Chapter 27 #2
She swallowed hard. He had chosen that night deliberately. It was public enough that she would not be able to escape if it did not go ideally, and it seemed that he already had her father’s blessing to do it this way.
A ripple of gasps escaped from the people around Lavinia.
She knew what was happening. There was no mistaking his meaning.
Her father beamed as though the wedding contracts were already signed.
Cecily stood at her side, going completely pale.
Honora and Temperance looked horrified. That was not how a proposal should be done.
But Lavinia had already made up her mind.
She had said as much several times over the last few days.
I need to make the prudent choice…
Lavinia opened her mouth to speak.
“Forgive the interruption,” a voice cut through the ballroom like a blade. Every head turned as one toward the source of the noise. The Duke of Alderwick stood a few feet away, having moved through the crowd so quickly that people were still parting for him.
He looked more nervous than Lavinia had ever seen him before.
Somehow, between the carriage and that moment in time, his cravat was slightly askew, his color pale, and his waistcoat unbuttoned.
His expression was taut with the kind of terror she had never seen on him before, not even in the worst of their arguments.
“I know this is not my place,” he began. His voice shook, but it did not falter. “But there is something I must say, and I find I cannot let this moment pass without saying it.”
The room had gone utterly silent. Somewhere behind her, Lavinia heard her father make a strangled sound of outrage. Lavinia, however, was finally feeling calm.
“Do not interrupt—” her father started.
“Shh!” Honora and Temperance said in unison, spinning around to face him. Lavinia’s father spluttered, having no idea how to react to the two women telling him to shush.
“I have handled everything wrong,” the duke continued.
“From the very moment I arrived at Briarwood Hall, I made decisions about Miss Devereux’s life without asking her.
I changed her home, I changed the estate, I made choices about her future.
Not because I was any wiser than her. But because I was a coward.
Because it was easier to hide behind duty and law than to admit what I truly wanted. ”
“Your Grace—” Lavinia began, but he shook his head.
“Please. Let me finish, or I shall lose my nerve entirely,” he said with a strained laugh.
“I am not speaking to you now as a duke asserting some claim upon what is his. I have no claim on you. I never did; whatever I once believed. I am speaking to you as a man who has watched you fight. For your name, for your independence, for the simple right to be believed. I cannot, try as I might, imagine my life without you in it.”
He took a step closer. Lavinia was aware of Honora's hand pressed to her mouth, of Cecily rigid and silent beside her.
“You deserve to choose your future,” the duke continued.
“Not your father. Not Lord Casterleigh, whatever fine and sensible things he may offer you, and I do not doubt they are everything a prudent woman should want. And not me. I am not here to offer you an ultimatum or a rescue. I am asking you to choose. Not because it is practical. Not because it is safe. Because I love you.”
Lavinia’s eyes widened, her heart thudding in her chest.
A soft, collective gasp moved through the crowd, but the duke did not look at them. He was focused on Lavinia.
“I arrived at Briarwood Hall believing I wanted only what the law said was mine. An estate. A fortune. Horses. Really, I was thinking more of the horses than the woman who had been caring for them for years,” he said, making Lavinia laugh nervously.
“I did not know, then, that I would meet a woman who would make me want to be so much more than an heir.
More than my father's son,” he added. His voice caught on the word father, and steadied.
“You made me want to be worthy of standing beside you, Miss Devereux. I have watched you refuse to break under weight that would have crushed anyone else I have ever known. You rebuilt yourself out of ruin, and you never once asked for pity while you did it. And somewhere in the middle of that, you made me want to become the kind of man who might deserve you. Not just the estate, or the horses.”
“This is not the time—” Lavinia’s father interrupted, earning glares from other people around the room. Lord Casterleigh had frozen. His hands were shaking at his sides, his composure beginning to fray under the weight of what was happening.
Lavinia stared at the duke, attempting to keep her expression neutral. It was hard when her heart was soaring, and her eyes were becoming glassy.
“You are infuriating,” she replied. “You went behind my back. You very nearly ruined everything I had left to salvage. I should have done worse with the letter opener than just threaten you.”
His face fell, color draining from it as though she had struck him.
“But,” she continued. “You told me once that you feared becoming your father. A man like your father would never have stood in front of the entirety of our community and speak with such conviction. He would never have worked to earn my trust, even if he accidentally lost it in one fell swoop.
He would never have raced me on my horse. He certainly would not have tolerated my sister and my friends, nor my father. He would never have helped me reclaim my reputation when it would have been much easier for him to take what the law gave him. He would never have offered me a choice at all.”
Her voice softened. “You are nothing like that monster, Your Grace. You respected my independence even when we were at war with each other. Which we have been, frequently. I spent two years believing that safety meant being alone.” She reached for his hand, and found it trembling, but she held it anyway.
“I was wrong. Safety is not solitude. Safety also should not mean that I compromise what matters to me just to gain independence.”
“Lavinia—” Her father's voice spoke out, sharp with warning.
She did not turn to face him.
“I choose you,” she said gently. “Not because I have to. Not because it is practical, or prudent, or anything my father would approve of. Believe me. He will not. But I choose you because I want to.”
For a moment the duke simply looked at her, as though he could not quite believe what he had heard. Then his face broke open into a smile so warm, so entirely without the careful composure he often wore, that it transformed him completely.
He pulled her into his arms in the middle of the ballroom floor, in front of God and her father and the whole of the county's assembled gentry, and the room erupted in celebration around them.
Cecily was laughing and crying, clutching Honora's arm.
Lord Harcourt, somewhere at the refreshment table, let out a whoop entirely unbefitting of the setting and did not look remotely sorry for it.
Lady Harcourt pressed a lace handkerchief to her eyes.
Lavinia's father turned an alarming shade of puce.
He muttered something about the impropriety of the entire spectacle and stalked from the ballroom without a backward glance.
“Are you certain?” Lord Casterleigh asked, stepping closer to them. He took Lavinia’s hand in his own, holding it tightly. “I could have given you everything. Are you really agreeing to throw everything we had away?”
“I am,” Lavinia nodded. “I am sorry. Only days ago, I was certain that I would have chosen you. But there are some things in this life that you cannot say no to.”
Lord Casterleigh nodded slowly and bowed, silently rescinding whatever claim he thought he had. A small frown creased his brow, and he withdrew from the floor with whatever remained of his dignity intact.
Lavinia looked up at the duke, smiling warmly at him and held his cheeks, pulling him down into a kiss. She broke it quickly, realizing where they were. His cheeks had turned bright red under her gloves. She let out a breathless laugh.
“I— I did not—” she stuttered.
“Perhaps,” he said softly. “Not when we are in front of all of these people…”
“I agree,” she said with another breathless laugh. “If you ever again make a decision about my future without consulting me,” she added, low enough that only he could hear, “I promise you I shall do a great deal worse than threaten you with a letter opener.”
He laughed, a real, hearty laugh, from somewhere deep in his chest.
“I should expect nothing less from you,” he said affectionately. She giggled and nodded, taking his hand in hers.
The orchestra began to play, the ordinary business of the ball resuming around them. The duke squeezed Lavinia’s hand.
“Would you do me the honor of a dance?"
“Of course,” she said, beaming up at him.
The duke nodded, taking her hand and leading her out toward the dance floor. For the first time in longer than she could remember, stepping out onto that candlelit floor with the whole room watching and no longer caring who saw, Lavinia felt entirely, unmistakably free.