Page 65 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

Edmund reached out and picked up the heavy parchment. He flipped it over. Stamped deeply into the red wax was the unmistakable crest of the Ashwell family.

“Thank you,” Edmund managed to say.

He walked past the butler, moving like a man walking to the gallows, and entered the study. Julian followed close behind, shutting the heavy oak doors to seal them in the quiet room.

Arabella was already sitting by the fire, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked up as they entered, her brown eyes tracking the letter in Edmund’s hand.

Edmund walked to the mahogany desk. He broke the wax seal, unfolding the thick paper. He read the short, sharp lines of script.

He let the parchment slip from his fingers, fluttering down to rest on the leather surface of the desk.

“Edmund?” Arabella asked softly, standing up.

Edmund placed his hands flat on the desk, leaning his weight against his arms, staring down at the black ink. “Sir Gerald is coming to London.”

The room went dead silent.

“When?” Julian asked, moving to stand beside the desk.

“He left the country estate immediately,” Edmund replied, his voice completely hollow. “He will be here by tomorrow evening.”

Julian reached out and pulled the letter toward him, scanning the words. He let out a slow, hissing breath through his teeth. “He is demanding an audience. He intends to settle the matter of his daughter’s reputation.”

“He intends to demand a wedding,” Arabella said.

She walked over to the desk, standing shoulder to shoulder with Julian. She looked at Edmund, her expression carrying the exact same quiet, immovable resolution that their mother had worn the day before.

“Mother was right,” Arabella said gently. “The engagement to Vivienne feels like a one-way street. There is no other route left on the map, Edmund. The pamphlet destroyed any chance of a quiet retreat. If Sir Gerald arrives and finds his eldest daughter publicly ruined by our family, he will not ask for an apology. He will demand the contract be honored. He will demand you marry her.”

Edmund stared at the letter. The words seemed to blur and shift into the shape of a cage.

He thought of Vivienne’s cold, calculating blue eyes. He thought of her sharp cruelties, her relentless vanity, and the sheer, suffocating terror of spending the rest of his life bound to a woman who viewed him as nothing more than a stepping stone to a countess’s tiara.

And then he thought of Corinna.

He thought of the way she had looked at him across the chessboard, challenging him, seeing right through the borrowed coat to the man beneath. He thought of the fire pit in the country, the heat of her skin, the soft intake of her breath when he reached for her. He thought of her marching into the drawing room, taking one look at Cecily Vane, and turning her back on him with a dignity that broke his heart entirely in two.

He was going to lose her. He was going to spend the rest of his days sitting across a dining table from Vivienne, while Corinna lived the rest of her life knowing he was exactly the coward the broadsheets claimed him to be.

“Edmund?” Julian prompted quietly, breaking into his thoughts. “What are you going to do?”

Edmund looked up. He looked at Julian, who was standing beside Arabella, the two of them a united front in the face of absolute disaster.

Edmund said nothing.

He simply looked back down at the letter. He stared at Sir Gerald Ashwell’s signature until his eyes burned, the deafening silence in the room providing its own terrible, inescapable answer.

Chapter 24

The morning sun offered no comfort as it cut through the tall windows of the Mayfair townhouse. Corinna stood near the base of the staircase, her fingers loosely clutching the folds of her skirt, watching her sister descend.

Vivienne was dressed in her absolute finest visiting attire, a structured pelisse of deep sapphire wool, her blonde hair arranged with a precision that suggested hours of agonizing work by the maids. She adjusted her kid-leather gloves, snapping the buttons into place with sharp, decisive clicks.

“I am going to call on Lady Cecily,” Vivienne announced, her voice ringing off the high ceiling with an unnatural, defensive brightness.

Corinna did not move. She kept her eyes fixed on her sister. “You should not go there, Vivienne.”

Vivienne stopped halfway down the stairs, her chin lifting with an instant, prickly defensiveness. “And why on earth not?”