Chapter Thirty-Seven
London had never been so loud. Nicholas could still hear the echoing pandemonium of Parliament behind him, voices shouting, the chancellor pounding his gavel, half the chamber in hysterics and the other half in scandalized outrage.
He had barely managed to get Bea out before Winston or Hargrave could drag her into some back room for questioning or threats.
The corridor outside the chamber had been blessedly empty. Nicholas had wrapped her cloak around her trembling shoulders, taken her hand, and ushered her through a side exit where his coach waited.
The chancellor had declared the state of affairs within the chambers far too turbulent to conduct the vote today. They would all have to return in the morning.
Now Nicholas and Bea rode in his carriage, just the two of them, sunlight slipping through the curtains in bright, fluttering ribbons.
Bea was still flushed—cheeks pink, eyes bright. She sat angled toward him, cloak loosened, one glove half-off as if she’d forgotten she was wearing it. Nicholas watched her mouth as her smile faded.
She stared down at her hands. “I didn’t plan it.
I didn’t go there intending to…to make a spectacle of myself.
I just wanted to watch the vote. But when I saw you standing there—alone, defending your conscience—after I’d spent so long mocking you and misjudging you and hurting you…
I couldn’t hide anymore.” Her voice trembled.
Nicholas went still. He moved to sit next to her. His hand stayed at her waist—not possessive, but grounding—his thumb brushing once, a silent I’m here.
“Bea,” he said quietly.
She drew a shaky breath, still looking at her hands as if they were safer than his eyes.
“Nicholas, when you spoke this morning, when you didn’t flinch… I knew I couldn’t be a coward for one more minute. Even if I made a spectacle of myself.”
Nicholas’s throat tightened. He lifted his free hand and, with careful tenderness, turned her chin toward him. “You’ve never been a coward, Bea. You taught me to be brave.”
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes.
“Look at me,” he murmured, tipping her chin with his thumb.
Bea did—reluctant at first, then fully, as if she’d decided she would not half-step into courage anymore.
Nicholas held her gaze, expression open, voice low. “You weren’t a spectacle,” he said. “You were…you.” A pause. “And I have never—” He stopped, the words catching, then tried again with quieter certainty. “I have never been prouder to stand beside anyone.”
Bea’s eyes shone again, but this time she didn’t look as though she might shatter. She looked as though she might finally stop running.
She clung to him with a desperate little breath. “I had to tell them,” she whispered. “All of them. I had to tell you.”
“You did.” His throat tightened painfully. “With this…” He gestured to the paper that laid on the seat next to them.
“Do you like it?” she asked tentatively, biting her lip.
He allowed the hint of a smile to touch his lips. “It’s extraordinary.”
She glanced down at the drawing.
The caricature was unmistakable…bold lines, fierce motion.
A phoenix burst upward from a scatter of inked ashes, wings flared wide, each feather edged with purpose rather than ornament.
The fire that surrounded it was not destructive but cleansing, the kind that burned away rot and left something stronger behind.
And there, at the heart of it, was Nicholas.
Not softened. Not idealized. His profile was sharp, intent, eyes fixed forward as though he were already in motion, already answering some call only he could hear. The phoenix wore his face without disguise, without apology, powerful, swift, and unyielding.
Below him, the ashes resolved into figures: bent backs straightening, empty hands lifting, shadows retreating.
Coins fell not into the pockets of the powerful, but into the open palms of the poor.
Scales tipped. Chains snapped. Justice—clear-eyed and unsentimental—was delivered not with cruelty, but with resolve.
She had drawn him not as a hero crowned by praise, but as a man remade by fire. A man who chose the harder path and rose because of it.
Nicholas stared at the page for a long moment, utterly still.
“This is how you see me,” he said quietly. It was not a question.
“This is who you are,” Bea replied, her voice trembling.
Something in his expression gave way, not pride, not triumph, but recognition. As though he had been searching for himself and, somehow, she had drawn the answer.
He lifted his gaze to her, eyes bright with something fierce and reverent. “Then,” he said softly, “I will spend the rest of my life trying to deserve it.”
She smiled through her tears, and this time, when he pulled her into his arms, there was nothing uncertain left between them at all.
“And now everything will fall apart,” she said, voice cracking. “Hargrave is furious. Mother shall faint. Father will probably challenge you to a duel. Society will run wild with it. The papers will—”
“Bea.” Nicholas squeezed her hands gently. “Look at me.”
She did. And the anguish in her eyes nearly brought him to his knees.
“I know what you risked,” he said softly. “I know what will come of it. And still—still—you stepped forward. You stood in that chamber. You told the truth.”
She closed her eyes as tears slipped down. “I couldn’t let you stand alone.”
He brushed one tear from her cheek with the lightest touch. “I will never forget what you did today.”
She swallowed hard. “And I will never forgive myself for doubting you,” she whispered. “For thinking, even for a moment, that you would ever reveal my secret. That you would use it to hurt me. That was cruel of me. It was unfair. You have every right to hate me.”
His jaw clenched, not with anger, but with the force of what he felt for her. “Bea, I could never hate you…even if I tried.”
She let out a sound between a sob and a laugh.
Nicholas brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “I was hurt,” he said, voice quieter now. “That is true. Last night in your sitting room, when you said you didn’t want me to marry you, that you were releasing me… That hurt. A great deal.”
She flinched. “I know.”
“But the hurt came not from rejection,” Nicholas continued, “but from the belief that you didn’t trust me. That you didn’t want to marry me.”
Bea blinked up at him. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“And I,” he murmured, “was hoping you would not let me go.”
She sucked in her breath.
He reached up, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I meant every word I said today,” he told her. “You changed me. You challenged me. You made me think. And today…you made me braver than I have ever been.”
Her eyes shone again.
“Then I’m glad,” she whispered. “Even if everything else falls apart.”
Nicholas cupped her cheek, gently turning her face toward his. “Everything will fall into place,” he said softly. “Not apart.”
Her lips trembled.
He rested his forehead against hers. “You are remarkable,” he whispered. “You are clever and fierce and honest and brilliant. And I want to be by your side, not because of obligation. Not because of politics or lineage.” His voice softened, reverent. “But because you are the woman I choose.”
Her breath stopped.
Nicholas drew back just enough to see her face clearly. Then, very slowly, he slid to one knee before her in the rocking carriage and took her hand in his.
Bea gasped softly, free hand flying to her mouth.
Nicholas looked up at her with unguarded devotion. “I don’t care what your father says. I don’t care what Parliament says. I don’t care what the papers scream tomorrow morning. I do not care what the world believes we should be.”
He squeezed her hand. “You are B. Adroit. You are Beatrix Winslow. And you are everything I want.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
Nicholas lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it tenderly. “Marry me.”
Her breath shuddered.
“Marry me,” he repeated softly, “and let us face whatever comes next together.”
Bea looked too full, too fragile, too immense all at once. Her throat worked. She tried to speak and failed, covering her mouth again as tears continued to slide freely down her cheeks.
Nicholas waited, silent, steady, certain.
Finally, with a trembling breath, she lowered her hand. She leaned forward and framed his face in her hands, pressing her forehead to his. “Yes,” she whispered, a laugh and a sob tangled together. “Yes, Nicholas.”
His exhale was a sound of relief, gratitude, and something else—something that sent warmth through her like sunlight. His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her into him, holding her tightly as if he finally dared to believe she was his.