She set her cup down gently. It was not as though this was a surprise. She’d always known this day would come. This was her price to pay. After eighteen years of receiving everything a girl could wish—everything of material value, at least—it was now time to see through her duty.
“You shall be pleased to hear that Lord Everley is exceedingly wealthy,” her stepmother said, all brisk business as though Delilah’s life was not crashing down around her ears.
Indeed, Delilah had no doubt her stepmother was relishing this moment.
Delilah’s mother had died during childbirth. Young and fragile, by all accounts, her mother had suffered numerous miscarriages and Delilah did not doubt that she suffered mightily from her father’s displeasure at being left heirless.
Delilah often suspected that her mother was blessed to have died when she did, not knowing that her last act on this earth had been the greatest disappointment of all.
She’d at last delivered a child, and it had been a useless girl.
Her stepmother had been glad of it, no doubt. It gave her the chance to provide the son her father so desperately desired.
But fate was not so kind to this family.
And so it was that Delilah was given everything she wished. She was spoiled, she would be the first to admit it. Her father and stepmother handed her over to a steady stream of nursemaids, governesses, and tutors, until she’d grown old enough to attend finishing school.
All of that learning, the skills and the manners, the jewels, the balls, and the best gowns money could buy—it had all been for this.
So that she might snare a husband of great fortune.
“A baron,” she mused, as though she were referring to someone else’s future husband and not her own. “I thought Father had his sights set higher.”
The slight twitch of the baroness’s lips might have been a smile, if she were capable of such a thing. “Are you disappointed?” She eyed Delilah as though just seeing her now for the first time. “Did you expect to marry an earl?” She laughed without humor. “My, someone thinks well of herself.”
She ignored the jab. Sharp words that used to prick her sensitive skin as a child, now bounced off of her skin, thanks to a thick layer of scars. “I merely meant that Father had always said—”
“Your father wished for a marriage that would ensure his family had nothing to fear financially. Lord Everley can and will provide that comfort.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Are you disappointed?” Her stepmother’s voice was mild. Distantly curious, at best, as she eyed Delilah over the edge of her teacup.
Was she disappointed? That her father had just sold her to the highest bidder? No. That was to be expected. Was she horrified at the idea of spending the rest of her days with a man who might be more cruel than her own family?
Yes.
She met her stepmother’s gaze evenly. “Of course not.”
That horror, the sinking sensation, the heartache that made her chest feel too small…
She held her stepmother’s gaze as she forced that all aside. She pushed it down—far, far down. So deep inside her that she was finally able to tilt her lips up in the small, satisfied smile she’d so expertly perfected when she was nine years old. “I am certain this marriage will be quite satisfactory.”
A little while later, when the carriage was to be drawn ‘round to return her to the school, she found she could not do it. She could not go back to the school and her friends and their kind concern.
Here in this house, facing her stepmother, she could actually believe her own words. The marriage would be satisfactory. After all, Everley was a man of means. Her father had chosen him. He might not be kind, but he was nothing she could not handle.
Delilah pushed her shoulders back and tilted her chin up. This was what she was meant for. This was her purpose, and she would make it work.
She would build the perfect life, even if her husband wasn’t the man of her choosing.
“You must be eager to return,” her stepmother said. “You will wish to share your good news with your friends, I am certain.”
Whether her stepmother was in earnest or taunting her was difficult to determine. Either way, it did not matter because she found she was quite incapable of moving toward the door.
After an hour of wishing to flee, she could not do it.
The thought of their reactions… The way Addie would look at her with alarm, how Prudence would scowl and pester, how Miss Grayson’s eyes would fill with sympathy, how Louisa would… Well, Louisa would be Louisa.
No. She could not face their questions nor their censure.
Most of all, she could not face their pity.
“Do you know…” she started slowly. “With all the preparations that will need to be made before the wedding. Might it not be best if I stay here at home until the wedding?”
If her stepmother was surprised, she did not let on. “If that is what you wish.”
It was not what her stepmother wished, that much was clear.
Delilah didn’t much relish the idea of being under this roof again, either. But the alternative was so much worse so she said, “That is what I wish.”
Her stepmother sniffed. “Then so be it.”
2
Rupert Calloway might have been the second son of the Marquess of Markland, but few would ever know it.
“A Mr. Calloway is here to see you, sir.”
Rupert overheard the butler as he rudely followed in the servant’s wake. But really, the Earl of Tolston had been the one to summon him and had demanded he arrive in haste.
Surely he was not meant to wait in the foyer. And aside from all that…
“Rupert!” Tolston shouted his name as he bounded toward the door.
Rupert grinned. Aside from that—they were old friends.
Tolston embraced him in a hug that ended with him pounding his back. “Good to see you again.” Tolston gestured for him to take
