scandalized at his calling Miss Dawson by her given name. She turned around to look at him, with eyes wide with horror. She was thinking the same thing; he knew.
“Stop being dense and stop running away from me. Please, Anastasia?”
“Me, dense?” she asked, sounding a little offended.
Let her be offended then. He thought that it might just make her stay, annoyed at him. That would be better than her running away again.
“You know what I mean. You do not listen because you are afraid of what I have to say,” he said, frustrated. “I think I will have to tie you to me next time.”
“Tie me to you?” she echoed him once more, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“I am not good with words, Anastasia, but making lists is my strong suit. I tore my list for you. But when you were gone, I came up with a new one. A better one. One I would not mind sharing with you, and the only one I will ever follow again.”
Benedict reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. It was unlike any of his other lists, which were lengthy. This one was folded and contained the weight of his soul.
Anastasia had stopped in her tracks. He took advantage of it by walking toward her and handing the paper right into her palm. Her fingers were trembling beneath his own.
“Here is the new one. The only one that matters now.”
She met his eyes. Questions were brimming there together with the tears. Then, she unfolded the paper and read the document. He knew what she would see first.
Benedict might have folded the paper, but he wrote it in his usual elegant script. He knew this woman needed all the effort he could give, even on this new list he had made. The list was not even a list.
It only said, “Spend the rest of my life with Anastasia.”
She looked up to him once more, her eyes widening. This time, her reaction was not out of fear or worry. Benedict could see hope and love there.
“Benedict—”
“I love you,” he declared, cutting off whatever gratitude or protest that might be coming from her mouth.
He needed something more from her. He needed her.
“I love everything about you, even the chaos you bring and your defiance. I love the way you burn down everything I believe in, and I want that. I want to burn with you. Everything about you seems to be infuriating, but I realized it was what I needed all along. Come home with me to Frostmore and be the lady of the house who will make me fail at my attempts to follow my own rules. I know you would like that. The challenge. Marry me.”
There were gasps from the crowd, reminding him then that they were in a public space. People had gathered close to hear what they had to say. Some were shamelessly gaping at them, following each word greedily.
A burst of triumphant laughter rattled the place, startling those who were stunned into silence.
“Finally! You two had been behaving quite annoyingly,” the dowager cried, as she made her way closer to the couple.
The throng stepped back to let her pass, watching as she walked with the strength and vigor of a woman several decades younger.
Her eyes shone like those of a child given a bowl of sweets.
She clasped her hands together in glee, oblivious to the fact that her words might shake the gossipmongers to the very core.
“It was about time you two became honest with each other. It was getting exhausting! I am an old woman, you know that, and I do not have much time to wait. But here you are!”
Anastasia burst into tears this time. Her hands both covered her mouth as if she were afraid of letting the dam break free even more. It was like they had switched their roles, even for a moment.
“I will marry you,” she said, making him the happiest man in the world. “But—”
There were stifled gasps this time. It sounded like everyone wanted to hear what would become of the Duke of Frostmore’s proposal—never had anyone thought that it would be him who would rattle society with a risky declaration.
“Anastasia,” he warned.
The warning was more for himself. He needed to know when this woman would decide to steer the other way once more. It was so close. She had just said yes.
“You do not understand,” she said in a low voice, edging closer to him.
People were now craning their necks as it became harder to eavesdrop. Benedict would have laughed in amusement if not for the fact that he was scared of what she had to say.
She walked away, only to beckon to him to follow her. They found a little nook in the gardens where they could still be seen but not heard. Benedict knew that she was being careful this time, just as he was more prepared to shed his scruples.
