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“What?” she was finally able to say.
Her father looked at her with his usual inscrutable expression. “You should marry Tivol. As quickly as possible. Next month, perhaps.”
“What?I can’t possibly plan—andwhywould you want—I don’t understand.”
He touched a napkin to his mouth and dropped it to his lap. “The planning is the least important part. You should marry and begin your new life.”
One last cough to clear her throat, then she gazed at him across the table, her face tense and serious. “Tell me what this is all about,” she said. “What’s happened to change your mind?”
“Nothing’s happened. But there seems no reason to delay.”
“Is the business in trouble? Are you worried about debts? Is there—”
“This is not about me,” he interrupted. “Don’t you want to marry Tivol?”
Oh, she wished she knew the answer to that question! But naturally she pretended she did. “Of course I do, but—”
“I have already checked with Harlo. The main sanctuary is booked for months, but you could arrange a small ceremony in this house. Harlo said he would officiate no matter what day you chose.”
“Father!I am not going to have a headlong, scrambling wedding! I’m happy enough to move up the date, but I’m not going to just throw together a ceremony at the last minute—”
“Two months. No longer.”
She stared at him. “Or what? You’ll throw me out of the house?”
He stared back and didn’t answer. Madeleine felt her warm indignation turn to something chilly and uncertain. She couldn’t even name the emotion.
“Even if I wanted to marry so quickly, Tivol does not,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.
“Heloise will be able to persuade him, I’m certain.”
“So thereisa business reason behind this decision,” she said. “If this is something you and Heloise are plotting together.”
She saw his face roil with denial and possibly anger, but then he smoothed out his features. “Yes,” he said. “I have discussed it with Heloise, and we have very strong economic reasons for advancing the timetable.”
It was the only thing that made sense, yet she couldn’t shake the notion that he was lying. Her thoughts were racing so fast she couldn’t catch hold of one long enough to examine it. Married to Tivol within two months! How could she manage the preparations—the details of the event itself, the massive effort of moving her life from her father’s household to Tivol’s? Where would they even live? She refused to share a mansion with Heloise Wellenden for a day, even if meant she had to live in Tivol’s cramped bachelor lodgings.
How long would it take her to get over this inconvenient, this ridiculous, this impossible feeling of affection for Reese? She had loved Tivol her whole life and she had always found Reese to be so difficult and contrary, and yet in the past few weeks—
But that didn’t matter. She couldn’t think about that. She wanted to marry Tivol, shehadto marry Tivol, and her secretive and controlling father was not going to tell her why she had to do it in blinding haste. She would do as he commanded, because she always had, but she couldn’t suppress a small rebellious flare of satisfaction at the thought that she would finally be out on her own, no longer answerable to his demands or tiptoeing around his moods.
“Then there is nothing left to discuss except the arrangements for the wedding itself,” she said coolly. “I suppose you are willing to leave all those decisions up to me?”
“Of course. I just want the event concluded as soon as possible.”
She wondered if she could shock him. “You realize what everyone will assume when they hear the news,” she said. “All my friends—all my cousins. They’ll think we’re getting married so abruptly because I’m pregnant.”
He wasn’t shocked. He wasn’t even angry. He just gave her a dead-level look and said, “I wish you were.”
Chapter Seventeen:
Brandon
Brandon was taking his afternoon nap when the tremor shook him roughly awake. For an instant, he didn’t know what was happening. He rolled out of bed and into a crouch, grabbing for the knife that was never more than a few inches from his fingertips. But as the walls danced around him, as an earthenware bowl slipped off a table and shattered on the floor, he realized the house wasn’t under attack—or at least, not from a foe that could be defended against.
Someone pounded on his door, and Finley called, “Brandon! Outside! Now!” He caught up his boots and skidded out the door in his sock feet. As he raced toward the atrium, he heard footsteps converging on this central point from all over the house, and he realized everyone was headed for the same exit into the garden.
“Where’s Villette?” he called when he saw the maid rushing down the steps.
