Chapter 15
Norman paid a visit to Lord Crownway the very next day.
He wasn’t sure exactly why he did it. There was no reason to. It wasn’t as if additional arrangements had to be made. He was already engaged to marry Susan. They had already celebrated their engagement publicly. On the surface, nothing had changed.
Beneath the surface, of course, everything had.
But Lord Crownway couldn’t have known that.
He beamed as he ushered Norman into the house.
“You can’t seem to stay away,” he said, his smile so wide that it showed a considerable number of teeth.
“You know, I meant to reach out to you, Your Grace, to see whether you might not be willing to move the date of the wedding?
We ought to try to have it sooner rather than later.
I know how eager Susan is to begin her new life as your Duchess. "
Norman fumed. That wasn’t at all true, and he knew it, thanks to the conversation he’d had with Susan in the park. It bothered him to see her father using her like this, presenting her as if she was desperate to marry when he knew otherwise.
But perhaps she had convinced her father that it was true. After all, hadn’t he witnessed her lying to everyone around both of them from the moment he’d met her? He knew she was capable of doing it.
They were both capable of doing it.
“Lord Crownway, I couldn’t have said it any better myself,” he said, though the lie was more difficult today, for some reason, than any of the lies he had told so far in his relationship with Susan.
“In fact,” he went on, “that’s the reason I’ve come here today.
I wanted to take the opportunity to speak with you about our arrangement, and to see whether there was any mutual benefit in moving things along. ”
“Well, you and I are thinking alike,” Lord Crownway beamed. “Why don’t you come into the sitting room? My daughters are in there playing chess, but I’m sure Susan would abandon that in favor of time spent with her husband to be.”
And before Norman could say anything about just stopping by to finalize the arrangements, Lord Crownway was throwing open the doors that led to the sitting room.
The two sisters were indeed sitting over a chessboard, and Norman was pleased to see it.
He had grown to anticipate the way Susan doted on her younger sister, and it had taken him aback to see that she was angry at Marina—it was a side of Susan he had simply never experienced before.
And though he understood all too well the way anger could sink its teeth into a person, it made him sad to see such a thing happen to Susan.
She’s forgiven her sister, then. That’s good.
But both ladies froze at the sight of him.
Marina’s eyes darted from Norman to Susan and back. She stood up, then sat back down, as if unsure what she was supposed to be doing.
“Stay, Marina,” Susan said quietly. “I’ll need a chaperone. Father—would it be all right if we had some time to ourselves?”
“Of course,” Lord Crownway said. “After all, you’re going to be married, and as long as you have a chaperone with you…”
He trailed off, then tried again. “Susan, His Grace has come to suggest that you marry earlier than planned. Of his own free will he suggests this. I told you that he…”
He trailed off again.
What did he tell her?
He didn’t need to know, Norman decided. It wasn’t going to make any difference.
“Your father is right,” he said. “I thought it would be best for everyone involved if we settled this quickly. I know how important it is to you, and to your whole family. And it’s important to me too, of course, he added hastily.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t come up with some saccharine comment about how eager she was to begin their life together, or about how thoughtful he was being to consider what was best for her family. And that was the moment Norman knew that Susan was through pretending.
She would marry him, but there would be no more show.
A large part of him breathed easier. He didn’t relish lying. Now he wouldn’t have to do it anymore.
But at the same time, he would miss the game he and Susan had been playing.
It was the one part of their relationship he found purely enjoyable, and now it would be gone.
Now their marriage would be purely for the sake of improving their reputations—what he had wanted in the first place, yes, but also strangely disappointing after the promise of something more entertaining.
Lord Crownway looked from one of them to the other, and it was clear that he, too, had noticed the change in the way they were acting. “Well,” he said hesitantly, “I’ll leave the two of you to talk, shall I?”
“I think that would be best.” Susan gave her father a smile that was nothing like a smile at all. For the first time, Norman felt sure someone would see through her artifice.
But if he did, he didn’t say anything. He simply turned and departed the room, leaving Susan and Norman alone together, but for Marina’s quiet presence in the corner of the room.
“You didn’t have to come,” Susan said. She was studying the chessboard now as if she found it vastly more entertaining than she did Norman.
“I’m sure Father would have been in touch.
And since neither of us actually eager to marry, there was no reason to rush things.
He’ll tell us what pace he requires us to take in all this. ”
“We don’t have to do everything by your father’s timetable,” Norman countered.
