Violet felt a deep rage that he was already addressing her as if she were no longer the Duchess of Attorton.
“It is a pleasure to see you again. It has been a long time since we last crossed paths, and I admit, I have thought of you often since then.”
If Violet hadn’t already been feeling sick by everything that was happening to her, this would have turned her stomach. The last time she’d seen Lord Redfield was when she was sixteen. Even then, he was in his sixties. Fifty years her senior, and he had been thinking of her often? A child? It was enough to make her want to spit in his face.
They were standing in the parlor of the inn they had arrived at half an hour ago. It was shabby, not at all the kind of place a peermight frequent, but she supposed that was why Redfield had chosen it—no one would look for them here.
For the past few minutes, he had been inspecting her like she was a prize mare, and her skin was crawling, fury pumping through her.
Think of Rosalie, she reminded herself for the hundredth time since the carriage had pulled to a halt in front of the inn.Better you marry this man than her.
Rosalie was strong, but she wasn’t resilient like Violet and Iris. Marrying a man like Redfield would extinguish the fire inside of her. Violet… Well, Violet had learned to stamp down that fire a long time ago. She could do it again.
“Lord Redfield,” she forced herself to say as politely as possible, “we meet under strange circumstances.”
“Strange, are they?” Redfield raised an eyebrow.
His eyes were dull and lifeless, and Violet wondered if this was the result of his advanced age or if he had always had a dead look in his eyes. The rest of him was very old. His face was deeply wrinkled, and his skin was beginning to gray and spot. The hand holding hers shook slightly.
“I think not,” he continued. “Marriage between a beautiful young woman and a wealthy gentleman is the most natural thing in the world.”
Violet had to work to keep from rolling her eyes. The circumstances were strange, whatever Redfield said. Just earlier today, she was married. And now…
Redfield turned to Jebediah, who stood behind her, cold and alert.
“You have the document?” he asked, his voice considerably less warm now that he was speaking to her father.
“Yes.” Jebediah produced the document that Mr. Cain had given him in Reading and handed it to Lord Redfield.
Lord Redfield held it close and began to read through it, his eyes flicking back and forth, his frown deepening.
“And this is legal?” he asked, staring up at her father. “This will hold up in a court of law? I can’t have Attorton taking this to court in a few years and trying to declare my child a bastard, or to declare himself the father.”
“It’s legal,” Jebediah assured him, his tone cold and a bit defensive.
Violet imagined that he wasn’t used to having people question him. But he had fallen low in the last year, and men who formerly feared him, like Lord Redfield, could now be condescending to him. She might have felt sorry for him if she didn’t hate him with every fiber of her being.
“The attorney owes me a great deal of money, and he will make sure that the annulment is backdated to yesterday, when it was signed. If Attorton has a problem with it, he will find himself tied up in court for years. Anyway, the girl swears to her husband’s impotence in the document. So no child she bears by you can be said to be Attorton’s.”
“Ahh, she does, doesn’t she?” Redfield looked pleased by this, and he looked back down at the document as if checking this fact.
Violet, meanwhile, thought she was going to be sick. She hadn’t read through every sentence of the fine print—she’d assumed that an annulment was a standard document. But she never would have signed it if she’d known it had said that.
Yes, you would have.You would have done anything to save Rosalie.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she lowered them so that Redfield wouldn’t see.
Oh, James. I’m so sorry…
“Very good, very good,” Redfield murmured. “This will do. Now, both of you should get changed. The wedding will take place in a few hours.”
At that, Violet looked up, and her heart felt as if it were going to burst out of her chest.
“Today?” Her father interrupted, looking confused. “I thought we were waiting until tomorrow to put another day between the annulment and the new marriage.”
“I don’t want to wait,” Redfield said. “The Duke is a prideful man, and he will not let you go easily. It is best if we move quickly.”
Violet was thinking hard, trying to buy herself more time. “He was happy to let me go, My Lord. He signed the papers without any fuss. Surely we should wait until tomorrow morning? Who ever heard of a night wedding!”
