Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
By the time they returned to the house, George’s grandmother had already decided how the afternoon would proceed.
George recognized the signs immediately. The drawing room had been rearranged, chairs drawn into a neat semicircle, the pianoforte uncovered and polished. Several guests lingered with the expectant air of people who had been told they were about to be entertained.
His grandmother sat at the center of it all, composed and pleased with herself.
“My dear,” she said, turning as Cassandra entered the room, “we were just speaking of music. Your cousins are so accomplished, and it would be such a pleasure to hear you join them.”
George did not miss the careful phrasing. The false sweetness, the implication that refusal would appear ungracious.
“No,” he said calmly.
The room stilled. His grandmother turned her gaze to him, measured and sharp.
“George?”
“There will be no performance,” he repeated. “Not today.”
Cassandra glanced at him, startled, then at the Dowager.
“It is quite all right,” she said quickly. “I do not mind.”
He looked at her.
“You do mind.”
She lowered her voice, slight desperation in her eyes.
“This is not worth a scene.”
“It is precisely why there will be one,” he replied.
She shook her head slightly.
“Please.”
George hesitated. He saw the calculation in her expression. The instinct to smooth things over, even at her own expense. Before he could stop her, she stepped forward and took her place with her violin. The Dowager smiled, victorious, and the music began.
Cassandra played beautifully.
George knew this already. He had heard her once, truly heard her, and the memory had not left him. What unfolded now was no different in quality. Her technique was precise, her phrasing careful, her attention absolute.
And yet it was once again a disaster.
The cousins accompanied her poorly, rushing where she held back, faltering where she carried the melody. They drowned her out, and the audience shifted, uncertain, some clearly mistaking the chaos for her fault.
George felt his jaw tighten.
He looked at his sister. Philippa had been watching the scene unfold with wide eyes, her posture stiff, her hands clenched in her lap. When she caught his gaze, something passed between them.
She understood immediately.
Philippa drew in a breath, then she slumped sideways in her chair. A collective gasp filled the room.
“Philippa?” their grandmother asked.
“Fetch water.”
“Is she unwell?”
Chairs scraped. Guests surged forward. The Dowager was on her feet at once, her attention snapping away from Cassandra entirely.
The music stopped. Cassandra froze in place. George crossed the room quickly, already calling for air, for space, for someone to open a window. Philippa lay perfectly limp, lashes fluttering just enough to convince anyone watching that this was genuine.
Everyone’s attention was where it belonged. Only when Cassandra looked up at him did George allow himself the smallest exhale of relief. The performance was over, and for once, his grandmother’s game had not ended the way she intended. George had been expecting her to do it.
He also expected Cassandra to visit him later that day.
Not in the practical sense, of course. He had not been listening for footsteps, nor had he ordered the servants away, but since the incident in the drawing room, since the church, since the kiss he had already categorized as a mistake he could not afford to repeat, he had known she would come.
He was seated at his desk when the knock came.
“Come in,” he said.
Cassandra stepped inside, wrapped in a shawl, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked nothing like the composed young woman who endured his grandmother’s scrutiny with such careful control. She looked determined, unsettled, and very much awake.
“You should not be here,” he said.
“I know,” she replied. “But I cannot sleep.”
He stood slowly, already aware that this was a poor idea. The room felt smaller with her in it, the air heavier, charged with all the questions she had been holding back.
“You kissed me,” she said without preamble. “Why?”
He did not answer.
“Why did you do it?” she repeated, more quietly this time. “Why, if it was a mistake?”
The word hung between them. George folded his arms, forcing himself to keep his distance.
“You are asking questions you already know the answers to.”
“No,” Cassandra said. “I am asking because I do not.”
He shook his head.
“That kiss should not have happened.”
“But it did,” she pressed. “And then you apologized. You said it would never happen again. Do you regret it?”
“Yes,” he said at once.
The answer was honest. It was also incomplete. She flinched, though she tried to hide it.
“Then why are we doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Marrying one another,” she said. “Standing in that church while everyone around us seems determined to pull us apart. Your grandmother. Sylvia. Even my own doubts.”
He met her gaze.
“You are not innocent in that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have been trying to sabotage this engagement since the moment it was announced,” he said. “You admit it freely. You provoke. You resist. You test the limits at every opportunity.”
“Because I do not know whether it is right,” she said. “Because I do not know whether you even want this.”
“And yet you demand certainty from me,” he replied. “While doing everything in your power to undo it.”
“So tell me. If everyone else wishes us apart, if they whisper and scheme and glare, does any of it matter?”
“It does not,” he said immediately.
She stopped.
“Whatever others think or do,” George continued, “if two people choose to remain together, nothing can come between them. Not family, not expectation, not resentment.”
Her breath caught. She looked at him as though he had said something dangerous.
“And do we choose that?”
The question landed exactly where she meant it to.
George felt it then, the pull he had been resisting all evening.
The urge to step forward. To answer honestly.
To tell her that he had been thinking of her far more than was sensible, that he had kissed her because restraint had failed him, not because affection had.
He did not move.
“I cannot answer that,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because wanting is not the same as choosing,” he replied. “And I do not make promises I am not certain I can keep.”
Silence stretched between them. Cassandra nodded once, as though steadying herself.
“Then that is my answer.”
She turned toward the door, and George did not stop her. He listened to her footsteps fade down the corridor, each one a reminder of what he had refused to say. Only when she was gone did he allow himself to sit heavily on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to his face.
