Page 17 of His Mad Duchess
“She will,” Cecily chimed in. “And you’ll both stand there and smile for the papers, and everyone will pretend it was the happiest accident in the world.”
Margaret made a small noise that might have been a laugh or a sob. She braced her palm flat on the mantel, grounding herself. “Very well, then. A week.”
She looked at his hand—it was broad, steady, scarred at the knuckles. A ruin signing on for another terrible decision.
Margaret hesitated just a breath too long. And for that heartbeat, something shifted behind Sebastian’s eyes; it was definitely the faint glint of real feeling.
“Truth be told,” he said quietly, softer than before. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.”
A huff of something like a laugh slipped out, but it didn’t reach his eyes this time. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. And now, they’ll bind us up like a pretty cautionary tale for every gossip in London.”
He paused, thumb brushing his other palm as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands for once.
“If I could spare you, hell… spare myself, I would.”
A beat, then the humor flicked back into place.
“But here we are. I promise I’ll be… mostly tolerable. As husbands go.”
He held his hand out again. It was steady now, the half-smile neat and practiced.
“Shall we, Lady Margaret?”
Margaret stared at him, seeing the slip, the patch of raw truth he’d tried to hide. Then slid her smaller hand into his. Warm and too steady for how her pulse jumped in her throat.
“A week,” she said again, but softer.
And Cecily, in the corner, only whispered, “Oh, Margaret…” but it was too quiet for either of them to answer.
Sebastian’s gaze lingered a moment longer, unreadable, before he inclined his head. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out, the door closing softly behind him.
Cecily stepped forward from the corner, her hand finding Margaret’s wrist and tightening gently. She drew her away from the spot where Sebastian had stood, guiding her back across the threshold into the drawing room. The warmth of the fire and the faint clink of porcelain swelled to meet them.
Margaret moved as if through water. Cecily’s fingers were still looped around her wrist, half-guiding, half-holding her up as they crossed back toward Beatrice and Aunt Agnes by the fireplace. Margaret’s tongue felt numb, her chest tight with words that wouldn’t shape themselves.
Cecily cleared her throat, voice too brisk to tremble.
“It’s done, then. He said it himself. They’ll marry.”
Beatrice let out a strangled sound that sounded suspiciously like half-laugh or half-sob. She pressed a fist to her mouth like she could hold it in.
“He … he’s really… marrying you?”
Margaret’s eyes flicked to her cousin, but she couldn’t hold them there. They darted back to the door instead, the empty space where he’d vanished. Her voice came out raw.
“He is.”
Beatrice stared at Margaret like she’d grown a second head. “I thought you hated him.”
“I do,” Margaret muttered, still staring at the door. “I barely know him.”
Aunt Agnes sank into the nearest chair as if her knees had buckled all at once. Her handkerchief twisted between her fingers until the lace bit into her palm.
“The Duke of Ravenscourt,” she murmured, staring at the hearth as if the coals might answer her. “Marrying you. God help us all.”
Beatrice whirled on her, voice pitching sharp with panic. “Do you realize what people will say? What this will do to the rest of us if it falls through?”
“It won’t,” Margaret snapped before she could stop herself. The room flinched. She pulled in a breath, softer. “It won’t fall through.”
