26. Claire
Claire
The orchard stretched wide beneath the early morning sun, rows upon rows of trees heavy with fruit. A soft breeze stirred the branches, and a few loose petals and leaves drifted lazily to the ground.
I plucked a mulberry free from its twig, then another, filling my basket one by one until the weight settled comfortably in my arms. The sweet and rich scent of them brought ease to my busy mind.
I hummed under my breath as I made my way back toward camp. Caspian was nowhere in sight—likely off at the pond he’d mentioned earlier to wash up—but Ash was exactly where I’d left her, seated in the grass.
Except she wasn’t sitting anymore. She had stripped down to a sleeveless top and gloves and was doing controlled push-ups. Muscles shifted beneath her skin with each rise and fall.
I opened my mouth—I had something to say, I was sure of it—but it slipped clean from my grasp.
She pushed up one last time and sat upright for a breath. My eyes dropped, catching on the flex of her biceps as she braced her hands against her thighs. There, the muscle tightened, and I lingered a second too long before she rolled to her feet in one smooth motion.
She stretched, lifting her arms and rolling her shoulders back. As her posture opened, my breath hitched. Suddenly, heat prickled at the back of my neck and my mouth went dry.
She turned and met my gaze.
I blinked, trying to form something resembling a coherent thought. The fire had burned low to embers, faint smoke curling upward.
“Hey,” I called. Without thinking, I tossed one of the mulberries toward her.
She caught it easily, but she didn’t look at it. She sat back near the fire, gesturing for me to join her with a solemn nod of her head.
“We need to talk.”
Uh-oh.
My chest tightened as I crossed the remaining distance and lowered myself across from her, my skirts brushing against the grass. Normally, I would have adjusted the fabric or laid a blanket down, but this dress had already seen too much of this journey to bother.
And soon it wouldn’t matter, anyway.
“What is it?”
Ash exhaled slowly, like she was bracing herself.
“It’s about the duke.” She spat the name like it was poison. “Garrick.”
“What about him?”
“I would not, in good conscience, take you to him for marriage.”
The words landed heavily. My heart gave a sharp, uneven beat.
“He’s…” She hesitated only a fraction, like she was choosing the least damaging way to say it. “He’s not fit for you.”
I stared at her, waiting for more of an explanation that made sense.
“What do you mean?”
Ash ran a hand through her hair. “He’s not someone you want to tie yourself to.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” I quipped, more harshly than I intended.
Her gaze snapped to mine.
“No, it’s not. But it is my job to get you there alive, and if I can help it, not walk you straight into something worse.”
“That’s not fair. You don’t know what he’ll be like with me.”
Ash let out a humorless breath. “I know enough.”
The certainty in her voice made my temper flare.
“You’re asking me to do what? Turn around and walk away from everything I’ve been promised because you have a bad feeling?”
“It’s not a feeling, Claire.”
“Then what is it?” I cut in, pushing to my feet. “You’ve already said you know him. But you won’t tell me anything—just that he’s bad and I shouldn’t go.”
“Because it’s...” Ash winced, swallowing hard as if something lodged in her throat. “It’s not that simple.”
The words came out clipped, but her expression faltered a second too late. Her jaw tightened in restraint, and a flicker of pain cut through her expression as if the act of saying more had struck back at her.
“Then make it simple!” I snapped. “Because right now, all I hear is you trying to control a decision that isn’t yours. Why is it such a crazy thing for me to want security? To want a stable future where I don’t have to constantly worry?”
Ash scoffed. “Marrying a stranger randomly doesn’t sound like security, Claire. It sounds like foolishness.”
“I’m trying to settle my family’s debt!”
“Oh, please.” Ash’s flashed with a sudden, vicious heat.
“The fact that you didn’t even try to fight it says everything.
You don’t want to save your family—you just want to mooch off someone else for the rest of your life.
You want to be comfortable, let someone spoon-feed you, and never have to lift a finger. ”
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, blurring Ash’s harsh expression, but I refused to let them fall.
“At least I have a plan,” I retorted, my voice trembling. “My plan actually fixes things. It’s a hell of a lot better than yours, which just involves being miserable and alone for the rest of your life.”
Ash flinched. It was a violent, involuntary jerk, as if my words had physically struck her across the face. For a fraction of a second, the anger vanished from her eyes, replaced by a raw, hollow ache that made her look uncharacteristically defenseless.
