Chapter Nineteen

Marry Me

After refusing to talk, and even threatening to jump out the door if the viscount did stop asking about marriage, Frederica bolted from his carriage the minute it stopped at Tradenwood. She sailed past Theodosia, straight to the drawing room.

Music.

She needed music to surround her and to build a shield for her heart. When Frederica saw Jasper giving Pickens his coat, she dashed inside the drawing room and closed the doors, even spun the lock.

Yet, one look at the pianoforte, and she was swept away, remembering his embrace, each kiss and every wave of emotion so dark and lush that she’d clung to him, almost forgetting that he didn’t love her. Almost.

Jasper drummed on the door with an impatient fist. “I gave you privacy in the carriage so you could rethink your refusal. Open this door. We need to talk.”

“I have a word for you, my lord. No.”

“I’ll break the door down, Frederica,” Jasper said. He pounded against it.

He was big enough to do so.

And mad enough.

She set her jewelry box on the table near the chair, the close one where Jasper always sat when she played. “I’ll let you in, if you tell me you’ve forgotten your vows to Lady Hartwell.”

Frederica sat at the pianoforte and began the “The Last Rose of Summer” and put her broken heart in each haunting note. And she played it, over and over again until she heard Jasper’s footsteps drift away.

Maria’s memory did Frederica’s dirty work. The thief could get to Jasper and his daughters. How could she put the man she was hopelessly in like—hopelessly in love with—in danger? She knew the minute he blew into Downing that she loved Jasper. His kiss confirmed it. And it was everything. Worth every minute of waiting.

But she was in love. He was in obligation.

The door unlocked and Frederica scrambled up to the other side of the pianoforte. She picked up her only weapon, the jewelry box, and hoisted it.

But it wasn’t Jasper who came inside.

It was Theodosia. “May we talk? Or are you going to throw things?”

“I’d never throw things at a pregnant woman, especially not you. I just needed a threat to keep him away.”

Theodosia pattered to her, then arched backward to plop into the chair, her big, beautiful pregnant stomach jiggling. “Frederica, what happened today? You went to see the barrister and came back here arguing so loudly with my brother-in-law that even Philip heard. That part I enjoyed. My son heard and came to me, telling me you weren’t safe.”

Frederica steadied herself at the pianoforte. “Philip’s a remarkable child. And wise. I’m not safe. And no one is safe from me. I’ve guilted the viscount into proposing, and if he does, he and his children will be in danger. There is a thief who’s been sending me notes. Vile, evil notes. He slashed up all my clothes the night of the duke’s celebration. If I hadn’t fallen into bed with Hartwell, I’d be dead. The thief is still after me. He won’t stop until I disappear.”

Theodosia put a hand to her mouth. Her thin, crescent-shaped lids closed for a moment. “You kept this a secret.”

“Theodosia, I had to. How can I burden you now? That baby needs your strength, not me. I’ll marry the vicar and be away from you all.”

“You can’t run. And if Hartwell has proposed, finally proposed, why run at all? He can protect you.”

“Any more than the duke? The thief has made his way into Downing twice. I’m doomed, and now you all are, too.”

After wiping her sniveling nose, Frederica tried to sit and play, but not a single note or key made sense. She gave up and laid her forehead against the instrument. “Hartwell has my heart. I have nothing of his but his guilt. He now says he compromised me. Peers don’t compromise a duke’s baggage.”

Theodosia frowned. “I think you are wrong. Let me get Ewan to talk to him.”

“Ewan needs to convince him he’s confused and help him not to object to my wedding. I’m writing the vicar in the morning. I’m accepting his offer.”

Theodosia tilted her head and squinted. “I think my wit has been dulled by pregnancy. You just said that you love my brother-in-law and that he proposed. But you will marry another, someone you met once and don’t love.”

“Yes.”

Ewan came inside the room. His hands were behind his back.

“Darling, Miss Burghley,” he said in a low voice. “Philip is upset, and my brother, too. Care to explain?”

Theodosia stood and smoothed her stomach, her olive-green gown making her look like she’d swallowed pillows. “I’m going to go to Philip, Ewan, dear. Maybe you can help my Frederica see the light.” She rose and kissed his cheek. “Help her, Ewan.”

When Theodosia left them alone, Frederica looked up and caught Ewan’s crystal blue gaze. “Go ahead. Tell me how I should accept your brother’s offer. Then I’ll tell you that you are wrong.”

Ewan walked to the pianoforte and spread his palms flat on the top. “I’m not going to convince you of anything, Miss Burghley.”

