I've Decided to Marry Him
A moment later, she leaned ever so slightly toward Cassian's shoulder, as if to make a show of it. The tip of Wilhelmina's fan stirred the air beside his ear, close enough to graze and yet not quite touching.
"This sort of high-society madness does tend to wear on a person. If this is your first encounter with it, a little astonishment is only to be expected."
Wilhelmina whispered the words in a voice sweet enough to cloy.
"Should you find yourself in need of the sort of smelling salts ladies so often keep about them, you need only say the word."
Now that was a bold and utterly merciless counterattack.
Cassian laughed, utterly unable to help himself. It was the sort of dramatic moment that made every soul who had been watching him with rapt, unblinking attention draw a sharp, collective breath.
"I'm grateful for the considerate offer, but I'll manage."
"I'm so glad to hear it. Truthfully, I haven't the habit of carrying practical remedies like smelling salts myself. Had Your Highness actually said you needed one, I should have been in rather a pickle."
The way she murmured it, so perfectly unbothered, was infuriating. A smile was just beginning to tug at Cassian's mouth again when—
"Ahem. Hem!"
A pointed cough sounded from directly behind them, twice in succession. It belonged, of course, to Benjamin, seated as their chaperone.
It was the sort of signal most people would have found difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, Cassian was not most people. He turned his upper body toward Wilhelmina quite deliberately, as if to make a point of it.
A few strands of gold slipped free as he tipped his head.
"You know I had no choice that night."
The whisper that settled against the shell of Wilhelmina's ear was intimate, and more than a little problematic.
"More to the point, I only learned your name that very night. Wasn't it a bit premature to decide on a partnership?"
"You're perfectly entitled to think so. But that's precisely why I made myself quite clear, didn't I?"
Wilhelmina countered him with a smile that curved her eyes into pretty crescents.
"That the next time you came to me about this, the sum required for our contract would have changed."
"So we're back to square one, then?"
"Yes. I can't knock off so much as a single pound, I'm afraid."
Watching her profile as she said it — in a tone that was not even remotely sorry — Cassian let out a helpless little laugh. He found her refusal to yield even an inch purely entertaining. To those watching from a distance, however, it was the sort of smile that made him look every inch a lovesick fool.
"Very well. I suppose I shall have to pay my tuition for this particular lesson without complaint."
"Hem. Ahem!"
That, apparently, was the limit of Benjamin's patience. This time he did not stop at coughing. He leaned his torso right up against the back of the forward seat and whispered, rather sinisterly,
"The two of you have rather appalling theater manners this evening. Perhaps the chatter might wait?"
"Good heavens."
Wilhelmina made a show of surprise, her eyes going round as a rabbit's.
"But I don't believe people are looking this way to admire our manners."
"Wilhelmina!"
The growl that came low through his teeth was reasonably threatening. Unfortunately, it was somewhat insufficient to frighten Wilhelmina Priestley — or so Cassian thought.
As expected, Wilhelmina chided Benjamin in a voice laced with laughter.
"Do sit back, Brother. Everyone's laughing."
"And whose fault is that, I wonder."
Muttering under his breath, Benjamin finally settled back into his proper seat.
With nobody truly watching it, the opera had already surged toward its climax. The dignity damaged tonight was beyond repair, but Cassian had gained a pleasure far more valuable than that — so what did it matter? Thinking as much, he was about to turn his eyes toward the actual stage when—
"Hm?"
He turned at the tug on his sleeve to find Wilhelmina looking at him.
Those large, silently glittering hazel eyes of hers. Wearing an expression that sent a faint chill even down Cassian's spine, Wilhelmina spoke.
"I'll warn you one last time: I will not yield a single inch on the alimony. You'd best understand that."
Could there be a moment more perfectly suited to explaining the woman that was Wilhelmina Priestley?
Instead of letting the sharp surge of delight escape as laughter, he crushed it down deep in his gut and answered.
"Would I dare suggest otherwise?"
He had never particularly intended to win a concession in the first place. He had merely wanted to give Wilhelmina a little poke, just to see.
He could feel her shooting him a somewhat suspicious glance, but well. Cassian merely hummed along to the opera's melody, thoroughly pleased and thoroughly satisfied.
After that irreverent and thoroughly conspicuous little farce at the opera house had drawn to a close, the carriage of the Priestley ducal family slipped smoothly through the dense night fog of Winster.
In the regular, rattling rhythm of the coach, Wilhelmina let out a long, languid yawn. Across from her, Benjamin was staring at his younger sister — who looked for all the world like a cat that had eaten its fill and was thoroughly pleased with itself — with a deeply troubled expression. A look of that caliber, however, could hardly interrupt Wilhelmina's brief rest.
The trouble was that the man across from her was Benjamin, her beloved older brother. Wilhelmina had no choice but to sigh and open her mouth.
"Are you trying to bore a hole through my face?"
The Priestleys had always been soft on one another, and Wilhelmina was no exception to that rule.
"Do stop staring and say whatever it is you want to say. It isn't as though anyone's stopping you."
Sunk deep into the leather seat, Benjamin pressed his throbbing temple and let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh.
"You already know all of this, Wilhelmina."
The moment the familiar overture to a lecture began, Wilhelmina produced another long yawn. Benjamin, well accustomed to this particular brand of disregard, paid it no mind and pressed on.
"There is a clear limit to plugging one scandal with another. Mina, I do believe that you, being clever, have already calculated as much."
He did not believe it in the slightest, but Wilhelmina, wisely, chose to redirect rather than point that out.
"Very well, we'll say you believe it. So what's the actual point?"
"That it's time you put an end to this reckless little game of fire. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of your poor brother's tender heart, which grows frailer by the day."
"'Tender' heart?"
"What's certain is that there's precious little of it left, thanks to you."
"I'm hardly the only problem in this family."
"Haven't I told you time and again not to drag your siblings into it when we're discussing you?"
Benjamin drew the line with grave severity. Wilhelmina stuck out her lower lip, but she could not quite bring herself to complain further.
"In any case, I want you to stop using His Highness Cassian. Enough is enough."
The wording was an order, but the tone was less firm than pleading, and it sounded more like a request than a command.
"I can't stop."
Wilhelmina muttered it sulkily.
"I've decided to marry His Highness Cassian."
"Kh— koff, cough!"
At that bombshell of a declaration, delivered like a child's petulant complaint, Benjamin — who had just reached for water to soothe his insides — forgot all dignity and sprayed the mouthful he had been holding.
"Ugh."
Wilhelmina grimaced in disgust, frowning. And yet she still handed him a handkerchief — that was these siblings all over.
"You're not a goldfish. What on earth are you doing?"
"This is your fault! Yours!"
Even as he fumed, Benjamin took the handkerchief his sister offered and wiped his mouth.
"Which is why I lent you a handkerchief."
"So I should thank you for giving me the disease and the cure?"
He had managed to recover his breath, but that only made the distress on Benjamin's face stand out all the more plainly.
"I'll give you a chance. Would you like to take that back and say you were joking?"
"I can't take it back, because it wasn't a joke. His Highness Cassian and I have already settled the matter."