Page 62 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

There was no name signed at the bottom. None was needed. Corinna could practically smell the crushed cloves and dark vanilla rising from the cheap ink.

Cecily.

“By now,” Vivienne said, her voice dropping into a deadly, venomous hiss, “every drawing room in London has a copy. Every morning call today will begin with it.”

Corinna’s eyes scanned the words, but the letters began to swim. She imagined the glittering ballrooms, the sneering dowagers, the gentlemen at their clubs laughing over their brandy. Every woman who had smiled at Vivienne this Season, every man who had bowed to the false earl, every hostess who had opened her doors, all of them were reading these exact pages over their morning tea.

The Ashwell girls. Did you hear? Can you imagine the humiliation? Courted by a servant.

Corinna set the pamphlet down carefully on the linen cloth. She felt as though she were made of spun glass, entirely transparent and utterly fragile. One sharp noise, one wrong movement, and she would shatter into a thousand jagged pieces.

Phoebe reached across the table, covering Corinna’s trembling hand with her own, grounding her.

“Our reputation,” Vivienne said, her voice rising in pitch, filling the room with a shrill, hysterical edge. “Our mother’s standing in society. Everything our father spent his life building. Ruined. We are a laughingstock. We are the punchline of a cheap Parisian joke.”

Vivienne began to pace the length of the dining room, her wrapper billowing behind her. The raw fury in her eyes was slowly, terrifyingly mutating. The hysterical edge sharpened, cooling into a calculating glint that was infinitely more frightening than the anger.

In the doorway, Eleanor appeared.

Their mother looked smaller than she ever had before. She wore a pale dressing gown, her face ashen, her eyes wide and blank with shock. Eleanor gripped the doorframe, silent, not knowing where to look. The same deferential stillness she had carried all Season was finally given a reason that wasn’t simply temperament; it was the absolute paralysis of a woman watching her family’s social destruction unfold in real time.

Vivienne stopped pacing. She turned on her heel, her pale blue eyes locking onto Corinna.

All the frantic energy bled out of Vivienne’s posture. She stood remarkably straight, lifting her chin with the ruthless authority of a queen who had just determined the price of her kingdom’s survival.

“He will have to marry me now,” Vivienne said.

The words dropped into the dining room like lead weights.

“Vivienne, you cannot be serious,” Phoebe started, her voice tight with disbelief. “After this deception? After he has made a fool of you?”

“I am entirely serious, Aunt,” Vivienne countered, her gaze never leaving Corinna’s face. “The scandal is insurmountable. The ton thrives on this kind of destruction. If we retreat to the country now, we accept the humiliation. We validate the joke.”

Vivienne took a step closer to the table, her blue eyes flashing with cold, pragmatic fire.

“But,” Vivienne continued, her voice perfectly even, “if the Earl of Ravenswood honors the contract and marries the elder Miss Ashwell immediately, the narrative shifts. It becomes an eccentric courtship. A grand, romantic gesture by a wealthy peer who wished to know his bride without the interference of society. The ton loves a scandal, but they respect a title even more. They will bow to a countess.”

“He has lied to us all,” Eleanor whispered from the doorway, her voice breaking. “He is not the man we thought.”

“He is an earl, Mother,” Vivienne stated flatly, as if that simple fact erased all moral failings. “And he is the only card we have left to play.”

Vivienne stared down at Corinna. There was no sisterly affection in her eyes, no sympathy for the shattered pieces of Corinna’s own quiet heart. There was only the unforgiving calculus of survival.

“You should be grateful it exists, Corinna,” Vivienne said softly. “This is the only move that saves our family’s name. It saves Mother. It saves Father.”

Corinna could not answer.

She sat very straight in her chair, staring at the crumpled pamphlet on the table. The smell of the cheap ink burned in her nose.

She hated the cold look in her sister’s eyes, but as she ran the logic through her mind, the terrifying truth settled over her.

Vivienne was not wrong.

The board had been entirely upended. All the clever strategies, the hidden positions, the defensive maneuvers, none of it mattered anymore. The mathematics of their situation had collapsed with brutal efficiency. There were no flanking maneuvers left. There was no retreat. The game had narrowed down to a single, forced move to protect the king.

It was a move she did not choose, a move that would lock her in a cage of heartbreak for the rest of her life, but it was a move that would have to be made anyway.

Phoebe’s hand tightened around hers, holding on as if trying to anchor a ship in a hurricane. Corinna looked at her aunt, her gray eyes dry and hollow, and accepted the devastation.