His mother inhaled sharply. “You will come to regret such arrogance.”
“I may. But I shall not marry a woman I can neither speak to nor respect.”
A long moment passed.
At last, Gillian leaned forward, interlacing her fingers. “Then find one you can respect. And quickly.”
Arthur’s expression did not change, but something unreadable flickered across his face. He bowed slightly. “As always, your counsel is invaluable.”
Gillian went on, her tone smooth as silk but fortified with steel. “You are thirty, Arthur. No longer a child. The time for indulgent detachment is past. There are a number of perfectly suitable young women this year. Lady Francesca Wexley is the epitome of charm and grace. Miss Lydia Pencombe has a rather significant inheritance, along with the Gresham estates. And Miss Millicent Longbourne—”
“—is only eighteen,” Arthur interrupted, his voice cool.
“She’ll be nineteen this Season. And she carries an impeccable lineage and an even more impeccable set of expectations. She has been raised to be a Viscountess. There is no shame in youth when paired with good, solid training.”
“I’m not looking to train a wife, Mother.”
“No, you’re looking to actively avoid one,” she snapped, her composure cracking for just a second. “You spend your evenings buried in your books or sequestered at your club, sipping brandy and spouting cynicism. And for what? To avoid the very duty your father upheld without question?”
The comparison landed harder than he expected. It was a low blow.
Arthur’s jaw tightened. “My father married at two and twenty and died before he reached the age of fifty. Forgive me if I’m not eager to follow his every example.”
Gillian’s expression flickered. She smoothed her skirt, folding her hands in her lap.
“You are the only son of this house,” she said after a pause, quieter now but no less firm. “The title, the estate—everything we have built, everything we have endured—rests with you. Without a wife, without an heir, the line ends. Our legacy ends. Do you really want to be responsible for that?”
“And what if I were to marry a woman who could not give me the gift of an heir? Would that be my fault, too?”
Arthur’s throat tightened as he realized the error of his outburst. His mother pressed her lips together before a heated discussion became an argument.
The truth of her words weighed on him, not because they were wrong, but because they were weaponized so elegantly. She knew his sense of duty ran deeper than he admitted. Knew he carried the memory of his father like a shadow stitched into every decision he made.
But she also didn’t understand.
Didn’t understand how the idea of marriage—of tying his future to another’s—felt less like legacy and more like a leash.
Not after Sophia.
Not after learning how little love could mean when pitted against ambition.
He set his cup down with a soft clink. “If you’ll excuse me, I have correspondence to which I must attend.”
Lady Gillian didn’t stop him. But he felt her glaring at his back as he left the room, her silence following him like a shroud of disappointment.
***
Arthur escaped to the library.
The moment the door shut behind him, he inhaled deeply, as though shaking off invisible chains. The familiar scent of parchment, old wood, and leather-bound volumes was a tonic for his nerves.
Here, at least, he could breathe.
The room was dim, cool, and quiet. The fire burned low, more for atmosphere than heat. He crossed to the shelves automatically, trailing a hand along the spines of books he’d read half a dozen times. Marcus Aurelius. Locke. Wordsworth. Solace through philosophy, distraction through poetry.
Duty, legacy, heirs.
They were not romantic ideas. They were obligations wrapped in silk and lace, spoken of in tea parlors and exchanged like legal tender at balls.
