Chapter 3
Three
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked solemnly forward.
Miss Knowles stared at him in silence, nothing moving in her face beyond a slight widening at the corner of her eyes. They looked more gold than brown in this light, the shade of old uncared-for jewelry.
He looked away and waited, which was something Evander was quite good at.
Most men his age were impatient, and that was their downfall.
Like Freddy. If he had only waited long enough to sit down with Evander and explain things instead of running away with Seraphina, none of this would have happened.
Not his dishonour. Not their family’s disgrace. Not this proposal of marriage which seemed both more reasonable and more insane with every second of silence that passed between him and Miss Knowles. Eventually her feelings seemed to gather themselves inside her and came out of her, unbridled.
“What did you just say?” she asked, then she became very quiet, colour rising to her cheeks. “What… What exactly does your family believe I am? Some sort of… chattel…? Passed between brothers like a… a…”
She pressed her lips together so hard they turned white and glanced sideways at the cushion beside her. He half-expected her to throw it at him, and he preemptively flinched. This seemed to amuse her, before the anger settled again.
“How could you suggest something like that?” she asked, her voice quiet but simmering with anger.
“Have I insulted you?”
“Yes. No.” She sighed. “I don’t know. You have discombobulated me.”
“Ah. But you have not even heard my reasoning for asking for your hand yet. It is the wisest course of action.”
“Wise?” She stopped. “That is not what this is.”
“Then tell me – what is it?”
“Evidently, something you have conjured up in your male brain to make your life easier without any real consideration for me,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut.
She placed her hands on her waist, revealing that the gown was loose where she had thinned out before the wedding – from stress, he gathered.
“You are looking only to undo the damage your family has caused ours to make yourself look better.”
He lowered his hands, but did not move beyond that, afraid of startling her. “I have been accused of worse. I owe you this, Miss Knowles. What was done to you today was wrong, and I am the only person in a position to do anything about it. So I will not take offense to your accusations… for now.”
“How very kind of you.” She looked at him for a long moment. “But this is not charity. You, yourself,” she said, “you also require a solution.”
"Yes," he admitted. "I also require a solution, though I wish it were not the case."
"You are a boor. But at least you are honest."
"Yes, well, I find it saves time."
He watched something move across her face – not quite a smile, but in the vicinity of one, the flicker of something that might have been amusement if the day had been a different kind of day.
She turned toward the window instead, and he let her, because she needed a moment that wasn't being looked at and he understood that instinctively if not consciously.
Outside the window, London was doing what it always did, which was continuing regardless of what happened inside morning rooms. He waited for her in silence.
"Tell me what you are proposing," she said, still looking at the window. "Exactly, beyond the marriage."
He considered the architecture of it. “What is there beyond the marriage? You may experience the marriage as you please. Separate rooms, separate lives. We will need to acquire a special license, but it should not be difficult given our mutual state of affairs. The wedding, I think, could be held next week. After that, I would ask you to leave London with me.”
She blanched, turning at last. “And go where?”
“To my familial seat in Norfolk. Surely my brother told you that is where I spend the majority of my time. It has the additional benefit of being far away. You will not find many of the bon ton,” he said with warranted derision, “in Norwich.”
“I have never been to Norfolk.”
“No? It is a wonderful county.”
Miss Knowles sighed, obviously tired with him already. Evander leaned back in his seat, watching her think. He hoped she was more practical than romantic after all.
“You are asking me,” she said slowly, “to become your wife, the Duchess of Sandacre… just like that?” She shook her head, and her earrings dangled, catching the light. “How can you be so flippant about all this?”
He looked aside, confused. “Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg? Is that how Frederick asked you to become his betrothed?”
“You know how your brother asked me,” she replied with a little moue. “You were there that night. He asked much in the same way that you did, only he had the courtesy to pretend it was not a chore to him, while you qualified it as such, as a task, from the first.”
Something about what she said seemed to give her pause. She let out a shaky breath, moving to the mantle, where she began adjusting the placement of the ornaments there.
“We have spent time in one another's company,” he added, to the back of her head. “We are not strangers. That is more than many marriages begin with.”
“Strangers? No, we certainly are not.”
She turned again then, and she looked at him the way she had in the chapel, briefly, before everything fell apart – when he had pretended he had not noticed her.
A way that suggested she was noticing things he hadn't chosen to display.
It was, he thought, a slightly unnerving thing in a woman he was about to propose a practical arrangement to, who he intended to ignore for the better part of their lives.
He would provide her everything she needed and wanted.
