Page 120 of Immortal Rose

My head snapped back in shock. “But—why?”

“In the event it takes some time before your ownership over the House of Rosebourne is settled.” He cleaned the tip of the quill with his shirt, a sardonic smile slanting his lips. “And for your trouble in this matter.”

My brows drew tight together. “If you were counting on me strenuously protesting, I regret to inform you that neither am I too proud nor do I possess the moral scruples to pretend that I won’t accept your gold.”

It would be a divorce settlement, not payment for services rendered, I decided. A true lady might accuse him of treating her like a mistress or a prostitute, but propriety was the swiftest path to poverty, and it had been terrorizing good women for centuries. Integrity and virtue were well and good, but they weren’t two marks to rub together to buy a loaf of bread. It was only right for me to take what I could from him before walking away.

Wasn’t it?

“Do you have any other terms you wish to add?” he asked.

I shook my head and, with a shuddering breath, signed my name to the agreement.

After I blew on the ink to dry it, Foxcourt pulled the foolscap toward him. He bent at the waist, and a silver blade flashed as he slid it from his boot. Before I could think to ask what it was for, before I could so much as gasp, he slid it across his palm.

I watched, stunned, as he dipped the quill into the blood pooling in his hand and signed the document in the ancient manner of a sacred blood oath.

Hugh Regulus Thornton, Earl of Foxcourt.

My mind, cast into a sea of chaos, tentatively dressed my name with his surname, Viola Thornton, before I banished the thought entirely.

“God, you’ll bleed all over yourself.” Reaching into my apron pocket, I pressed a handkerchief into his palm, pressing it tight to the wound. “Rather dramatic of you, Hugh Regulus Thornton.”

He looked between the handkerchief and my face with that same intensity he’d had as he cut himself. “Rather wifely of you, Viola Elizabeth Lockwood.”

Of course he had remembered my middle name. Silence stretched like a ribbon of silk between us, wrapping around my hand as it pressed against his, binding. For a small eternity, we did nothing but study each other, as if a new slant of light had stolen through the windows and burned away the last of our masks.

And rather than terrified, I felt . . . calm. The decision had been made, and if I lived to regret it, then I would ensure that so would he.

“Till Immortal Rose do we part,” I said lightly.

I looked down at my simple white day dress and apron, both splattered with oils that still flowered as they warmed against my skin. And as I released his hand, I knew it would be the scent I associated with marriage for the rest of my life. Eau de matrimony.

Orange blossom, rose, jasmine, ink, and blood.

Felicity, through a show of a hitherto unseen forbearance, managed to wait until we were in my bedchamber before letting her composure shatter. She fell back against the door, her jade-green eyes glittering as she clutched her hands together against her heart.

“Oh, Viola!” Her voice was as delighted as spun sugar. “A wedding! What a blessing!”

It came on so suddenly, it took even me by surprise. One moment I was standing there, facing Mama’s portrait, and the next, I was sobbing. Deep, shuddering, gasping sobs. I staggered, blinded by the veil of burning tears. Felicity was by my side at once, wrapping her arms around me.

“Oh dear,” she said mildly. “Oh goodness. Have it all out, then. You’ll feel better for it—at least that’s what they say in the stories.”

Felicity guided me toward the bed, easing us both down onto it. Sweeping the loose curls back from my wet cheeks, she dabbed at my tears with her apron. “Is it really as bad as all that?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t. I was alive. I wouldn’t be arrested. There was still a chance of claiming the Rosebourne inheritance. But that calm I’d felt in the kitchen had been nothing but a temporary dam, and seeing Mama’s face, knowing how disappointed she would be, had shattered it.

“I’ll—I’ll be all right,” I said. “It’s not . . . He’s . . .”

Felicity nodded, as if perfectly understanding the nonsense I’d just uttered. Maybe she had. She leaned toward me conspiratorially. “We can slip out of the house quick and quiet as mice and commandeer a mail coach and go out into the countryside. I know a rather ill-tempered goose that would be glad to defend us.”

I couldn’t bring myself to laugh; I’d never ask her to betray the others that way, nor would I ask her to return to the home that had so cruelly rejected her. “No. I appreciate it and am a friend to all geese, but I signed my name. I agreed to this.”

Felicity nodded, floating a soft “And it won’t be forever, will it?”

“It won’t,” I said with a steadying breath, and wiped the last of the tears from my face.

Felicity’s smile was strained, but she nodded. “There was a delivery from the modiste this morning, including the replacement for the blue dress. She’d perfumed them with so much of that lavender of hers, I’ve been airing them outside so as not to smother you.”