Chapter 3

The next morning at breakfast I was relieved to find Edmund alone. As soon as the servants poured tea and left, his china cup rattled down into the saucer and he spoke.

It was not often he took pains to converse with me. Usually I watched his grey face, limp strands of fading grey hair nodding along with the newspaper and gossip rags he devoured. The paper remained crisply folded, he stared at me with his fingers steepled.

“I believe I need to remind you of your duties as a wife, Vanessa.”

“In three years I believe I have never caused you displeasure sir?”

“I have never asked you for anything. There is a difference. This request is for your security as well as the estates. You know that if I were to die now, you would be in a poorhouse within six months unless your family rescues you.”

“My family would never see me struggle,” I replied quickly, a flush of panic rising.

“Until a child is born, my will contains a letter. A letter addressed to every gutter press in London, and your mother, containing lurid descriptions of your affairs. Explaining why I could never take you to the London Season for fear of you being caught in the arms of yet another man. I added some wonderfully gruesome details about finding you in a whorehouse, asking to be taken by any man willing just for the pleasure.”

A shockwave raced through me to hear the grey, placid man speak such bile. A tear softly rolled down my cheek as hatred pulsed through my body. “You would ruin your own family name to take revenge on me? Tarrick Hall, the Duchy would be ruined?”

“If you don’t produce an heir I have no need for the Tarrick family name, my brother can work with the scorched ruins of your reputation. Your family won’t take you when the gossips update you from ‘missing Duchess’ to ‘Desperate Duchess’,” snickering at his own rancid amusement,

He raised a hand in mock horror, “oh! Think of your poor sister Kitty. Fresh out this season isn’t she? She will be hoping for a good match, imagine if her family is suddenly tarred with the worst kind of reputation. I am not above putting a few lines in about her trying to seduce me if you continue to play silly games here Vanessa.”

“I…how can you do this to me?”

“Because you are mine. I own your body and soul as my wife. Just because I cannot…fulfil the physical act, the rest of the world does need to know that.”

“His eyes…” I mutter, staring into my china cup.

“Exactly. We share a startling amount of physical resemblance. You are probably too young to remember but before my illness ravaged me I was a fairly muscular fellow, our hair is the same colour. It will work,” his hands trembling and struggling to hold his tea with the force of speaking for so long. 

“I need…I need time to think about this. You know what you are asking of me don’t you? My honour, my dignity as a female is being traded like bonds.”

Edmund shrugged, his muscleless shoulders rising the same as a vulture's, high and edgy under his smart suit. His eyes were green but lacking the lustre of his recruited gigolo. Possibly age, or maybe drugs, it was hard to tell these days with his pain. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair as some kind of spasm rocketed up and down his spine.

After his thin grey face relaxed out of contortion, into one of mere snarling pain, he almost spat the words. “Now your mother and sister are arriving today. I arranged it.”

“They are?” I cried, this was something normally arranged weeks in advance. I thought Edmund was an old duffer cooped up in his library reading textbooks, he’d been planning this for months.

“If you do not agree before they leave, I shall hand over the first copy of the letter, newly updated with some filth on Kitty before your mama’s feet touch the carriage.”

“I’m going to the stables,” I snap and get up from the breakfast table, “if I am to sign my honour away I want to at least be sure the mans not a complete savage.”

Edmund’s chuckling as I left only made my anger boil more strongly as I stormed away, my dress billowing behind me. Leaning against the wooden stable split door, Fitz seemed to have anticipated my arrival. I wore a paler blue gown, tied around the waist with a snow white ribbon. As I approached his eyes stayed on mine, a light, jolly smile on his face.

“What on earth have you got to smile about?” I snapped, not caring for any civility today.

“Your Grace,” he replied with a deep, overcomplicated bow, followed by ten seconds of hand twirling. It took everything I had not to laugh at his pitiful display despite everything. “Better I suppose,” I reply with a sulk. “Crawling on the floor begging would suit better,” making that deep, rumbling chuckle reappear.

He wore a white shirt today, the same beige leather braces and button pants. They clung to his thighs, his riding boots fitting his calves snugly. 

“You know why you are here?”

“I do indeed.”

“And you are happy with this arrangement?”

He leaned forward, eyes darting for any prying servants before whispering, “I believe whatever happens I am safe in this particular situation.”

“How do you see that?”

He took another step forward, close enough for me to smell his scent mixed with hay. There was no perfumery, no lotions on his skin, just a manliness I’d never been near enough to breathe before. 

“Because I am in this for my own amusement. I shan’t be falling in love and begging you to run away with me.”

I raised my eyebrow. “I have already been sorely disappointed by a man in my life, what on earth makes you think you are any different, any better than the Duke? You’re nothing but a rogue, a scoundrel of the lowest sort.”

His face screwed in confusion as if working out a puzzle. Eventually he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and rolled his eyes. “You think you are the issue? That His Grace has left you alone because you are somehow defective?” and he broke out into a laugh, that he tried to stifle with his large, rough hand.

My anger rose to the boil again, before he could even begin to explain himself I found my hand coming towards him, planting a stinging slap against his face. Then I turned on my heel and headed back to the house.

“I can refuse this, you know!” I cried over my shoulder.

“You won’t,” he called back. “I’ll crawl!” he added, making me shake my head in frustration at the lightness he took this situation with. How is such a situation to ever be survived!

I fled back along the eastern wing of Tarrick Hall towards the main house entrance, only vaguely aware of the carriage approaching containing my mother and sister. Three years of my life in suspense, everything seemed to be happening at a gallop since yesterday. 

I could barely catch my breath, shaking my hand where it had touched the rough stubble of his face. Quickly looking back he had vanished inside. 

Good. 

Now to survive an afternoon with my mother. Such a shame I could not give her the same treatment as Fitz. It is her meddling that has landed me here, three years of my life squandered already, where shall the next lead me.