Chapter 14
Maxwell was bored. Ballrooms had never been his favorite kind of place, and even less so when he found himself escorting Lydia without trying to impinge on her life too much.
Thalia gave good advice; he had to admit. But every time he thought about her, he remembered the things he had done to her, and then his mind went in an entirely different direction.
The inevitable had happened: she was beginning to intrude on his everyday reality.
When he saw a painting on the wall, he thought of her. In his carriage, he still fancied he could smell her perfume. Now, with dancing couples before him, he found himself seeking her out. Always, she was escorted by her father, who thrust her at available gentlemen.
Always, she never seemed to look at him.
“Excuse me,” he said to the young, curvaceous lady he was conversing with.
She stood beside her husband, the Duke of Kirkford, Maxwell’s senior by a decade, but the older gentleman had evidently been hanging on to every word his wife said.
Unlike Maxwell.
No, instead, he had been consumed with a lady who stood at the other side of the ballroom, about to partner with yet another gentleman who had queued up to fill her dance card.
He shouldn’t care. They had made each other no promises; he had stopped himself from lying with her when he knew it would do her no good.
So why did it feel like a dagger was being shoved in his chest every time she smiled at another man?
“It’s all right,” the Duchess of Kirkford said, her hazel eyes glimmering with amusement as she leaned against her husband’s arm. “I remember how it felt.”
“How did it feel?” The Duke of Kirkford raised a brow. “Are you implying it no longer feels like that, Madeline?”
She laughed, tipping her head back with such a look of adoration, Maxwell’s heart gave another lurch in his chest.
“Not at all,” she said playfully.
Across the room, Thalia’s partner led her out to dance. The man didn’t know what a treasure he held in his hands; the way he looked at her, he expected her to be like every other insipid debutante in the room, rather than the spirited, independent woman he knew her to be.
Thalia’s eyes glazed as the man spoke.
“He’s a lost cause,” the Duchess said to her husband. “We should leave him to his preoccupation. Do you think he will notice?”
Maxwell turned back to his companions. “My apologies. I am…” There was no excuse that could justify his rudeness. “I’m a poor conversationalist this evening,” he said.
“Then we shall spare you the pain of forcing conversation any longer,” the Duke of Kirkford said. “Darling, would you do me the honor of dancing the next with me?”
Her eyes laughed up at his. “With pleasure.”
Maxwell retained his manners enough to bid them farewell, then returned his attention to the room.
Lydia was dancing with a blissful smile on her face, and her partner was a perfectly respectable young man of some fortune and excellent family connections.
Thalia was still dancing, of course, with the same gentleman.
The light had gone from her face, and her mouth pressed together in an uncharacteristically hard line.
Evidently, whatever the gentleman was saying did not please her, but he knew her well enough to know she would not say anything in public, no matter how much she was tempted.
Unable to help himself, he moved closer, standing by the wall as he observed her movements. The frown that hovered on her brow drew lower, turning the corners of her mouth down, and even her attempt at a smile seemed half-hearted.
Maxwell found himself oblivious to the rest of the ball as he watched her. So much for being bored. He could not stop wondering at what passed between them.
What could the man, whom he suspected to be the Earl of Lancaster, but he could not be certain, be saying in order to make her look like that?
And more to the point, what was her father doing sending her to associate with these men?
His hands clenched into fists as Thalia drew away from the earl, at first subtly, then rather more pointedly. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a deep breath.
He had tasted that mouth. The sweet nectar between her legs. He had heard her moans as she tipped her head back in pleasure, and he had seen the way her climax sent a flush across her cheeks.
Watching was insupportable.
Not watching was worse.
Thalia stepped back from the lines of dancing ladies, her shoulders stiff and hunched.
As Maxwell watched, she broke away and sprinted for a side door, abandoning her partner where he stood.
Tears rose in Thalia’s chest as she pushed through the double doors to the drawing room that bordered the ballroom. There were several ladies and gentlemen there, too, reclining on sofas and standing before the fire.
She couldn’t bear to see any of them.
