“James is an adult and can care for himself!” Her hands itched to reach for him, to ground him with her touch. She could see him slipping away, back into his protective shell. “You’re risking your own life when they don’t need—”
“They do need me, Violet,” he spat, his eyes blazing. “And ye want to stayhere?With people who treat ye like the shite on their boots, with—”
“Enough!” Valebrook bellowed, then pointed at Callum. “You willnotspeak to her. I’m calling the vicar, and you will marry her, immediately—”
“None of this is Callum’s fault.” All four people in the room froze at Violet’s words. She squeezed her eyes shut for a flash before speaking again, facing the disappointment she knew she’d see. “I didn’t want to marry Sir Phineas, oranyone, so I asked Callum to ruin me. This wasn’t real.” She turned to face her godfather, stepping between him and Callum. “I coerced him, promised I’d find investors if he helped me. He was a perfect gentleman.”
Callum’s breath rasped behind her, but she ignored him, pressed on. “All of this was my doing, and I deserve the shame I’ve brought on myself and my family.”
“Violet—” Callum started, but she shook her head. She had been a fool to hope that he would cast aside his plans for her, and now her scheming might cost him everything. She had to make things right, even if it broke her.
“You’ll explain that he asked for my hand, but I refused.” Her voice had begun to shake; she’d need to end this before her strength ran out. “By now, everyone at the party has heard what I did, so there is no going back, no making excuses.”
Bridget must have stood up at some point, because she laid a hand on Violet’s shoulder. “We can contain it, dear—”
“I don’t want to contain it.” Tears burned at her throat, her nose. “I-I’mtired, I—”
“May I have a word alone with Violet?” Callum’s voice pushed the tears free, and Violet pressed her fingers to her mouth. After a moment of hesitation, their hosts left the room, Valebrook eyeing Callum warily before snapping the door shut behind them.
“Ye dinnae ken what ye’re doin’.” His gray irises were a tempest, fear and frustration churning in their depths. “Ye havenae thought this through.”
“You, of all people, should know that I have. My chances of a society marriage are well and truly gone now—“
“That’s what ye wanted, aye?”
Suddenly, when faced with the fruits of her illicit labor, she wasn’t so sure. “I didn’t want to be forced into a marriage. I thought you understood my reasons!”
“But ye willnae be happy a spinster. I ken that about ye.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me!” Her chest was twisting, squeezing until she feared her insides would burst, the tears she’d thought contained leaking from her eyes.
He stepped closer, the barest glimpse of vulnerability sneaking back into his expression. “Iwantto be with ye. I want ye as mywife, not because I ruined ye, but because ye—ye make me…” He turned away and cuffed the back of his neck.
Her heart stopped. “I make you what?”
Several long moments passed, and he didn’t face her when he spoke again. “Ye make me… want again.”
“No,” she rasped. “You want to control everyone and everything around you. You don’t trust me to know what I want, and you decided I should marry you when you’re going on this foolish endeavor to Panama—” A sob escaped, and she pressed a fist to her mouth, sucking in air.
“It’s no’ foolish—”
“You’lldiethere. No amount of money is worth your life.”
“But I havenomoney, Violet! Nothing!” Anger and panic laced each word, and everything in her body stilled. “Panama is my last chance to pay my uncle’s debts, the debts James inherited when he died.”
Understanding dawned, a sliver of light bursting through the clouds. She stepped forward, wrapped him in her arms, but he didn’t move, remained a statue. “It’s no wonder you’ve worried over the investments. What does James say?”
Callum said nothing, only exhaled sharply.
She pushed back to meet his eye, but he’d averted his gaze. “Callum, what does James say?”
“James doesnae ken.”
She’d always thought Callum to be a powerful man, one whose presence commanded a room, could lift her without hesitation, a pinnacle of masculine strength. But now, he looked weak,paralyzed by burdens he insisted on carrying alone. “Why haven’t you told him?”
His mouth worked for a moment, and she could see him sifting through excuses, a rationale for what he’d done. “He has enough to worry about.”
“So you’re leaving him, and your aunt, to sail halfway around the world—”
