Chapter 3 #2
He did not answer at once. He looked at Maria and then finally spoke. “A week.”
“A week?” Violet blinked.
“Give me a week to find Miss Havenford a husband worthy of her. If I fail, I will marry her myself.”
Maria’s breath vanished, and it felt as though something terrible and amazing had occurred at the same time. Violet spoke up first.
“You will…what?”
“Marry her,” he said, the words almost offhand. “If I fail. I do not intend to fail, of course. So, there should be no trouble, but still, as a reassurance.”
As a reassurance. She did not know what was worse. Trapping Peter into a marriage with him, or agreeing to be with someone as a reassurance.
“Why would you even offer that?” Violet demanded. “You are proposing to play matchmaker?”
“I am proposing to dispose of a difficulty I helped create.”
“Hm.” Violet folded her arms. “And if your… efforts… fail?”
“Then I will do the thing you suggested a moment ago.” He met Maria’s eyes when he said it. “I will marry you.”
“You cannot mean it,” Maria finally spoke.
“I do.” He did not soften it with charm. “I give my word.”
“You give your word as if it costs you nothing,” she said.
He looked at her as if she had struck him.
“It costs me a great deal,” he said. He turned to Violet. “Will you accept my terms?”
Violet studied him for a moment. She was showing up as the older, protective sister that Maria had never had the privilege of having. But in this moment, she could only be grateful.
“A week,” she repeated. “And in that week, you will… audition husbands.”
“I will draw the right men near, keep the wrong men away, and teach Miss Havenford to look as if gentlemen do not terrify her.” His glance flicked to Maria with the faintest edge of amusement. “By the end of the week, she will be perfectly suited to make a good wife for any gentleman.”
“You will do this without ruining her further?” Violet asked, her protective side coming out again.
“As I have already mentioned, my sins do not include ruining women who do not wish it.” He added, “You might also note, Your Grace, that I could have allowed the footman who paused outside this door a minute ago to collect a scene. I did not.”
“There was…?”
“Yes.” He angled his head toward the corridor. “He hesitated, but he went on. He will remember nothing if nothing is presented for him to remember.”
Violet looked at the door, then she exhaled. “Very well. I accept your terms. A week.”
Maria found the hem of her sleeve between her fingers and worried at it.
“I…thank you.”
“You will thank me by obeying,” Stephen said, “I have neither the time nor the patience to coax you if you decide to be contrary.”
“I am not contrary,” she said, stung. Is that the opinion he had of her?
“You are terrified,” he returned simply. “And terrified women make perverse choices. For a week, you will do only what I ask of you.”
Violet looked between them and suddenly pressed a hand to her forehead with a breath.
“If, at the end of this week, you have not found a man worth Maria and you must keep your word, do it without the show you wear for other people. You will marry her quietly, with respect.”
The tiny knot at the corner of Stephen’s mouth smoothed.
“You have my promise.”
Violet nodded once. “We will keep this from Nicholas, for now.”
“Would you really do that for me?” Maria asked. That was the last thing that she expected.
“He would do nothing but pace,” Violet said, which was exactly what Maria had thought. “None of which would help.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” A startled laugh escaped Maria.
“He would,” Violet said. “You will tell him when you wish, or I will, if we must. But let this be between the two of us for now.”
“The three of us,” Stephen corrected, smirking.
“I am sorry,” Maria said, because there was no better phrase.
“You may be sorry in the morning,” Violet said, gathering herself. “Tonight, be safe.”
She moved toward the door, then stopped, and unexpectedly reached out to touch Maria’s cheek. “You are not a burden,” she said again. “You are my family.”
The words made something inside Maria crumple.
“I will try to be worth it,” she whispered.
“You are already worth it,” Violet said, “Now, let us leave here. Do not open any more doors you have not knocked upon.”
“Yes,” Maria murmured. “I promise.”
Violet looked to Stephen last.
“Your week begins when the clock strikes twelve tonight, not before.”
“Midnight,” he agreed.
“If you ruin her between now and then,” Violet added, “I will convince every woman in London to ruin you in turn.”
“That seems just.”
Violet nodded and slipped out, closing the door gently.
The very moment she was gone, Maria turned to follow, only to stop short when Stephen’s hand closed around her wrist.
“One last thing,” he said.
Maria looked down at his hand, and then up at his face. She could not read it. Men’s expressions were largely a mystery to her; she knew only that he wore a look of decision.
“Yes?” she managed.
“If I am to conjure you a husband in a week,” he said, “you will not sabotage me by being afraid of your own shadow. We begin lessons tomorrow.”
“Lessons?”
“In being seen without apologizing for it,” he said. “In saying three sentences about anything at all without checking the room to see if it approves.”
“You make me sound ridiculous,” Heat rushed to her cheeks. “It is not as though you know me.”
“I know enough,” he said with a certainty that terrified her. “You make yourself small.”
“I cannot help how rooms feel,” she said, stung again. “They get large very suddenly.”
“Then we will make you large enough for them.” His mouth curved in something like a smirk again. “You are not a little thing, Miss Havenford. It is a waste to behave as if you are.”
She did not know what to do with that comment.
“You are going to teach me in five days what other women appear to have known since infancy?”
“No. I am going to pretend you have always known it and insist you act accordingly until everyone believes me. It is faster.”
“I do not like being ordered,” she said, feeling her heart beat faster.
“I do not like being trapped in my own bedchamber,” he returned evenly. “The week will be full of annoyances for both of us.”
“I will do as I choose,” she said.
“You will do as I ask or we will marry on Tuesday and spend the rest of our lives discovering just how contrary you can be,” he said. He released her wrist, then, as if the point did not require holding her to make it.
“You are very sure of your own talents, Your Grace.”
“I am,” he said simply. “It is one of my worst qualities.”
“And if your talents fail,” she pressed, “you will… marry me.”
“Yes.”
“How can you say that without flinching?” she whispered. “How can you bind yourself like that?”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Because somebody else did not keep his word once,” he said, so quietly she almost missed it. “And because I have no intention of failing.”
She hardly knew what to say. " Thank you" was too small; "don’t bother" was an insult to a gift he had not had to offer. She settled for a nod.
“Very well. Two instructions before I let you go.”
“Two?” she asked, suspicious already.
“First: sleep. You will be useless to me if you stagger about all day without having rested well. Second: tomorrow, you will go nowhere alone. If a gentleman you do not know smiles at you, you will not smile back unless I am within fifteen feet.”
“That is absurd,” she said.
“Correct,” he agreed, untroubled. “But it will amuse them long enough for me to arrive. Until I have rebuilt your instincts, you may borrow mine.”
“You are a very arrogant man.”
“Yes,” he said cheerfully. “But I am your arrogant man for seven days.”
The sentence startled a breath out of her. She smoothed her skirts, then stopped.
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Yes, tomorrow, we begin. If you are late, you will stand on the hearth rug and recite to me from memory the names of ten novels you like.”
“I…” She nearly confessed that she had not been permitted novels where she came from. She did not confess it. “I shall not be late.”
“Good.” His eyes warmed. “Go.”
She went.
What did I walk myself into?