Until the Divorce Papers Are Signed

"Have you really been listening to those idiots all this time? Honestly, there's always been something peculiar about you."

"My dear Miss Priestley, people call you an odd woman for the mere fact that you've kept up a friendship with the likes of me from childhood to this very day."

"And how is that purely your fault?" Wilhelmina shot back, her tone pointed.

"I'd be plenty peculiar even without you, you know. Isn't it about time you stopped diminishing my accomplishments like that?"

"I yield."

Nate raised both hands in surrender, spreading them on either side of his head. Only then did Wilhelmina give a derisive little snort and lift her teacup.

He watched her with a certain fondness for a moment, then murmured, "Who on earth would set their mind to ruining a reputation like yours? If it were me, I'd be too frightened of the consequences to even dream of it."

Wilhelmina shrugged.

"Well, perhaps that idiot isn't only trying to ruin my reputation."

"So you suspect His Highness Edward." Nate clicked his tongue. "Am I wrong?"

"To a degree?"

Tearing off a piece of perfectly baked scone and chewing it in a thoroughly undignified fashion, Wilhelmina went on, "House Priestley has held a politically moderate, neutral line for generations. Thanks to that, we do enjoy a certain amount of support."

"A certain amount of support?"

Nate let out a dry, coughing laugh. He shook his head with a wry smile.

"Your humility is excessive, my lady. It wouldn't be overstating the case to say that His Grace the Duke commands the largest voting bloc in the Westwinster Upper House."

"But we failed to keep our own household in line, didn't we?"

Being herself the household member in question, Wilhelmina merely shrugged with perfect composure. In that instant, Nate's amber eyes narrowed.

"I see how it is. Shake the ducal house's standing with a scandal involving you, so soon after the mourning period has ended — then have Duke Kingsley play the savior and extend a helping hand? Dangling a most suitable match for a disgraced young lady as bait?"

"Correct."

"And the price would be siding with him at the council on the Regency Act."

Instead of answering, a sly smile spread across Wilhelmina's lips.

"So that's it." Nate gave a hollow little laugh. "The argument you used to persuade His Highness Duke Clifford yesterday."

"Well, something like that."

Watching his friend shrug as if it were nothing at all, Nate could only let out a disbelieving chuckle.

"You said that with evidence that Duke Kingsley is behind the conspiracy, I hope?"

"As if I'd have something like that."

"I knew it."

Nate pressed a hand to his spinning head.

"Then how can you be so sure it was Duke Kingsley's doing? They both need power equally — it could just as well have been a plot from Duke Clifford's side."

Wilhelmina grinned. And before Nate could even sense the ominous turn coming, she said, "That's why I checked yesterday. Whether it was him — or whether it wasn't."

"Good God."

Nate clutched his head with both hands before he knew what he was doing.

"Is it really that shocking?"

"Have a conscience, will you?" Nate scrubbed his face with his hands and shuddered. "Anyway, I take back what I said at the start. The one beyond all hope of salvation isn't last night's adventure, Mina. It's you."

"My, laying on the compliments a bit thick, aren't we?"

Watching the triumphant look on his friend's face, Nate sighed.

"Let me ask you one thing, Mina."

He made no effort to hide how exhausted he looked, but his gaze was the gravest and most worried it had ever been.

"Do you truly believe that mad plan of yours will succeed? Against the man they call the Slaughterer of the Blue Sea — the one who stained the entire ocean with blood?"

"It has to."

She drained what was left in her cup in a single swallow and set it down with a sharp clink. Her eyes burned with more resolve than he had ever seen in them.

"...No. It will succeed. I've already prepared a method that will work."

Ordinarily, Nate would have burst into hearty laughter at this point and conceded that it was so very like her. But today the troubled look that had surfaced on his face refused to fade.

"Listen, Mina. I'm saying this as your closest friend."

"Whenever you start a sentence like that, it's always something that cuts to the bone."

Nate offered a wry smile at her grumbling.

"It's just that this 'success' you keep talking about seems to mean only the marriage itself."

A vivid question mark surfaced on Wilhelmina's face.

"What else would there be?"

Looking at his friend, whose feelings were transparent to a fault, Nate spoke with a somewhat awkward expression.

"Listen carefully, Wilhelmina. You're making a serious mistake right now."

Like most Priestleys, Wilhelmina had a formidable pride. The only reason she did not argue with this challenging pronouncement was the genuine concern in Nate's careful gaze.

"Let me say this first: your calculation isn't wrong. If you can persuade Duke Clifford to sign the marriage contract, it would be the finest stroke imaginable — making a fool of both the one who spread the scandal and whoever stands behind him, all in a single move. I agree with you there. But Mina, think about it."

"About what?"

"This calculation never ends there."

It was a definitive declaration, unlike Nate's usual manner.

"...The marriage I spoke of naturally includes the divorce, Nate. Did you think I intended to remain a married woman forever?"

Having to explain something so obvious to him felt strange, and Wilhelmina's brow was faintly furrowed.

"Obviously I plan to become a wealthy divorcée as quickly as possible."

"What I mean is that that's only your plan."

Nate advised her calmly, exercising a patience he did not entirely feel. "Just as a marriage presupposes the consent of both parties, a divorce requires the agreement of two people as well, you know."

"You can't possibly think I don't know that."

After gazing at his incredulous friend for a moment, Nate asked abruptly, "Have you ever considered why the men who've proposed to you actually proposed?"

"Beauty, fortune, honor, and a dash of wit."

Nate couldn't help but laugh at the unhesitating answer. But he soon said, "The fact that you answered that way is proof you don't understand the situation."

"Oh, I don't know. I don't want to know."

Wilhelmina's patience finally ran out, and she snapped first.

"Nate Ashton, you're wonderful in every way except that you sometimes talk complete nonsense."

"Even if you can't understand all of it, remember this one thing." Nate spoke while leisurely tasting his freshly poured tea. "He seems indifferent to you now, doesn't he? Yesterday he may even have looked at you as if you were some madwoman. But there's no guarantee he'll stay that way to the end."

"You're not seriously suggesting that during this contract marriage he might fall hopelessly in love with me and refuse the divorce?" Even as she said it, Wilhelmina waved a hand and snorted. "That's a novel unto itself. I can't believe I even said it out loud."

"Wilhelmina."

"Fine, fine, I get it. So you're saying that for some reason, or some unforeseen variable, he might try to keep the marriage going."

Even as she spoke, she could not hide her skeptical expression. Her fingers tapped out an uneasy rhythm against the table.

"Well, all right. Even though I haven't the faintest idea what that variable could possibly be, I'll remember it — because it's you saying it."

"Yes. For now, that's enough."

Lowering his eyes over his teacup, Nate smiled. It was the kind of smile Wilhelmina would one day recall with a thunderclap of realization.

Nate Ashton, as a friend, had offered her a sincere piece of counsel with all the loyalty and good faith he possessed, standing before the storm that was about to break. Though it would take Wilhelmina some time to grasp this wise advice, in the grand scheme of things that hardly mattered.

A well-honed insight would one day drive into Wilhelmina's life like a dagger, as if it were prophecy — and Nate knew with certainty that that day would come.

Propping his chin at his leisure, he spoke to his friend, who was still stuffing scone into her mouth in a thoroughly undignified fashion.

"What matters is that I'm always on your side."

"Of course, Mr. Ashton." Wilhelmina replied around a mouthful. "Otherwise I'd have to kill you."

"Hahaha!"

And so that pleasant, cheerful teatime came to a peaceful close.