Page 127 of Duke of Sapphire

“I took a short holiday to visit my aunt,” Charlotte said. “I am not certain what conclusions you have drawn from that, but⁠—”

“The marriage has failed,” he said. “It was inevitable, frankly. You ran from one hasty arrangement into another, and now you are here, and he is there, and the whole thing has come to nothing.” He crossed one leg over the other. “Come home, Charlotte. We can manage this quietly if we move quickly.”

I could tell him he is wrong.

She wanted to. The words were right there.

I am on a holiday. The marriage is perfectly intact.

But her father had a talent for hearing the thing beneath the words, and he would hear the crack in her certainty, and then she would be precisely where she did not want to be.

She clasped her hands. “I have no reason to return to Ashford,” she said. “I am the Duchess of Sappherton. That does not change simply because I am currently in Surrey.”

Her father laughed. Not unkindly. That almost made it worse. “You are the Duchess of Sappherton until the Duke applies for a divorce. Given that you have left his house, I doubt that will take long.”

The word landed.

Divorce.

Cold and final.

Would he?

She didn’t know. She had never considered it in those terms. Henry was dutiful. Henry abhorred scandal. Divorce was the kind of scandal that followed a family for generations. Surely, he would not. Surely.

She was not certain.

“I have it on good authority,” her father continued, “that Redmont is still willing to consider the matter. Given everything. He would be prepared to⁠—”

“No,” Charlotte said.

Her father blinked.

“No.” She said it again, quieter, and more final than the first time. “I would rather live alone for the rest of my life than marry Lord Redmont. That is not a position I am willing to revisit.”

Her father’s expression shifted. “Sappherton has put these notions in your head.”

“No one put them there. They are my own.”

“Before that man, you were sensible,” he said. “You understood how the world worked. You understood what was expected of you.”

“I understood that my wishes were irrelevant,” Charlotte said. “Henry taught me that they are not.”

“Foolishness.” He stood up. “Pretty words from a man who has no intention of honoring the marriage he trapped you into.”

“He did not trap me.”

“Charlotte—”

“He gave me choices.” Her voice had gone flat and clear. “Every one of them mine. He asked before he acted. He waited when I needed time. He—” She stopped. She was saying more than she had intended to. She pressed on anyway. “He showed me that I was entitled to decide what happened to my own life. And I will not unlearn that simply because it is inconvenient for you.”

Her father opened his mouth.

“If my happiness has ever mattered to you,” Charlotte said, “why did you never once ask what I wanted?”

The question sat between them.

Her father did not speak. He looked at her. Something moved behind his face—not anger. Not dismissal. Something older than both.