“If we’re going to go through with this, let us at least try to do it on our own terms. We will set the date for our wedding without his input—that should be an easy enough way for us to reclaim some control over this situation. ”
“If you think that’s best,” Susan said quietly.
“Is this the way it’s going to be, then?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“I think you do. I think you can see how different things are today,” he pressed her. “You and I were never exactly enamored of one another, but today you’re treating me like…”
“What am I treating you like?” she asked him. “Like someone who’s nearly a stranger to me? Like a gentleman I’m going to have to marry even though he cares nothing at all for me?”
Norman’s mood darkened. “You may be angry with your father, if you like, but I’m doing you a kindness,” he pointed out. “You asked me to go through with this marriage that neither one of us wanted, and I’m doing that for your sake. The least you could do is to be grateful.”
Over in the corner, Marina’s head lifted, and Norman saw that she looked positively stricken. For a moment, he felt bad about his words—but only for a moment.
Susan slumped in her chair. It was profoundly unladylike, and yet he felt a burst of sympathy for her.
It was obvious that she was feeling worn down and defeated by everything that had happened, and he found himself wanting to say something to reassure her, even though he had no idea where to begin.
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we ought to discuss what life will look like after we’re married.”
“If you’d like,” she agreed.
He took the seat Marina had vacated and studied the chessboard for a moment. Marina had been playing the white pieces—he wondered whether Susan had intentionally given her sister the advantage. It did seem like the kind of thing she might do.
Marina had also been losing the game, he saw. Several of the white pieces were in compromising positions, and though it was unclear to him whether or not Susan was aware of the whole board, what was clear was that the black pieces were much better protected than the white ones were.
He picked up a pawn and moved it into a more protected location.
Susan stared at him, clearly taken aback by the choice to continue the chess game—but after a moment, she seemed to accept that he wanted to play. She moved a pawn of her own.
She’s fencing with me. There had been several better moves on the board for her. She could have captured his rook. Did she not realize that? He had a feeling she did, and that she was just trying to get the measure of him by playing a more cautious game.
That’s clever.
He brought out his bishop. “This is what I want you to know,” he said. “I want you to know that things don’t have to change for you when we’re married.”
She scoffed.
“In a day-to-day sense,” he clarified. “You’ll be able to live however you would like, and I won’t interfere. Whatever you do now to occupy your days, I’m happy for you to go on doing the same things as my wife. Visit with your sister. Play chess. Read your books. Anything you’d like.”
“You don’t anticipate having any requirements of me?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You know perfectly well that I only want a wife for appearance’s sake. You will attach your name to mine. Perhaps we’ll appear in public together a few times. Beyond that, your life will be your own.”
“I find that a bit difficult to believe,” she admitted. “You can’t be saying that you won’t ask me to do anything—that there won’t be any expectations of me as your Duchess.”
“You forget that I haven’t had my title for very long.
” He moved a knight. “I don’t think of myself as a duke most of the time.
I still think of myself as a common man.
And it’s difficult to frame my own choices in terms of that title.
So I certainly couldn’t ask you to change anything about your life.
I’ll have your father as a business partner.
I’ll have the evidence I need to show the ton that I’m assimilating into nobility, and that I can be trusted.
That’s all I care about. And as for you—you’ll be married, as per your father’s wishes, and he will be able to turn his focus to your sister. Everything will be in order.”
“And you don’t think anything about our lives will change?” she shot back. “You think two people can enter into something as serious and significant as a marriage and not be impacted by it?” She captured his knight. “You’re a fool, if that’s true.”
He stared at the board. He hadn’t seen that move coming.
But he was no slouch at this game, and he knew it.
He brought out his queen. “You’ll have all the resources of the Dukedom at your disposal,” he reminded her.
“Your life will change. You’re right about your life changing—but you can choose the shape it’s going to take.
You can be in charge of what it looks like.
Have you ever possessed that freedom before? ”
She hadn’t, he was sure.
She hesitated, then moved her rook to one side, leaving his path clear.
“Checkmate,” he said, shifting a rook of his own.
She looked up at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He couldn’t blame her for that. Before he’d sat down, she had been winning this game. Playing with her had given him enough insight to realize that. The fact that she had met her match seemed to have come as a surprise.
Well, she had been a surprise to Norman, too. She continued to surprise him.
And for that, if nothing else, he was determined to make sure that life as his Duchess wasn’t too much of a burden to her.