Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

S he had said no. As Lord and Lady Reed stumbled over themselves to provide apologies and explanations— "She doesn't know what she's saying, Lord Oackley. We'll make her understand" —Evan sat quietly, letting this sink into him.

He'd asked Frances to marry him. And she had said no.

"Please don't leave, Lord Oackley," Lady Reed begged him. "She's a foolish girl, a stupid girl. She doesn't know what she's saying." And then, as if realizing that Evan might not want a foolish, stupid, and apparently addlepated wife, she reversed course. "I mean, not usually, of course. She's usually very quiet and demure. She'll make a good wife for you. Just as soon as we make her understand."

Part of Evan wanted that. The part of him that had jolted with happiness when his sister had told him he must marry Frances wanted to let her parents bully her into accepting his proposal.

Surely, he could make her understand why it was the right choice, once they had the rest of their lives together, couldn't he?

But the louder, more sensible part of him knew this wasn't fair, wasn't right. If he let Lord and Lady Reed push Frances until she gave in, he was no better than they were.

Frances had made her choice. And no matter how much that choice felt like a knife to the gut, he had to respect it. Hell, part of him was even proud of her for finding the courage to stand up to her parents, even in the face of scandal.

"Just let me speak to her," Lady Reed went on. "You'll see. We'll fix this."

"No."

It was not lost on Evan that his words echoed Frances', nor did he fail to note that while her refusal had caused her parents to argue, his led them to fall into obedient silence. "

No. Lady Frances has made her choice. The subject is over."

He got to his feet, feeling as though he were not entirely in possession of his body. Goodness, he hoped his sister kicked him a thousand times when he returned to Graham Manor. Lord knew he deserved it. And maybe it would dispel some of this numbness that threatened to take him over.

The instant he closed the door to the study, Lord and Lady Reed fell into furious whispers. Fine. Let them scheme. They could not countermand Frances without his consent, at least not in this matter. And he would find a way to protect her, lest they try to work out their ire in a more nefarious manner.

Grace would be happy enough to help him spy on Frances' parents, after all, if the purpose was to keep Frances safe. There was clearly no love lost between his sister and the Marquess and Marchioness of Reed, and Grace always had possessed a penchant for chaos.

It wasn't the outcome he wanted, but it was a slight comfort, he supposed.

He rounded a corner to find Harry Johnson taking the skin off an apple with a knife, his posture aggressively innocent.

"So," he said mildly. "When's the wedding?"

Evan did not want to do this right now, but he had the feeling that if he tried to brush past Johnson without answering, the other man would stab him.

Let him, Evan thought wearily. It couldn't hurt worse .

"Never," he said, his tone wooden. He held up a hand when Johnson's posture shifted, the grip on his knife tightening. "I asked. She said no."

The promise of violence faded from Johnson's body.

"Christ," he said, in what Evan felt was a nice summary of the entire bloody situation. "Why?"

The single word made Evan pause. Why indeed?

He'd taken Frances' refusal at face value—and that was good, she deserved that, especially after all the ways her parents had ignored and commanded her in equal measure. She didn't need to explain herself, certainly not to them.

And she didn't, he supposed, need to explain herself to him, either.

But he could ask, couldn't he?

His thoughts unspooled as he considered it. He could ask—and now that he'd considered it, he knew he'd never get any mental peace until he at least tried asking her.

Because maybe the answer was simple. Maybe she didn't want him; maybe she found the idea of marrying him awful. He wasn't sure he could blame her if that was the case. His life was chaotic, and he would have opted out of the Graham family line given a choice in the matter. If she just didn't want to be married to him, he would leave her be.

But…

But maybe it was something else. Maybe it was something he could fix .

"Johnson," he breathed, looking at Frances' eldest brother, who still seemed uncertain if he wanted to let Evan walk away unharmed, "you might be a genius."

"Thank you," Johnson said evenly. "But please know that the only way I'm not going to kill you is if you become my brother by marriage. Compliments won't save your hide."

"Noted," Evan told him as he walked toward the house's front door, mind still racing.