“You must know the whole truth before you make a decision. It would not be fair to you. There is so much about me that you probably heard in bits and pieces. Scandal follows girls like me—chaotic minds like mine. I tease you about your list, but I admire your fortitude and discipline. I had escaped a marriage to a duke only to find myself in a terrible scandal when I eloped with a captain. Nobody could be blamed but myself. The baron, whom you had gladly punched into unconsciousness, courted me thereafter, thinking I was easy prey, especially after hearing everything from me. He was sorely disappointed that I was not the woman he thought I was. I slapped him when he attempted to assault me. I was sent away to my aunt so that I would not hurt my sister Serenity’s marriage prospects.
It could not be helped. I had become my family’s shame.
Unfortunately… your uncle thought the same way the baron did.
He was a lecherous man who flirted with me every chance he got.
It got to the point that he promised to leave his wife for me. It was disgusting.”
“He did what?” Benedict asked, indignant.
The words came out flat, but there was something lethal beneath them. His gaze fixed on a point past her shoulder, as if he could already see the man in question and was deciding precisely how he would have ended him, had he been given the chance.
All those years.
All that preaching.
All those lectures about virtue and discipline and duty.
Benedict’s throat tightened hard enough to hurt. He could almost hear his uncle’s voice—the cold correction, the contempt for weakness, the relentless insistence that composure was everything, that temptation was for lesser men, that women were distractions to be managed.
And then the same man had looked at Anastasia as if she were something to take.
What a hypocrite.
His voice sharpened, controlled but furious. “That sanctimonious bastard.”
Anastasia blinked, startled by the suddenness of it.
Benedict’s eyes snapped back to hers. “He spent half my life teaching me that discipline was the only thing that separated a man from an animal.” His jaw clenched so hard she thought his teeth might crack. “He made me bleed for it. He made me earn every scrap of his approval with it.”
His hands tightened again. His composure held—barely.
“And all the while,” he continued, voice lower now, edged with contempt, “he was the very thing he claimed to despise.”
Anastasia’s lips parted, but no words came. She had expected disbelief. She had expected coldness. She had not expected rage on her behalf.
“I am not yet done,” she said, lifting her chin.
“One day, my aunt and your uncle were arguing. My aunt took it upon herself to push him down the stairs. I saw it happen with my own eyes. She made me promise not to say anything. In exchange, she would help secure my future. It was the reason I was trapped in Frostmore.”
Benedict felt his composure crumble as he watched her in disbelief.
“The dowager pushed him?”
He tried to visualize the dowager and his late uncle.
Suddenly, he could see himself at the top of the stairs like her, watching the life of a terrible man in his hands.
That gave him an almost perverse understanding of why she did it.
He breathed hard before pulling himself from the vision and gazing at Anastasia’s face.
She was right there. So close. All he could do now was look forward to the future. With her. If she would have him.
“I hope you will not find Frostmore a prison when you live with me there, Anastasia,” he murmured.
“No, it has been different with you there, but I did not dare give myself any hope.”
He turned his head slightly, as though looking at the shadow of Frostmore itself. Then his gaze returned to Anastasia, and the anger shifted again. It became focused.
Not on the dowager.
Not even on the dead man.
But on the fact that Anastasia had endured all of it alone.
Benedict took a step closer. His voice lowered, steadying into something firmer than fury.
“That man had no right,” he said, each word precise. “No right to touch you, no right to speak to you as if your ruin gave him permission.”
Anastasia’s breath caught.
“And you should never have been made to carry the consequences of his depravity,” Benedict continued, voice tightening. “Or that baron’s. Or anyone else’s.”
For a moment, something almost like pain flashed across his face before he locked it away.
“I cannot change what happened,” he said, quieter now, as if the truth tasted unfamiliar. “But I can change what happens next.”
Anastasia’s throat worked. “And… what happens next?” she managed.
“It does not matter what your aunt did or why. We will sort everything out. We will face whatever scandal comes our way together. I am no longer afraid as long as you are by my side. You are now my home, and even my only rule. The inheritance and title are nothing to me. I rushed to see you, not to marry you off to someone else. No, Anastasia. I want to marry you.”
There were no words that followed, only a searing kiss that served as a promise of all the good things to come.