“Lady Thalia!” Lord Redmoor said from behind her.
She increased her pace, hurrying out of the drawing room and into a large gallery space. A mural decorated all four walls, and a sculpture displayed below a domed window in the middle of the space caught her attention.
Pillars framed it on all sides, where the casual observer was no doubt supposed to walk to best appreciate the artwork.
Objectively, she could appreciate the aesthetic of the room, but she had no patience for genteel behavior.
Her father had warned her of what would happen if she disappointed Lord Redmoor, but she could not bear to marry him. She could not.
Even now, the memory of his hand sliding down her back made her skin crawl. Plenty of gentlemen had proven themselves occupied with nothing else but her appearance, but the way he had spoken to her, as though she was nothing more than a piece of meat for him to enjoy, had been jarring.
If she married him, he would be at liberty to act on his thoughts, and his thoughts were vile enough.
“You will button that pretty mouth of yours,” Lord Redmoor had said, “and you will agree with everything I say, because that is my right as a husband. You will dress in the clothes I provide for you, and you will be grateful that I will allow you to leave the house at all. If you stop behaving, I will revoke that privilege. Do you understand?”
He had said everything in such a mild tone, she might have dismissed it as a joke if it had not been for the flat look in his eyes.
“And if you disobey me,” he had said next, “I will be at liberty to punish you as I see fit.”
There would be no chance for her to complete her sculptures. No chance for her to do anything other than pretend to be the perfect little wife as he hounded their marital bed and dictated the gowns she wore for his convenience.
No, she would not marry him.
“Thalia!” her father thundered from behind her, and she knew she was about to face the consequences of her actions.
Slowly, standing beside the statue in the center of the room, the light from the lamps mounted on the walls barely reaching her, she turned. Her father stormed toward her, Lord Redmoor thankfully not in tow.
“How dare you,” he hissed as he came to stand over her.
“I assured him you would be on your best behavior, and I have arranged the terms of your marriage. You humiliated him by leaving the dance floor and put me in a horrid situation. You are a disgrace to the family name. A failure. Do you know what kinds of ladies are not married even after this many seasons? The ones who are undesirable and poor. You are a laughingstock, and I will not stand for it. You will be married, and I have chosen your husband after your spectacular failure to appeal to any of the gentlemen I have offered to you on a platter.” He grabbed her wrist, fingers digging in painfully.
“Your mother would be disappointed that this is how her daughter chooses to behave,” he spat, and something in Thalia died.
Her father’s alliance with her mother had been his only redeeming feature, even if he had never truly loved her.
It was a mystery why the couple ever married.
They were so very different from one another.
Thalia had adored her mother. Even the condemnation her father slung at her now by invoking her mother’s name was untrue; it had been said to wound, and wound it surely did.
There was ice in her heart, and it was slowly freezing her through.
“Father,” she said, attempting to keep her voice steady, “I have no intention of marrying that man. I won’t do it, and if you care for my happiness at all, you won’t try to make me.”
“Why, you ungrateful little harlot—”
“Lord Gilford,” a voice rang out from behind them. “I recommend you stop this. Now.”
Her father slowly turned, the light of battle in his eyes. Thalia wanted to cry when she saw it was Maxwell, standing in all his pugilist glory, looking as though he was not considering pulling any punches.
How could anyone see him and not think he was a fighter?
If only he weren’t seeing her at her lowest after everything that had passed between them.
“Excuse me?” Lord Gilford sneered, and Thalia attempted to wrench her hand free. But he held her tightly, his grip a vice. “What business is it of yours how I address my daughter?”
“You make it my business by treating her so atrociously in my presence.” Maxwell took a step closer, and much as her father had loomed over her, Maxwell towered over her father.
“Lady Thalia is of age and deserves to choose her own husband, particularly if you are offering her to a man such as Redmoor.” Maxwell’s lip curled in disgust. “The man has buried three wives and cannot retain maids at his household for the life of him. Do you know why?”
“What he does in his private time is no concern of mine,” her father said dismissively. “What he has is a fortune and a willingness to take my daughter despite her failed Seasons, and you have no right to interfere.”