But not himself. Not even if she continued peering into his soul the way she was doing now.
“I am not,” she said carefully, “what you would have chosen for a bride.”
“Maybe not,” he said casually. “I can hardly say myself. But I am not what you would have chosen either. And yet here we are.”
He meant what he was saying. They were here. That was the fact. What they did with it was the only remaining question between them – and his proposal, though had that even been a question?
“Then, yes,” she gave by way of an answer – at least he thought.
He looked at her. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Something in her posture changed.
“I agree to becoming your wife, so long as I can make my own terms known to you as well.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, smiled slightly.
The expression, despite himself, made his neck hot.
“So much has happened today. How did we get here? Before you arrived, I was telling my aunt I intended to be a spinster all my life.”
“You have money.”
She scoffed. “You are a strange sort of gentleman. Most men would never ask a woman about her finances.”
“If we are to be married, it seems an important consideration. Though I know about your dowry with my brother, the house in Scotland… But you mentioned terms. Name them. Then we will decide whether you will become duchess or a spinster.”
She nodded then began listing them carefully. “First… It seems a melodramatic and poetic thing to ask, really, but you must respect me – if we are really to be married.”
He bristled at the word must, but mostly held his tongue. “Did you think I would not have? Have I struck you as disrespectful so far?”
“Not at all, Your Grace.” She looked at her shoes.
“But from what I have heard and read, men can be much different creatures in their marriages and lose even the basest grasp of civility. You will need to respect me, my wants and wishes, my thoughts, even if they seem benign or wrong to you, for me to live happily. I would want to be consulted on matters that concern me, the real decisions.”
He swallowed but nodded. “I would not have a marriage any other way.”
“Thank you. Now that’s done…” She breathed a sigh of relief, stopping herself with visible effort.
“I understand this would be a marriage of convenience. But I would not want to be made to feel merely convenient – or inconvenient – absent, half a person. I feel I could not succeed in my role if I was made to feel like I was a second choice, wearing the costume of a first, if you understand the simile.”
“I do.”
“Then… what do you think to do about it?”
He held her gaze, somehow impressed by her. “I think to say that they are reasonable demands.”
She lifted her brows. “Do you think?”
He nodded. It was, he thought, the strangest engagement he had ever heard of.
“A more reasonable future than becoming cautionary tales. The less I am spoken about, the better. I will begin the process of acquiring the license today, if you have agreed, which I believe you have,” he said.
“You will hear from me by tomorrow morning, I think, with the particulars.”
Miss Knowles’s neck bobbed, but she nodded nonetheless. A moment of silence, and then, “Well, then, yes. My answer is yes. Do you require anything else from… me?”
He shook his head. “Do not run off to Gretna Green?”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “That, I believe I can manage.”
He turned toward the door – to leave, to hide his own smile. Perhaps they were both mad, turned mad by the events of the morning. He had his hand on the door when she spoke, primed to pull it open.
“Evander– ah…”
He stopped and turned back. She was standing where he had left her, by the windows, still in her wedding gown, and she was looking at him with an expression he couldn't immediately classify.
The light played on her hair and skin, casting her in gold.
For a moment, that halo around her was all he registered. And then he realised what she had said.
“Forgive me,” she said, looking disappointed in herself. “I don't know why I said that. Force of habit, after hearing your brother say it all the time in my presence.”
“It is just a name.”
“Yes, but…” She paused, still looking faintly startled by herself. “It seemed… I don't know. Everything else today has been very formal. It seemed strange to end on Your Grace. And then, what I really meant to say was… thank you.”
He looked at her for a moment. The clock ticked. Neither of them moved. He did not know what to say. He hardly deserved her thanks.
“Aurelia,” he said, and she went very still. “Thank you.”
He said her name the same way she had said his, a slip, as though he was simply confirming that she existed in his mind, today, as something more than she had been yesterday, which had been mostly a stranger.
She looked away first, toward the window, toward the untamed gardens outside, which stood there like the world was entirely in order.
He left then, before either of them could say anything further. She did not call him back by his name or his title or anything.
To his surprise, the aunt was nowhere to be seen when he opened the door to leave. Outside, he stood on the pavement before the Knowles-Hartwell house for a moment in the ordinary afternoon. A coal cart went past. Somewhere down the street a child was shouting about something.
Evander had not used a woman's given name in a very long time. He was not certain he had ever done it quite like that, not even with Seraphina, maybe not even with his own mother or cousins.
There was no use thinking about it further. He adjusted his coat and walked away.