He had avoided lying, but he suspected that withholding the truth might wound her just as deeply.
George found Philippa in the blue sitting room the next morning, curled into the corner of the sofa with a book she was very clearly not reading. She looked up at once when he entered.
“You should be resting,” he said.
“I am resting. I am simply doing it while being observant.”
“I wished to thank you.”
Her brows lifted. She was good at feigning innocence when she wished.
“For fainting?”
“For your timing,” he said dryly. “And your courage.”
She closed the book and set it aside.
“Grandmother was furious, of course.”
“I noticed,” George replied. “You spared Cassandra a great deal of unnecessary cruelty.”
“She plays beautifully. I did not see why she should be made to suffer for it.”
He studied his sister for a moment, then sat opposite her. The fire crackled softly between them.
“You are troubled,” Philippa said.
“I did not believe I was that transparent.”
“You are to me,” she replied. “You always have been.”
He did not deny it.
“Things are complicated.”
“They were complicated before,” she said gently. “This is different.”
“I am trying to do what is right.”
“For whom?” Philippa asked.
He paused.
“For everyone.”
“That is not an answer,” she said. “It never has been.”
“You sound older than your years.”
“I have had a great deal of practice watching you,” Philippa replied. “You have been different since you became duke. It is as though you believe there is no room for error anymore.”
“There is not.”
“There is,” she insisted. “You simply do not allow yourself to see it.”
George looked away.
“This marriage was meant to solve problems.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now it has created others.”
“Because you care about her, yes?”
He said nothing. She nodded slowly.
“I thought so.”
“That is not the issue,” he said at last. “She does not want this. And I will not be the man who traps her into a life she despises.”
“Are you certain she despises it?” Philippa asked. “Or are you assuming she does because it is easier than hoping she might want it with you?”
He looked back at her sharply. She met his gaze without flinching.
“You are not as cold as you think you are. And she is not as reckless as you pretend she is.”
George ran a hand through his hair.
“I do not know how to reconcile duty with whatever this is.”
“You do not have to decide everything tonight.”
“I feel as though I do.”
“You do not,” she repeated. “But you do have to stop punishing yourself for wanting something more than obligation.”
He stood. She rose as well and stepped closer.
“Thank you. For today, and for your discretion.”
“Whatever happens,” she said quietly, “I am glad it is her.”
He met her eyes.
“So am I,” he admitted, surprising himself with how true it felt.
Philippa squeezed his hand once before letting go.
“Just do not wait too long to realize what you want,” she said. “Some mistakes are made by doing nothing at all.”
George left the room with her words following him, heavier than any reproach. George encountered his grandmother later that morning, where she sat with her correspondence laid out neatly before her. She looked up as he entered, her gaze sharp enough to assess him at a glance.
Her attention shifted almost immediately past him.
“Well,” the Dowager Duchess said calmly, setting aside her papers, “it appears you have not yet come to your senses.”
George stiffened.
“I was not aware that I lost them.”
“The girl is unhappy. That much is obvious.”
“That is not your concern,” he replied.
“It is precisely my concern,” his mother said. “This arrangement was meant to stabilize the household, not create further unrest. I warned you that this match was ill-considered.”
“You warned me because it did not align with your preferences,” George said. “That is not the same thing.”
“You are confusing sentiment with judgment. A duchess must be suited to her role. She must strengthen the family, not distract from it.”
“And Sylvia would do that?” he asked. “By what measure?”
“By every measure that matters,” she replied. “She understands expectations. She understands restraint. She was raised for the position.”
“And Lady Cassandra was not,” George said. “That does not make her incapable.”
His mother leaned back slightly.
“It makes her unsuitable.”
The word echoed unpleasantly.
George kept his voice level. “You do not know her.”
“I know enough,” she said. “And so do you. She resists the role at every turn. She embarrasses herself. She provokes attention. She places herself in danger.”
He thought of the lake. Of the music. Of her standing alone in the church.
“She is not malicious,” he said. “She is overwhelmed.”
“That is not an excuse,” his mother replied. “Marriage to a duke is not an indulgence. It is a duty.”
“You speak as though I am exempt from that,” George said sharply.
“You are not.”
“Then why is it only her conduct you scrutinize?” he asked. “Why is it her burden to carry your disappointment?”
“Because she is the variable. You are the constant.”
The words struck deeper than she likely intended.
“I will not undo this engagement,” George said firmly.
“For her sake, or yours?” she asked.
He hesitated, only for a moment.
“For mine,” he said.
That seemed to surprise her.
“You are allowing feelings to cloud your responsibility,” she said. “Your father–”
“Is not part of this conversation,” George cut in. “And I will not spend my life correcting the past by surrendering the present, nor the future.”
Silence settled between them. His grandmother studied him closely, as though reassessing something she had long believed settled.
“You think yourself very certain,” she said at last.
“I am,” George replied. “About one thing.”
“And that is?”
“That whatever becomes of this marriage,” he said, “it will not be shaped by coercion. Not hers, and not mine.”
She did not respond at once. When she did, her voice was cool.
“Then you had best ensure she learns to bear the consequences of that resolve.”
“I intend to ensure,” he said quietly, “that she is not the only one bearing them.”
He sounded confident, and for a moment he felt it too, but as he left for his work that day he realized that it was all a facade. He did not know what the right thing to do was.
And it was Cassandra that would suffer if he was wrong.