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Her words doused him like ice water because they weren’t entirely true. Yes, by marrying him Seraphina was escaping what she considered to be a worse fate—although he still wasn’t certain why—but it wasn’t “all better.” It couldn’t be. If she’d had another viable course of action—one that didn’t involve marriage—she’d have taken it. He was just the best of the available options.
It would be easy to forget that, but he couldn’t allow himself to. He might want to marry her with every fiber of his being, but she didn’t feel the same way about him. He wasn’t who or what she would choose if she hadn’t been coerced into selecting a husband so quickly.
After all, when he’d proposed, she’d only had a matter of days left before her father accepted Mr. Emerson. He’d done the math, based on what Letitia had told him, and he knew that her time had been running out.
“I’m certainly pleased with the unexpected change in my situation,” Seraphina said with her polite public smile—the one he didn’t trust. It masked her true thoughts, and he didn’t know what was going on inside her head. Did she actually mean that?
They walked through to the dining room, where Trevor was seated opposite Mr. Dalton, with Seraphina at an angle from him, beside her father.
“May I just say how pleased I am to be joining our families together?” Mr. Dalton said as the first course was served.
“Our families have been associated for years through Letitia’s friendship with Seraphina,” Lady Wembley replied. “It seems time for an official connection to be formed.”
Trevor watched Mr. Dalton, wondering whether he’d be quite so thrilled by the impending marriage if Trevor wasn’t a baron who would become an earl when his father died—hopefully many years in the future.
Somehow, he doubted it.
The man struck him as being false, but where Seraphina’s mask fascinated him—when it wasn’t driving him crazy—Mr. Dalton’s turned his stomach. He was just like others in the ton, who never said what they meant.
Trevor fidgeted, his skin too tight for his body. Across the table, Seraphina’s mask was firmly in place. On the other side of Mr. Dalton, Trevor’s own father was as expressive as a rock, and when he looked sideways, his mother was smiling cheerfully.
It felt like there was an unknown threat looming on the horizon, and everyone was cheerfully ignoring it. Trevor was the only one incapable of pretending it wasn’t there.
“I’ve heard that you’ve an interest in the sciences,” Lord Wembley said, addressing Seraphina, who immediately flashed her real smile.
“I do! I—”
“She plays around with perfumery,” her father said, speaking over her and cutting her off. Her expression fell. “But I’m certain she won’t continue to pursue that hobby once she’s occupied with wifely duties.”
The groove between Lord Wembley’s eyebrows deepened, and he glanced from Mr. Dalton to Seraphina. He refrained from replying, but Trevor couldn’t allow the statement to pass without rebuttal. He wouldn’t have Seraphina believing that he intended to curtail her activities.
“Miss Dalton may fill her time however she pleases once we’re married,” he said.
Seraphina’s eyes widened as if he’d surprised her, but surely she must know that he wouldn’t get in the way of her passion. He smiled tentatively, and when she returned the expression, his heart swelled.
“There’s an old stillroom at Nunhaven that could be repurposed for perfumery experiments,” Lord Wembley said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think it’s been used in years, has it, dear?”
“No,” Lady Wembley agreed. “It could easily be cleared.”
“No need to hurry to make accommodations when we don’t know how much time Seraphina will have available for such things.” Mr. Dalton’s tone was strained—he clearly didn’t like the idea of his daughter being allowed to continue pursuing her own interests. Frankly, that didn’t make any sense and, in Trevor’s opinion, was quite ridiculous. “Let us focus on the wedding itself. This season has been terribly stressful, and I look forward to the papers being signed.”
Trevor’s jaw clenched at the reminder of how rapidly everything had been moving since the day he decided to come to London. He didn’t want to find himself and Seraphina married so soon that she didn’t have time to be certain of her choice. The last thing he wanted was for her to have regrets—especially when she’d been pushed into marriage to begin with.
“There’s no rush,” he said, spearing a piece of meat with his fork a little too roughly.
His mother looked at him oddly.
“Perhaps we ought to delay the reading of the banns,” he added, keeping his gaze on his plate. “We could have a long engagement. As Mr. Dalton said, the season has been busy, and there’s no reason why this wedding must be hasty.”
“You aren’t… having second thoughts?” Mr. Dalton asked, shooting a narrow-eyed look at Seraphina.
“Of course not.” Not for his own sake, anyway. Suddenly worried that Seraphina might think the same as her father, he turned to her. “I won’t change my mind about marrying you. I simply don’t understand why everything must happen so quickly. Surely you would enjoy a reprieve.”
The corners of her mouth tightened, but other than that, her expression was unhelpfully blank. “Any timeframe is fine with me. If you think delaying is for the best, then I’ll support you in that decision.”
Gripping the fork harder, he chewed on a mouthful of food, granting himself a moment to think. She was holding back. There was something she wasn’t saying, and he didn’t know what it was.
He wasn’t clever enough at social interactions to be able to look beneath the surface and figure out her hidden meaning. He might be academically inclined, but when it came to the subtleties of human behavior, he was as helpless as a newborn, and he wasn’t used to having her society persona directed at him. Usually, she was straightforward with him, and now he didn’t know how to respond.