Maxwell’s gaze narrowed in on the way Lord Gilford held Thalia’s wrist. “Release her.”
“Return to the ball, Your Grace.” Lord Gilford shook Thalia. “I will discipline my daughter as I see fit, and I will not permit you or anyone else to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Maxwell held out an arm, preventing Lord Gilford from leaving.
Thalia’s wrist ached where he held it, and tears pressed against her eyes.
She knew as well as Maxwell must have that if she refused to marry Lord Redmoor, her father would ship her off to a distant aunt in the country, and she would become a glorified housekeeper, destined to die a penniless spinster.
If there was no way of marrying her off and profiting in that way, he would expect her to make her own way in the world.
There was no such thing as familial love, not for her father. He thought only of numbers and coins.
Maxwell met her gaze. His eyes were so cool and calm that she found strength in them. Heavens, but he was handsome, more so than ever in this shadowy room with the echoes of the ball framing him with mirth. All strong, cragged, masculine lines.
This might be the last time she saw him. She drank in his features so she might remember them in the future, if she ever had a chance to sculpt again, perhaps with wax or clay. Her fingers itched to commit his likeness in stone, so no one could ever forget it.
“Then I have a solution,” Maxwell said, still looking at her, even though his words addressed Lord Gilford. “I will marry Lady Thalia instead.” He finally turned his gaze from her and looked at her father.
It was as though a blow had connected with her stomach, leaving her breathless. Shock and disbelief and… relief.
“You?” her father spluttered. “You intend to marry my daughter? After dissolving the match? What sort of scandal is this?”
“There will be no scandal,” Maxwell said firmly, such conviction in his tone that Thalia believed him. “I will not stand by to watch her married to such a repugnant man, and if you will not protect her, then I will. A shame you don’t respect her the way I do.”
“I have not given my permission!”
“Your permission is immaterial, given she’s of age,” Maxwell said. “And more to the point, why would you? I am a Duke, a more than suitable match for your daughter. What about my offer is objectionable?”
Her father’s face turned puce, but there was nothing he could say. Maxwell was a Duke, and a match with him was the best she could ever aspire to. And he knew it. His slow swallow proved it.
“Very well,” he said stiffly. “I see I have no choice in the matter.”
Maxwell turned to her. “Lady Thalia, do you consent?”
She had no real choice in the matter; there was no way she could refuse him now.
She would not have done.
“I do,” she said.
“Then have her.” Her father’s lip curled. “Marry her, ruin her—I hardly care so long as you take her off my hands.”
Maxwell sent him a look full of danger before speaking again.
“You will hear from my solicitor to discuss a settlement,” he called after the rapidly retreating man, then put his hands on Thalia’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“I—” No, of course not. She felt as though he had dipped her into the North Sea until her head was filled with cold and salt. “You mean it? You’ll marry me?”
“Did you expect me to stand by while he threatened and hurt you?” His palm slid across her wrist as if soothing invisible hurts there. “I apologize that marriage is the only thing I could think of to get you out of it.”
Marriage. After everything they had been through, and everything she had done to avoid having a husband.
She couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
“I don’t mind,” she whispered.
His hand slid from her shoulder to her back, and she allowed herself to sink against his chest for a few seconds.
Married, to the very Duke she had once refused, to the man who had inspired her endlessly over the past few weeks, even before she knew it. She had, for some time, developed a tendre.
“This does not have to be anything more than a marriage of convenience,” he said as though convincing himself. “Neither of us intended a union at this point in time, and I have Lydia to consider.”
“Of course,” Thalia murmured. “And I, my sculpting.” She looked at him in challenge, but he said nothing.
At least he would not keep her from that.
You would have to tell him, of course, he had said of her future husband.
Although she had initially expressed scepticism, she was now engaged to a man who understood her aspirations and supported her ongoing professional pursuits.
Perhaps this arrangement represented the best of both worlds, after all, and it came in the form of Maxwell Warren, the Duke of Marrowhurst.