But I was too far gone to stop.
“You have such a bitter, cynical personality,” I raged, the tears finally spilling over my cheeks.
“You’re so distrusting of everyone around you.
If you keep acting like this, Ash, and keep pushing people out, at this rate, you’re going to drive away someone important to you—and you’ll truly be all alone. ”
Ash let out a bitter, mocking laugh that cut straight through the tense air. She rose to her feet. When I met her gaze, a cold dread pooled in my stomach. The look in Ash’s eyes made it instantly clear that I had pushed her too far.
The heat of her anger was gone, replaced by a terrifying, frozen stillness.
“Do you think you’ve become important to me, Claire?” she asked, her voice dropping to a quiet, lethal whisper.
She took a step forward, looking down at me with an expression completely devoid of warmth.
“You aren’t important to me. You were just a detour—a perk of the job, nothing more. So, if you want to marry Garrick, that’s fine by me. You’ll never have to see me again once we’re finished here.”
I aggressively wiped my tears with the back of my hand. I hated how raw and exposed I was, crying openly while she stood there like an unyielding stone wall. I hated how easily she could completely guard herself, turning off whatever warmth we had shared.
As if it meant nothing at all.
“Fine, I will,” I retorted.
“If you want to spend the rest of your life being owned, dressed up and paraded around like some pretty doll he bought—go ahead. That’s all you are to him, Claire.
A debt paid. You’ll never been seen as an equal.
You think he chose you? Claire, he didn’t choose anything.
You’re just the easiest answer he was handed. You’re nothing to him.”
The air went still.
You’re nothing.
Ash’s expression shifted immediately after, regret flickering across her face. But the damage was already done.
“Take me to Norwich,” I said, my voice steadier now, but no less firm. “Today.” Tears blurred my vision again, turning the world soft and indistinct, but I didn’t look away.
“Claire—”
“I don’t care if we arrive at night. I don’t care if it’s dark or inconvenient or unsafe, I will not stay here with you another night.”
The words came out faster now.
“It is time we end this,” I said, lifting my chin. “And you won’t ever have to meet with me again because I will be a duke’s wife.”
Ash stared at me like she didn’t quite recognize the person standing in front of her.
And maybe for the first time, I didn’t recognize myself, either.
Why was it wrong to want a good life?
The question had followed me all afternoon no matter how many times I tried to reason it away.
I didn’t think what I wanted was unreasonable.
I wanted a home where I didn’t have to worry about coin or survival or whether the next season would be kind to us.
I wanted warmth that didn’t come and go, security that didn’t depend on chance or circumstance.
And now, I have been given that opportunity. I was betrothed to a duke, a wealthy man with land, with resources, with a life already built and waiting for me to step into it. That meant something. It had to.
I tightened my hands in my lap, staring out at the passing road as the carriage rolled steadily forward.
If he was arrogant, if he was a little cold, a little gruff—was that so terrible? Marriage wasn’t perfect. Papa and Mama had never been perfect. People have flaws. Building a lasting relationship meant learning to accept those flaws and working around them to create a stable partnership.
That was what I had always believed.
So why did Ash think I was foolish for wanting that?
He’s a bad man. You’re nothing to him.
But she wouldn’t explain or tell me why. She just expected me to trust her word and to give up everything I had dreamed of—for what?
For her?
The thought came uninvited. And I hated how it made my chest tighten. Because I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what it would mean to walk away from all of this and choose something else instead.
Something like her.
But the thought felt foolish the moment it formed. I had known Ash for three weeks. It couldn’t be enough to truly know someone—not in any way that mattered.
And yet…
Someone once told me that if you wanted to understand a person—really understand them—then you should travel with them. See how they carried themselves when they were tired, when they were angry, when things didn’t go their way. See who they were when there was no audience left to impress.
By that measure, I knew Ash in ways that felt dangerously close to real.
Three weeks of watching her choose the harder path without hesitation. Three weeks of sharp words that hid a softer demeanor beneath them. Three weeks of learning the rhythm of her presence and the way she never once faltered when things mattered.
It was more than I had with the duke.
Because that was all he was to me. A name representing a future I had agreed to without ever once standing in the same room as him. And somehow, that was meant to be enough.