Page 94 of Married to a Frozen Duke
"I think there's truth on both sides, and I think this conversation is exactly what happens when neither side is willing to see the other's perspective."
"What perspective should I see? That I should apologize for my birth? That I should feel guilty for maintaining traditions and standards that have existed for centuries?"
"Maybe you should feel something about the family that's about to be evicted. Did you know about that?"
He was quiet for a moment too long. "I receive reports on all estate matters."
"That's not an answer."
"The Wheelers have been struggling for months. They've been given multiple extensions."
"And now their child is ill."
"That's unfortunate, but the estate cannot operate on sentiment."
Ophelia stared at him, and he must have seen something in her expression because he shifted uncomfortably.
"This is exactly what Charles means," she said quietly. "You reduce human suffering to an unfortunate inconvenience in your ledgers."
"And your brothers reduce centuries of history and tradition to theft and greed. Neither perspective is entirely accurate or fair."
"No," she agreed, rising from the table. "But at least my brothers see people as people, not as entries in an estate report."
She left before he could respond, though she heard him call her name as she climbed the stairs. She needed to find Charles and Edward before they did something truly catastrophic, though given the morning's conversation, she wondered if they weren't already past that point.
She found them in the long gallery, and her heart sank as she heard their voices raised in what sounded like an argument. As she approached, she saw them tossing something between them—a ball of some sort? No, as she got closer, she realized with horror that it was an ornate decorative sphere, probably priceless, that had been sitting on one of the display pedestals.
"Charles! Edward! What are you doing?"
"Playing catch," Edward said, tossing the sphere to Charles with casual disregard for its probable value. "There's nothing else to do in this tomb, and His Grace is too busy being offended by our existence to provide any actual entertainment."
"Put that down immediately, that's probably worth more than..."
"More than our entire house?" Charles interrupted, catching the sphere and pretending to examine it. "Probably. Everything here is worth more than entire families could earn in lifetimes, all sitting around gathering dust while people in the village struggle to eat."
"That doesn't give you the right to..."
"To what? Touch the precious artifacts? Heaven forbid we common folk soil the aristocracy's treasures with our merchant hands." Edward's voice was bitter as he reached for the sphere.
What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion. Charles tossed the sphere with a bit too much force, Edward reached for it but misjudged the distance, and the ornate orb sailed past his outstretched fingers and crashed into a display case containing what looked like an ancient Chinese vase.
The sound of shattering porcelain echoed through the gallery like a gunshot.
For a moment, nobody moved. They all stood frozen, staring at the destruction—the vase was in pieces, the sphere had cracked, and the display case glass was scattered across the floor like deadly stars.
"Oh Heavens," Charles whispered, the color draining from his face. "Oh no, Phee, I didn't mean..."
"What on earth—" Alexander's voice from the doorway was like thunder.
He stood there taking in the scene; the destroyed vase, the damaged sphere, his wife and her brothers standing amid the wreckage like children caught in the worst possible mischief.
"It was an accident," Ophelia said quickly, moving between Alexander and her brothers. "They didn't mean..."
"An accident?" Alexander's voice was deadly quiet as he walked into the room, glass crunching under his boots. "They were playing catch with a sixteenth-century celestial sphere that's been in my family for three hundred years, and you call it an accident?"
"We didn't know it was that old," Edward said, though his voice lacked its earlier bravado.
"You didn't know? Or you didn't care? Just like you don't care about anything in this house except how you can use it to make your point about the evils of aristocracy?"
