Page 18 of The Marquess' Wicked Wager
Her father growled, but he had lost some of his initial energy. “A Marquess is a step down from a duke. It is less status, less money, and less of a man. You will break the engagement and marry the Duke.”
“No,” Edna spoke up again, her heart thundering in her chest, and her eye on his previously raised hand. “The Marquess won the card game. You are bound to honor the wager. If not, your honor will be at stake.”
Of course, this was a repulsive argument, but it was one she was hoping her father would heed.
He stared at her, eyes squinting narrowly and lips twitching. “You’re making a mistake.”
“You gambled my hand away, not I.”
“And you had the right to refuse it! To accept something better.”
Indignation flared within her. “So, I suddenly have a choice now?”
“Of course, you do,” he growled.
“To pick anyone?”
“To pick the Duke!”
Edna clenched her fingers, limbs shaking. Violet set a hand on her shoulder to calm her, and Edna took strength in that. “Then I shall stay with the Marquess. We are madly in love, you see, and shan’t be torn apart.”
She didn’t wait for his reply, hurrying up the stairs and down the hall until she slammed the door shut in her room. She expected wracking sobs to fill her chest, but they did not come. Instead, resilience rose in her.
What a peculiar day it had been. To have her honor attacked. Then to be falsely proposed to in a garden of roses. To have accepted it! And then to have stood up to her father to tell him so. It was a mess of snarled yarn, and eventually, she would have to comb it out. But for now… for now, it felt good to choose for herself. She was still in danger of so many things—falling for the rake of a Marquess, being hunted by the Duke, and potentially facing horrible scandal and ruin—but at least she had chosen the path she was on.
If her fate had been sealed, at least she signed it with her own hand.
* * *
Albert was strangely exhausted after his dalliance with Edna. To be inflamed then chilled then angered then laughing, filled with dread and passion both at once and all in a single afternoon… It was too much. Ducking every single one of his uncle’s poignant and rather insistent questions, Albert had returned straight home, called on his valet to turn away all visitors, and fallen asleep on a chaise in his music room.
He dreamt of his mother as he often did. Of her bright green eyes and pale-yellow hair. Her graceful hands and the soft, gentle lilt of her always quiet voice. He was dancing with her in a ballroom, himself as a man and she as she had been when last he saw her. A waltz, round and round, through a crowd of faceless people. Then slowly, one by one, hideous masks appeared to replace the blurred faces. Demons and gargoyles and laughing pans. He looked up, and his mother was gone. Panicked, his eyes scanned the dance floor until he saw her running with all her might, tripping over the hem of her own dress.
But no, not his mother. Her bright white hair had been replaced with soft, nut-brown curls. Albert stumbled closer, blocked on all sides by the dancers turned chimeras. Edna tried to pull herself up as the creatures fell on her. She screamed and struggled, but soon, all he could hear was the gnashing of teeth and the slurp of saliva. Albert startled himself awake. As he blinked in the blur of sleep, the sound of raised voices filtered in. Boots stomping through a hall.
“Your Grace!” his valet cried, the young man’s voice high and raspy. “His Lordship has asked not to be disturbed.”
“Get out of my way, you rat!” the Duke shouted.
The sound of a blow rattled down the hall, and his valet cried out in pain. Albert jumped to his feet and flew to the door, yanking it open so hard that the hinges moaned. His father stood mere feet from the door, his cane raised in the air about to strike the poor, defenseless young valet a second time.
“You dare come into my house and strike my servants!” Albert stormed forward, yanked the cane from his father’s hand, and snapped it across his knee.
The Duke turned on him, white fire burning in his eyes. Those same eyes had once struck terror into Albert’s heart. When he was younger, too weak and too small to strike back. He remembered nights spent crying in his room, unable to sleep because lying down on his many wounds was far too painful.
Now, Albert met the gaze head-on and tightened his grip on the broken halves of the cane until it squeaked.
“You meddlesome snake,” his father hissed. “What’s this I hear about you being engaged to Edna Worthington?”
Albert threw down the wooden shards and settled into a superior smirk. “That’s right, you old fool. I won the game and the lady.”
“You really think me naïve enough to fall for your ridiculous ruse?”
“What ruse?”
“You swore off marriage years ago when your mother left us.”
The words were like a hay rake being dragged over his nerves. “Mother only left because of you. Because you drove her to the brink of insanity.”
