The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)(29)

“You’ll allow me to choose the date of my own wedding?” she muttered. “How permissive of you.”

His head came up at that. “Permissive? Don’t think that because I grant you this that I will be an easy husband. I won’t, not in the least. If you try any tricks once we’re married, Minnie, I’ll toss you out. And we both know you have nowhere to go.”

She couldn’t breathe.

God, she couldn’t breathe.

Nothing he said came as a surprise. But she’d imagined that marriage—even to a man who made her skin crawl—would bring safety and security. In her own mind, marriage lasted forever. It had never occurred to her that someone else would see it differently.

If she married him, she would only become more desperate, not less. If the truth about her ever came out, he would turn her out, and never mind the marriage.

Minnie smoothed her hands on her skirt. “Mr. Gardley, that was a no to your entire proposal, not just to the wedding date. Thank you, but no.”

He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “Why would you say no?”

After that little speech of his? “You think I am quiet, meek, and biddable.” Even now, her voice was low, scarcely enough to fill on corner of the room. He moved; his seat creaked loudly. She could feel herself drowning in the noise of him.

He let out a forced little laugh. “Your womanly character, Miss Pursling, is your highest recommendation.” He leaned in. “Never think yourself weak because you are bendable.”

“Mr. Gardley, you are not listening to me.”

“The woman bends like a reed in the storm,” he continued, talking over her. “The man breaks like an oak.” He frowned. “Or is it supposed to be a beech tree? Yes, that’s it. In a strong wind, a man breaks like a beech.” He reached for her hand. “I chose you because you would understand my requirements, and because I believe you have the ability to execute them.”

Look up? No, the Duke of Clermont had it all wrong. She needed to look down. She’d allowed herself to believe that this man offered her some measure of safety. She suffered from too much optimism, not too little. Gardley had made it perfectly clear that he felt no loyalty to her. Where was the safety in that?

“That’s ridiculous,” Minnie said. “Women break like beeches, too. Why on earth do you imagine that I am so flexible, when I am refusing to marry you?”

“You’re…you’re refusing?” He frowned. “You can’t refuse. That was the whole point—” He coughed, grimacing.

“That was the whole point of telling your mother that you were courting me?” Minnie finished for him. “That you’d pick someone she approved of, someone so desperate she could not say no, even if you never bothered to exert yourself to win me over?”

He was silent. He wasn’t even man enough to look her in the eye and admit it. Finally, he shrugged sullenly. “What do you want? Should I take you driving a few times?”

Stevens still suspected her. The threat of exposure was as great as ever. But if she married Gardley, she’d never be safe. That realization terrified her more than ever. For so long, marriage had seemed a talisman. But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure what was enough any longer.

She reached out and turned Walter Gardley’s face to hers. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes, and since his gaze kept shying away from her scar, it left him staring at the corner of her right cheek.

“No,” she said quietly. “I will not marry you.”

He looked utterly flummoxed. “But…but…what will you do?” he asked.

“BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO?” AUNT ELIZA ASKED, not quite thirty minutes later.

Minnie sat in the front parlor, her great-aunts seated on the sofa across from her. Eliza’s needles clacked as she carefully darned a stocking. Caro simply watched her with folded arms.

Always know the path ahead. That had been one of her father’s rules. Why she would cling to those now, after everything he’d done to her, she didn’t know. Maybe because forgetting them would make her childhood not just a result of lies, but false through and through. Still, Minnie shook her head.

“We want you to be happy,” Caro said. “And I would never tell you to have no ambition. But the trick is to want only an appropriate amount. If I yearned to be Queen of England, you see, I’d never be satisfied.”

“I don’t want to be Queen of England.” Minnie folded her arms around herself.

“No, no.” Caro smiled sadly at her. “All I’m saying is, you should want just enough to make you stretch your arms a little bit. More than that, and you’ll do yourself an injury.”

Minnie stood. “I didn’t refuse Gardley because I wanted too much. It wasn’t that I thought I could do better. It was simply that I couldn’t do worse.”

Caro tried to suppress a sigh, but she didn’t quite manage it.

“Think of this logically,” Minnie said. “Because I should have before. If I marry someone who wants a quiet, dutiful wife, he will put me away if he discovers my past.”

Eliza’s needles came to a standstill.

It was dangerous talk, that, and they all knew it.

Look up. But she wouldn’t. If she were looking up, she’d think of a man standing next to her, the sun glinting off his blond hair while he told her how clever she was.