Chapter 8 #3
“I am no stranger to scandal. This is about legal expediency. You and your offspring will be mine to defend if we are wed. I shall be his or her father, and the old woman will have no power, even if you do carry the true heir to this title.”
Despite trying to bait him into making this very decision, she now seemed at odds.
Resentment firmed her jaw as she rose to go stare pensively out the window that overlooked Fortune’s Fall.
Alistair waited, knowing precisely when to speak and when to remain silent while negotiating with an opponent.
“I already wed one man and lost all my voice. Now you command me to wed another who does not need to hear my answer.”
A humorless smile stretched his lips as he considered the irony of her resistance.
“I hear you. I hear you very well. You wish for me to be your champion. To take the reins of this crumbling dukedom and build it into greatness. A title that will take care of you and the girls. That will place you in a position of genuine authority and render the old woman moot so you might reshape this household. How do you propose I do that if you will not now cooperate by taking vows with me? If you wish to have my protection, a wedding is the only guarantee of success.”
The silence that followed was crowded with the sound of rain against glass. Her hand rested against the stone sill, and Alistair watched the tension in her shoulders, the slight bow of her head, and resisted the impulse to cross the room. He had made his case. The rest was hers to decide.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet but contained none of the trembling from before. “You speak of this as though it were a contract.”
“What would you have me call it?” He kept his tone level, though her reproach found a mark he had not anticipated. “I am a man of commerce, Josephine. I understand terms and obligations. But I also understand loyalty, and I am offering you mine. Without condition.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and the look she gave him was searching and long.
He held it without flinching, allowing her to see whatever she needed to see.
If she wished to find falsehood in his expression, she would search in vain.
Alistair Fraser-Oxley did not dissemble.
It was a flaw the aristocracy would find intolerable and one of the few qualities he considered worthy of pride.
“And if I say yes, you will truly stand between us and the dowager? You will ensure the girls are brought into society? That Seraphina and Arabella will have their chance? Be … a father to—” She gestured at her belly.
“You have my word on it. And I do not give my word carelessly.”
Something shifted behind her eyes. The wariness remained, stubborn as the weather, but beneath it, he glimpsed the first tentative stirring of belief. Of trust not yet formed but considering whether it might take root.
“Then I accept.” The words were said in a grave tone that acknowledged what she was surrendering and what she hoped to gain. “I accept, Your Grace.”
She walked back toward him, stopping close enough that the chamomile sweetness of her skin reached him. He looked down into those remarkable gray eyes and felt something loosen in his chest that had been wound tight for years.
“Thank you,” he said. He meant it more than he had anticipated. An indefinable change had occurred between them in the space of a few words, subtle as a change in the weather. The negotiation was over. What remained felt entirely different.
She tilted her face upward, and for a suspended moment, the rain and the crumbling estate and the obligations waiting in London all receded.
There was only Josephine, pale and resolute and carrying a courage that humbled him.
He lifted a hand to brush a loose strand of honey-blonde hair from her temple, his calloused fingertips grazing the silk of her skin, and felt her breath catch.
I am being selfish.
The thought did not trouble him. Selflessness had governed the better part of his adult life, and it had left him with a prosperous mill, loyal brothers, and a persistent hollowness that no ledger entry could fill.
He had abandoned the only woman he had ever courted, while at university, a rector’s daughter with clever eyes and a fondness for Virgil, because his father’s death had demanded he return to the mill and become a man before he had finished being young.
He had not regretted the choice. He had simply never made another.
The years since had been filled with work and obligation and the quiet loneliness of a man who slept each night in a house built for a family he had never allowed himself to want.
If wanting Josephine made him selfish, then selfishness was long overdue.
There was more to settle between them. But for now, standing in the gray light of the west library with the rain on the glass and Josephine watching him with those remarkable eyes, Alistair found himself in no hurry at all.
However, he did not know what she would make of the rest of his news, whether it would please or anger.