“He’s not my choice of son, either! If handsome grandchildren matter to you, support this match—as things are, it is the only chance for Wilhelmina to still receive an offer from fair Sir Bradleigh.”
“Mr. Greenfield—”
“We can now disown Harriet and magnify the scandal,” he cut her off, “or we can send her away and become an object of gossip for decades anyway. Or we could try our damnedest to elevate Blackstone’s position, manufacture a respectable family tree for him, and stand by this match.” He was looking directly at Hattie with bloodshot eyes as he kept speaking to his wife. “Make no mistake, I was of a mind to let her fall, for someone so foolish doesn’t deserve to call herself my daughter. But the Greenfields never leave a Greenfield behind, no matter their failings, and if you believe for one moment that I’d break with that tradition, you are mistaken. We don’t abandon our own, and I shan’t dishonor my father’s legacy just because Harriet acted like a strumpet.”
The floor threatened to slide from beneath Hattie’s feet. “No.” She had shouted it, or perhaps she had whispered. “You can’t mean it.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “Can’t mean it?” he repeated. “What did you think was the conclusion to this spectacle, hmm?”
“Papa, you cannot mean for me to marry him.”
“I do. He called on me today to offer for you, and in my capacity as head of this house, I said yes.”
“Julien.” Her mother raised her hands. “Look at her. She doesn’t have the constitution to be a wife to such a man. Julien, she is stubborn but she is a sweet girl—”
“Ah, but she’s not as sweet as you think,” he said. “This one”—he jabbed his index finger at Hattie—“ran from her protection officer at least twice this year to hobnob around London unchaperoned, which is how she first came to Blackstone’s attention. The wanton display in the gallery wasn’t their first private encounter. Graves is out on the street now, by the way.”
Hattie’s stomach lifted as though she were falling into a pit. Poor, poor Mr. Graves. What a mess she had made.
Her mother’s expression was utterly horrified. “You ran away?” she said. “You were alone? Unprotected?”
“Please, Papa,” she said. “You are one of the most powerful men in England—”
“Most powerful?” He suddenly seemed twice as tall. “Most powerful, you say?” She flinched when he thumped his chest with his fist. “How powerful do you think I look,” he roared, “when I cannot even control the females in my own household?”
The raw aggression exploding from him edged the air from the room. There was one thing Julien Greenfield could not abide: appearing weak. The viscous slowness of a nightmare engulfed Hattie, except there was no assurance at the back of her mind that she would eventually wake from this. This was real. And she would have to live through every single dreadful consequence.
Her life might be over, but a new morning dawned nonetheless. She lay flat on her back and stared up at the bed canopy with the desperately tired eyes of a sleepless night. Outside her curtains, London was waking with a rosy glow; the first hackneys were clattering past the house and the unintelligible cries of a newspaper boy carried across the street. Her escapade with Mr. Blackstone was likely one of the headlines … Mr. Blackstone, her future husband. Mrs. Whichever Blackstone. She didn’t know his Christian name. Her eyes remained dry; she had cried all her tears before midnight. Had exhausted all her options, too, for there were few:
One—running away. However, a scandalous young woman had nowhere safe to go, and her face went hot with embarrassment at the mere thought of implicating her friends. Besides, she wouldn’t reach the age of majority for another three months. She was the property of Julien Greenfield, and no one would dare steal from a man like him.
Two—eloping with another lover. Alas, there were none available at such short notice.
Perhaps this was her punishment, not just for stupid conduct, but for challenging fate by making rather too specific requirement lists about her husband. She might have fantasized about masked highwaymen and brazen privateers since borrowing her first romantic penny novel from Aunty’s embroidery basket—had secretly delighted in ruthless men who knew no fear and simply took. But visions of her real groom had been the opposite: a Skeffington, a Bingley. Kind, titled, young, and yes, lovely. Men with a dangerous glint in their eyes and a good sword arm were best left between book covers. Now her orders had been switched clean around.