Will You Marry Me?
"Surely not. On the contrary, I was deeply impressed."
Cassian caught the brim of his military cap and offered a playful salute.
"That said, I rather think I'd better hurry the proposal along before Miss Priestley adds any further clauses to the prenuptial contract."
"That would be wise of you."
Wilhelmina answered offhandedly, as though she were discussing someone else's affairs entirely.
"If I might offer a piece of advice, you'd do well to call on him as soon as possible. Before that little catastrophe His Highness unleashed upon our household drives my brother completely mad."
"Well, before I go pounding so rudely upon that poor Duke's study door…"
Cassian drew on the reins, easing the carriage to a gentler pace until it came to a halt along a quiet stretch of the park, where a row of oaks lined the roadside.
Perhaps it was the distant bustle of Gloria Green, now faded far behind them, but the stillness here stood out all the more. Sunlight filtered through the leaves like stars scattered over their heads, and a breeze like a sigh did nothing but tickle the hair at their temples.
"There is, after all, a certain moral order to these things. So even if, as far as you're concerned, this is merely a question of form — I hope you'll bear with me a moment."
In that instant when even the world itself seemed to hold its breath and watch them, a few words, spoken in a low and gentle voice, turned toward her.
"……"
Ordinarily she would have shot back at once — And just how formal a question do you intend to ask? — but somehow, now, her lips would not part.
His silver-gray eyes gleaming cool and clear, Cassian asked,
A breeze stirred.
The leaves trembled, and the starlike patches of sunlight scattered across the carriage seat flickered in a dizzying dance. Through it all, Wilhelmina sat motionless, as though she had forgotten how to breathe.
Only when the wind died down, taking with it that long rustle of leaves, did she finally manage to ask,
"…Did you just ask me that?"
"There isn't anyone else here at present, is there?"
"But that isn't how it's usually done."
Cassian answered as though it were nothing at all, which only made it harder for Wilhelmina to accept.
"Ordinarily, before proposing to a woman, one first seeks permission from her nearest male guardian — to ask whether one may propose at all."
"But this contract began with the two of us, and the two of us alone, from the very start."
Cassian's low, even voice sounded almost as though he were trying to soothe her.
"And has our situation ever, even once, fallen within the bounds of the ordinary?"
It had not.
Only then did Wilhelmina begin, slowly, to understand what Cassian was trying to say.
"I am a soldier. And."
He whispered it softly, yet with force.
"On the battlefield, identifying the opposing commander is a soldier's most fundamental competence."
In that instant, her heart lurched — so violently that if she opened her mouth, she felt she might spit the beating thing right out.
Commander.
Staking the identity of a soldier he had lived as all his life, Cassian was vouching for it: that Wilhelmina was the opposing commander. That he had recognized her as such.
She had never in her life heard such a strange thing — a thing so arrogant, and yet so perfectly full of respect. It was a thing even Wilhelmina had never been able to say to herself.
In this man's eyes…
Gazing into those silver-gray eyes, moonlike and pure as sterling, Wilhelmina thought,
I am his equal.
And that was what Wilhelmina had spent her entire life insisting to the world.
It was not that she disliked Benjamin. It was not that she did not trust him. She loved and trusted him so completely that she believed, without a shadow of doubt, that no better brother existed in the world. And yet, even so, she could not bear the reality that men who wanted her as a wife had to seek his permission before they ever asked hers.
How was that any different from being treated as family property, accessible only with the head of the house's leave?
She trusted Benjamin — but quite apart from that, the right to chart the course of her own life belonged to her. It was not a matter that could be surrendered or entrusted to anyone. Even if no one acknowledged it — even if those who claimed to love her passionately were far more interested in Benjamin's opinion than in hers — it did not matter. This was not, in Wilhelmina's view, a question that required anyone's recognition.
And yet in this moment — this dazzling instant — Wilhelmina finally understood.
I…
had wanted this moment more desperately than anyone.
It might not have meant all that much to Cassian. He might simply have been acknowledging the willful stubbornness she had shown him thus far. But it did not matter. Whatever the case, the fact that this man had recognized her as the commander of her own ship would not change.
"May I have your answer?"
If this was a calculated maneuver on his part, she would gladly concede the point. It was a stroke of genius — a strategy brilliant enough to breach the walls of Wilhelmina Priestley's fortress.
"Very well."
Commander, negotiator — whatever the title, to be treated as an equal. That it could feel this exhilarating was almost unfair, and she was only now discovering it.
She swept aside the parasol she had been holding somewhat defensively before her, and Wilhelmina smiled — a wide, unguarded smile.
"I'll grant you my permission. As a younger sister, I rather prefer the option that makes my brother's life difficult."
"Ah. I had gathered as much from the beginning."
Laughter flickered simultaneously in the eyes that met. Wilhelmina whispered,
"I'll trust that you have more talent for this than Chestnut the parrot."
Instead of answering, Cassian merely let the smile at the corners of his eyes deepen a little further.
In Brighton, the study of a storied family was the exclusive sanctuary of its head, and as such, the space itself carried an overwhelming gravitas. Today, however, standing with his back to the vast casement windows, the head of the Priestley family — Benjamin — looked unusually worn and weary.
"Well, then."
It was, admittedly, a rather unconventional greeting for a member of the royal family. Cassian Windstor, however, paid not the slightest mind to such a trivial breach of etiquette. He was, after all, a guest who had been uninvited from the start.
Benjamin silently gestured Cassian toward a seat. While Cassian settled himself on the leather sofa opposite, Benjamin personally unstoppered a crystal decanter and poured the amber brandy. He handed one glass to Cassian, kept the other for himself, and as he took his seat, Benjamin murmured,
"I knew a moment like this would come, sooner or later."
He had known this day would arrive, and yet his expression made it equally clear that he had desperately hoped it would not.
Cassian lifted his glass slightly and smiled, rather splendidly.
"I did promise you at the opera house, did I not? That I would pay a visit in the near future."
Benjamin furrowed his brow, looking briefly puzzled, before he managed to recall the incident at the Obsidian Gentlemen's Club. It was less a failure of memory than the fact that everything that had happened since had been a succession of shocks.
"You're referring to the promise you made — that in exchange for my accompanying her as a chaperone at the opera house, you would answer my question."
"Yes, that's right."
"Hmm…"
Trailing off, Benjamin seemed to sink into thought for a moment.
"I shall be frank with you, Your Highness."
When he finally organized his thoughts and spoke, the mental exhaustion still hung heavy on Benjamin's face — but his eyes had changed. Meeting a gaze that now held a glint of steel, unlike a moment before, Cassian nodded.
"Yes, Your Grace."
"While I was waiting for an answer to that day's question, a few more questions I must put to Your Highness have arisen."
"You may ask me anything you wish."
Cassian's manner was perfectly composed and courteous, and his answer equally gracious. Benjamin's gaze, however, was fixed not on the man's face but on the hand wrapped around the glass.
It was a plainly alien hand. It was fundamentally different from the refined hands of other gentlemen — the sort who might idly swing a cricket bat at a picnic, or toy with an expensive hunting rifle on an autumn shoot.