A patient man would go home, consider his words, and write Frances a letter. A measured man would think carefully, speak with his sister, and return tomorrow.

Evan didn't feel like being patient or measured. Instead, he decided to be stupid.

Thus, he did not climb back into his carriage and take himself back either to his own rooms or to Graham Manor. He did not consider, think, or plan.

No, he turned sharply, slipped around the corner of Reed House, and considered the windows.

The problem was that the Johnsons had too many children, he decided. Indeed, most of them no longer lived in the family residence, but many children meant many bedrooms.

And while it was relatively easy to tell a bedroom from, say, a library from where he stood, there was no way of telling which child inhabited which room. This was particularly important, given that they'd all been at Reed House the day prior; no telling how many remained today. Frances and Harry, at least, were home.

He considered further. Harry already wanted to stab him, so there wasn't much additional danger in that quarter. The vicar was unlikely to murder him; surely the Church had rules about such things? And Evan felt confident he could outrun the increasing sister.

Which left the third brother, George. Was he not in investments? They always were too bold. Frankly, Evan did not like his odds against that one.

Most of the bedrooms had their curtains closed, Evan considered, even as he shushed the quiet voice that asked if he couldn't take all this musing and put it to making a better plan. Frances might be upset, but she didn't strike him as the type to brood in darkness.

Only one room had its curtains drawn open.

It was, of course, the hardest window to access.

"A faint bloody heart never won fair maiden," Evan muttered to himself as he prepared to do something immensely idiotic.

He climbed a tree that had grown a sturdy limb in helpful proximity to the house, cursing himself for the past dozen or so years in which he had not climbed a single tree. As a child, Evan would have shimmed up this trunk in the blink of an eye. As a grown man, his progress involved a great deal of swearing.

From there, he used the decorative railing outside the first story windows to hoist himself higher, muttering a prayer that they had been firmly attached, not hastily added. The iron rail groaned briefly beneath his weight, giving Evan an unpleasant flash of what his own body would look like, impaled by cheap architectural posturing. But it held.

It took only one more slightly ungainly leap, and he was perched on the small balcony outside the second story window. He peered inside and saw, with a great rush of relief, the soft blue of Frances' skirts where her legs hung over the edge of her bed while she lay slumped against the mattress.

"Thank Christ and all the martyrs," he murmured to himself.

When he rapped against the window, Frances sat up so rapidly that his own neck ached in sympathy. Her eyes went wide—even from here he could see they were rimmed with red, which hurt far more than any of the bruises or pulled muscles he'd suffered while climbing up the side of a house like the villain in a penny novel.

It was not until she froze, staring at him like he was an apparition, that he considered she might not let him in.

This was probably an egregious level of idiocy, given that he had recently been walloped over the head by his failure to consider her refusal. Twice in one day was a truly embarrassing frequency with which to be rejected. This, he told himself while he gave her a sheepish smile, was why he should have gone home and thought things out.

But Frances shook her head, breaking her stupor, and hurried across the room to unlatch the window.

"What on earth are you doing here?" she hissed, reaching for his arms to help guide him inside.

She was actually threatening his balance more than she was helping, but he felt greedy for her touch, so he did not push her aside.

"I need to talk to you," he insisted once his feet were both firmly on the floor. He had underappreciated the merits of solid ground all his life, he decided. It really was the most remarkable thing.

He straightened and Frances released him.

He hoped he wasn't deluding himself that she seemed reluctant to let him go as she backed away from him.

"There's nothing to talk about," she said, her chin jutting stubbornly. She did not meet his eye. "I meant what I said. I will not marry for duty or out of some misguided sense of obligation. You did not tell my parents that it was all my fault that I was with you—and that was good of you. Kind. But I don't need your kindness. I can manage things for myself. It's far past time that I stood up to my parents and refused to take part in their petty schemes. I'm certainly not about to let you be drawn into their machinations, either."

The hopeful part of him, the one that had wondered if her refusal was due to some reason he could amend, perked up. Evan, terrified of getting this wrong, regarded her carefully.

"You didn't force me to do anything," he said slowly.

