He almost smiled. “That is possible.”
She leaned back, folding her arms. “Are we to draw up contracts, or simply shake hands?”
Oscar set the pen down. “You may name your terms.”
She thought. “I want the children’s education under my control. No sending them away to schools that produce more monsters like you.”
“Done,” Oscar said, too quickly.
She blinked. “You will allow it?”
“They are not cattle, Nancy. If you wish to tutor them yourself, I will not interfere.”
Nancy drew a breath, then another. “And I want a say in the management of the household. No locking children away in attics or denying them birthday parties.”
He nodded, still unreadable.
“And I refuse to be paraded at society events for the amusement of your peers.”
His mouth twisted. “I never cared for such things.”
“Then we are agreed.”
He held out his hand. She took it, expecting cold, and instead found it warm, the grip steady and somehow—no, she would not say gentle, but it was not cruel.
He let go, then stepped back, as though needing the distance to compose himself. “We will need a special license.”
Nancy blinked. “You wish to do this now?”
Oscar’s voice was very quiet. “Thetonwill tear us both apart if we leave the children in limbo. You know how they gossip.”
“I do,” Nancy said. “I simply didn’t expect efficiency to be the top priority in a proposal.”
He walked to the window, staring out at the gathering storm. “If we are to do this, I would rather it be clean and immediate. No time for anyone to poison the process with rumor or regret.”
There was a pause. The only sound was the ticking of the clock. Nancy found herself standing. Her heart raced as the significance of what she had done hit her.
CHAPTER 7
“Sit.” The word shot across the room like a grapeshot, arresting Nancy halfway through the study doorway. Her father pointed at the leather-tufted chair in front of his desk with the authority of a magistrate sentencing a sheep thief.
Nancy considered defying him just to prove she hadn’t been domesticated by a single night under his roof. But the set of his jaw and the tightly laced boots said that today was not a day for martyrdom. She perched on the edge of the chair, posture perfect, chin high.
Edward folded his hands on the desk, surveyed her as if she were an unbalanced ledger. “Your mother informed me last night that you are to wed the Duke of Scarfield.” He let the words hang, heavy as wet wool.
Nancy crossed her legs. “That is correct.”
He leaned back. “I admit, I did not expect it. You have spoken of matrimony only as a form of execution, and never once have you expressed an interest in that man in particular.”
“I do tend to keep my plans to myself,” she said.
He ignored this. “You have given no hint—not a single word—that you harbored feelings for him. Which compels me to ask: are you marrying for love, for duty, or to spite your mother and me?”
Nancy gave the smallest smile. “Is there not a fourth option? Marrying because it is amusing to defy expectation?”
He did not return the smile. “Is it truly amusing, Nancy? Or are you simply weary of being the only daughter of a duke who cannot secure a match?”
There it was: the family motto, delivered with surgical precision. Nancy would have preferred a blow to the face.
