Every time he’d gone to post it, his mind had filled with a certain blue-eyed beauty, and he hadn’t been able to do it.
But apparently his mother had gone ahead anyway.
"Lady Clarissa," he began, but she held up a hand.
"Please. Before you say anything." She drew a breath. "Might we speak somewhere private? There is something I must say."
He led her to a small anteroom off the main corridor. He left the door ajar, for propriety's sake, and turned to face her.
Clarissa stood near the window. She had kind eyes and an anxious mouth, and she was looking with barely concealed pleading. "Lord Blackwood. I need to ask you something, and I beg you to be honest with me."
He inclined his head. What else could he do?
She closed her eyes briefly, as though steeling herself. When she opened them, the anxiety was still there, but beneath it was something harder. Something that reminded him of another woman entirely. "Please don't agree to this match."
Sebastian went still.
Clarissa rushed on. "There is someone else. A man my parents would never consider because he hasn't a title or the fortune they expect. I care for him, and he cares for me, and if you ask for my hand, my parents will never entertain another option." Her voice shook but held. "You're a marquess. No one can compete with that. But if you refuse—if you tell my father that the arrangement doesn't suit—then perhaps, in time, they might consider…"
She trailed off, twisting the fabric of her gown in her hands to the point that he feared it might tear. "I know this is dreadfully forward," she continued. "And I know you don't know me, and I have no right to ask?—"
"Lady Clarissa."
She stopped. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
"I was never going to agree to an engagement," he said.
She blinked. Her lips parted. "You—what?"
"I entertained the possibility, but quickly realized I am not able to enter into a formal understanding."
He had realized this. He just hadn’t told anyone because he didn’t want to admit it aloud.
He winced at his own cowardice. "I should have made that clear. I'm sorry you were put in this position."
Clarissa sagged. The tension left her body so suddenly that she swayed on her feet, and Sebastian found himself reaching out to steady her elbow. But before he could, she grabbed the back of a chair.
"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, thank goodness."
The relief on her face was so naked that Sebastian was oddly moved. This stranger had walked into a ballroom, sought out a scarred marquess she'd never met, and begged him to set her free—all so she could marry the man she loved.
"This man," he said, "the one your parents won't consider…"
Clarissa's cheeks flushed. "He's a clergyman. My father's living, actually. He's…he's a good man, but he hasn't a title, and his income is modest. My father has made it very clear that I'm expected to marry well."
She said the last two words with a bitterness that didn't suit her pleasant face.
Sebastian thought of Estella, who'd told Charlotte she didn't need love, just someone kind and responsible. He thought of the duchess, who'd said “no young woman should have to navigate this world without someone standing between her and the wolves.”
He thought of the devastating expression on Estella's face when he'd told her his interest was merely obligation.
It occurred to him then that the wolves weren't always strangers at balls. Sometimes they were the people who were supposed to protect you.
"I'll write to your father," Sebastian said. "I'll make it clear the match was never viable. A difference in expectations."
Her face lit with hope. "You would do that?"
"I should have done it weeks ago. This arrangement should never have progressed as far as it did." The responsibility for that sat squarely on his own shoulders, along with everything else.
