Page 91 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“Mama, I need to tell you before he arrives.”

Elizabeth Fairchild set down her pen. The parlor clock read half past three. Frederick was due at four.

“Tell me what, Louisa?”

Louisa stood in the center of the room, still wearing her gloves, still wearing the sapphire. She had rehearsed this conversation three times on the stairs and twice more in the corridor, and every version had begun with an apology. She could not start there. If she apologized first, the apology would swallow everything that came after.

“I am going to end the engagement.”

Her mother looked at Louisa’s face, then at Louisa’s left hand where the sapphire sat loose on her fourth finger, then back at her face.

“I see,” she said, her voice curious.

“I do not love him, Mama. I have tried for weeks, and what I feel is not love. It is gratitude, and obligation, and the relief of finally being chosen, and none of those are enough to build a marriage on.”

Her mother folded the unfinished letter in half and placed it beneath the blotter. She aligned the ink pot beside the pen tray, her hands needing steadiness before her voice could follow.

“Your father will not be pleased.”

“Papa has not noticed the engagement. He has not noticed the Season. He noticed the canal scheme that lost our money and has not noticed anything since.”

The observation was blunt and true, and Louisa regretted it the moment it left her mouth. Her mother’s fingers stilled on the blotter.

Louisa closed her eyes and sighed. “I did not mean that.”

“You did. And you are not wrong.” Her mother looked up. “When Frederick arrives, do you wish me to stay or go?”

“Go. Please. I need to do this alone.”

“Then I shall be in the morning room. If you need me, I am twelve steps down the corridor.” She rose from the desk and crossed to where Louisa stood. She lifted her daughter’s left hand and turned the sapphire once, slowly, watching the stone catch the light. “A ring that does not fit is not a ring worth keeping.”

She kissed Louisa’s forehead. She left the parlor without looking back, and her footsteps retreated down the corridor, and the morning room door opened and closed.

The knocker struck at four o’clock precisely. The maid’s footsteps crossed the hall. Frederick’s voice carried from the entrance, warm and assured.

Louisa looked down at her hand, then away.

Frederick appeared, hat in hand, his smile already assembled. He glanced around the parlor and his brow creased at her mother’s absence.

“Your mother is not joining us?”

“She is in the morning room.” Louisa did not sit. “Frederick, I need to speak with you.”

He set his hat on the stand and crossed to the mantelpiece. “Of course. I wanted to tell you about the glazier Lord Ashton recommended. His work on the conservatory panels would be”

“Frederick.” She cut across him. “Please sit down.”

He studied her face. His hand went to his cuffs, straightening them.

“You look serious,” he said, brows lifted.

“I am serious. Please.”

He lowered himself into the blue damask chair, slowly, as though testing whether it would hold.

Louisa looked at the sapphire on her hand. She looked at Frederick.

“Frederick, I cannot marry you.”