She looked up at the man who loved her friend to distraction, who’d proven over the last year through his grousing and complaining that he feared and fretted for the safety and happiness of Ester and herself. “You don’t have a story, or a play, or something to offer?”

“No. You know my brother to be a good person, but it’s obvious he’s not the one you love.”

“Lord Hartwell has three daughters that must occupy his time. That’s his priority. He says that he wants to marry me, but we both know that was not the situation yesterday or the day before or the day before that.”

“I know that when you realize what you want, you seize it. My brother surely did that today. He wishes to marry you, but you don’t love him.”

“I didn’t say that, but he’s not in love with me.”

“And one of your newspaper respondents is?” Ewan walked to the window and looked out into the dark night. “I wasn’t here when Jasper lost his wife. But I know he changed a great deal. He took it very hard. I heard he sat by Maria’s side until the end. He and a bottle of brandy shouldered the loss. Our father wasn’t helpful, and I was brooding hundreds of miles away in the West Indies. In the past year, he’s been himself, the brother I knew—laughing, truly laughing again. That was mainly your doing, and maybe a little of my own.”

Frederica pecked at the keys. “He is a wonderful man. I’m glad he’s not mourning as much.”

Ewan turned. “But he’s mourning now. He’s lost you, and you gave him hope.”

“Hope can’t be based on a person. What happens if I’m hurt or killed by Downing’s crazed thief? What will happen to him then? And will he mourn just me? What if the fiend strikes Theodosia or Lucy? I won’t be the cause of more pain to him or any of you. It’s not worth this risk.”

“He thinks you are worth the risk, Miss Burghley. And from how I’ve seen you care for him, I think he’s right. Are you in love with him?”

“Yes. Yes, I am, but I don’t want to be the woman he married because he felt he compromised me the night of the duke’s celebration. Don’t you think I have the right to choose a husband unencumbered by guilt or some latent sense of protecting my honor? I’m Burghley’s daughter, the famed illicit love-child of the Duke of Simone. My reputation is something I can no longer escape, and once I marry Mr. Pregrine, I’ll no longer have to.”

“But my brother wishes to marry you. He wants to keep your reputation spotless. He wants to protect you.” Ewan turned again, folding his hands. “You want him to love you. Maybe part of him does. Is his saying it more important than his actions?”

She couldn’t think of that possibility. That had to be snuffed out like a match’s flame. “You’re a playwright. You know words matter. I’m worth those words. Then maybe all the risks a union like ours would bear would be worth it.”

“What risks, Miss Burghley?”

She’d said too much. Dropping her head, she pointed to her jewel box.

Ewan took the alabaster container, lifted the lid, and picked up the letters. He flipped through them. His groans grew louder as he saw the hate—the threats to her friends, the threats to Jasper and the girls. “You don’t have to run, Miss Burghley. All of us together can stop this individual.”

“Sir, I’ve been lucky once. I wanted to use the stability of marriage to help those who weren’t lucky. That’s what I thought. Now my purpose is to protect my friends. Friends don’t obligate another to marry. Friends don’t do that. Friends don’t put Anne, or Lydia, or Lucy, or Philip, or the baby, in danger from a thief who won’t stop until I am gone. I see that now. I will die to myself for all I care for, so that my friends will live in safety.”

“You love Hartwell and us that much?”

Frederica did a dramatic crescendo across the keys, playing so loud and so fast that it spent her breath. “Yes, all of you, and my silly, wonderful errand man—with all my heart.”

She went back to playing the requiem, playing its melancholy stanza again and again. “Please keep my confidence, Fitzwilliam-Cecil.”

“I’ll do what’s best for our families.” He reached into the box, and the false bottom came up.

“Stop. Don’t.” Frederica came to him and took the card with the lock of curly dark hair pasted upon it. “My sister’s hair. Mama kept a piece before she gave her away. I was the lucky one, the one with skin light enough to pass, so Burghley thought. She gave me a life that was to be safe and happy. I’m not lucky anymore. Don’t say anything. Even Theodosia doesn’t know how bad this is. I’ve upset Philip. I can’t upset the new baby.”

He nodded.

She sighed and put the card back in the false bottom. “Get ready to give me away at my Yuletide wedding, in case my father does not return in time. I can’t ask Hartwell to do it.”

“I’ll do it. But it won’t be my pleasure. You’re marrying the wrong man.”

She waited for Ewan to leave before laying her face on the keys. This was the right thing to do. She’d say that every week as the banns were read. Then every hour until she gave her vows to the vicar.