She looked directly at him for the barest moment, her eyes wide and confused, before her gaze darted away again.

"Of course I did," she retorted. "I spied on you, overheard your plans, and then insisted you take me along. And that's what caused the whole scandal."

Evan had the feeling that he was once again on precarious footing, and this metaphorical version of it felt even more dangerous than perching on a shoddy iron railing.

"You did do those things," he agreed. "But you didn't force me to do anything."

"Aren't you listening? I just explained how?—"

"You couldn't have forced me," he went on, feeling that something important was lurking right out of reach. If he kept going, he could seize it, he just knew it.

She looked ready to argue again, so he forged ahead.

"I mean, how could you have forced me, Frances? Forgive the arrogance, but I'm a marquess and a man. You're an unmarried gentlewoman. All it would have taken was one word to your parents and you'd never have been permitted to accompany me."

Her brow was furrowed as she looked at him now, as if she still wanted to argue but didn't know how.

Evan, meanwhile, felt as though there was light in the darkness for the first time in ages.

"I let you come with me," he said, his voice tinged with wonder, "because I wanted you there. I wanted you with me while we faced new information about Grace. I wanted you with me—" He grinned suddenly. It seemed so clear now. "—because I knew it would cause a scandal. I knew your letter about Diana wouldn't work; again, forgive me, darling, but it wasn't the finest plan ever made."

The endearment fell from his lips. He liked it. She, meanwhile, was looking more baffled by the minute. It was frankly adorable.

He, by contrast, felt clearer than he had in ages. Years . Since before his sister disappeared, at least.

"I knew that if I let you come with me, I'd have to marry you. I mean, I'm not a complete fool, Frances—oh, very well, Grace would disagree, but that's beside the point." He laughed breathlessly as the truth poured out of him. "And I wanted to be forced to marry you."

Her expression was still guarded. "You did?"

" Yes ," he promised her. "I wanted to be told I had to marry you because I was too much a coward to admit that I wanted that. I was too afraid to think I would ever dare to let someone in again. I was too ignorant, too blind to recognize love when it came blundering into a dark room where I was waiting to meet the wrong woman."

Oh, well, perhaps the reference to his past affair hadn't been the most elegant way of confessing his feelings, but luckily Frances seemed to have successfully latched on to the important part, not his past indiscretions.

"Love," she echoed. "You don't love me."

Or, well, perhaps she hadn't gotten the important part, but that was fine. He'd say it as many times as she needed.

"Yes," he said. "I do. I truly do."

"No." She took two stumbling steps backward and he took three toward her, as if they were attached by a tether. "You don't."

"I do," he said. He took another step closer to her; she did not retreat. "I love you, Frances Johnson. I'm sorry it took me so long to see it—sorry it took me so long to say it. I love you and I want to marry you."

He had to force himself to say the next bit.

"And if you don't want me in return… I'll accept it. I won't like it, but I'll accept it, because you deserve to choose for yourself. But I want you to choose me, because I cannot go back to a life without you in it. Please, Frances. Don't make me go back."

She looked dazed. It looked beautiful on her, but then again, everything did.

"You love me," she said, like she was maybe, just maybe, daring to believe it.

"Yes," he repeated. "I love you." It felt more wonderful every time he said it. "And if you don't love me in return… Blast, Frances, marry me anyway. I'll spend every day of the rest of my life earning your love, and even if you never give it to me, I swear, I will never stop trying to make you happy. I won't stop loving you."

He was close enough to touch her now, so he reached out and took her hand. Something soft and fragile inside him purred in relief when she let him.

"Please, Frances," he said again, voice low. "Let me love you. Let me make you happy. Let us have a life together. What do you say?"

With agonizing slowness, she moved her gaze up from their linked hands until she looked him square in the face. Her eyes were still rimmed with red, blue and green made shiny with further tears that bloomed but did not fall. His heart raced, anxiety coursing through him, as he awaited her answer.

And she did not give him one, not in words, in any case.

Instead, she reached up, laced the fingers of her free hand through his hair, and pulled his head to hers for a long, encompassing kiss.