Page 52 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

“Yes, for all that time. I told myself I was being silly, that I had agreed to marry Sandacre as a child and I would honour that. I convinced myself that this was simply one of those things that a woman like me had to accept. Men have roles, and so do we. Our role is to love and protect them so they can make great changes to the world. I genuinely believed I could do that for Sandacre, given enough time, even with the way we were changing as people.”

Aurelia wasn’t going to ask exactly what had occurred. She feared the worst. A kiss, or something more. Maybe he had said something to frighten her. Either way, the muscles in her legs tightened and grew restless.

Seraphina looked out of the window, unbothered. “Time passed, and we withheld from making betrothal announcements until the time felt right. My father began pressing the issue once the Duke settled into his title. So late last year, we agreed to marry. Frederick was only a few months off of his emancipation. It all felt right.”

“Until… what?”

“Your engagement to Frederick was announced.”

“But I don’t understand,” Aurelia said, closing her eyes to focus. “You never said anything about… well, about…”

“You can say the word. We are alone,” Seraphina pressed.

“An affair.”

“Yes, I didn’t.”

“But there was one.”

“A little one.”

Aurelia tasted bile at the back of her throat. Some people believed marriage neutralised every sin. But not her. She couldn’t imagine doing that to someone. No one deserved to be betrayed like that.

“I don’t speak about it with any pride. I despise myself for what we engaged in. But I know it could not have been any other way. Do you hate me?”

“I… I don’t know you well enough to say.”

“That’s good. I would hate it if you hated me.” Seraphina reached over and patted her hand. “We never intended for it to happen. But I had been holding on to my feelings about Sandacre for years. Over time… I confided in Frederick about it, little by little. And he confided in me that… that he had long held affection for me, ever since we were children.”

Aurelia was quiet. She was listening, needing to understand completely before she responded.

“We talked about it for weeks. I didn’t believe him at first,” Seraphina continued. “We went back and forth about what to do with his feelings and my hesitation about becoming the Duchess of Sandacre. We were trying to be pragmatic, until it became something more.”

“You began to fall in love with him.”

“Something like that, yes. We knew what it would mean – for you, for Sandacre, for our families. We tried to find a version of it that caused the least harm and we couldn't, and eventually Frederick said that he thought the greater cruelty would be to go ahead with both weddings and spend the rest of our lives in the wrong places. That doing it quickly, even painfully, was still better than the alternative.” She looked at Aurelia. “And I believed him… I still do. We made the right choice – the only choice, given the circumstances. You must understand that.”

“I understand. But that is not the problem,” Aurelia replied. “There is so much that could have been done differently. Why it had to be my wedding morning. Why neither of you could come to either of us and say this, with enough time for something to be done about it with some decency.”

“We should have. Frederick wanted to. He argued for it more than once. But I was…” She paused, and it was the first pause that seemed unplanned. “I was afraid that if we told people in advance they would try to stop us. That families would intervene, that pressure would be applied, and Frederick would forget he wanted me, and that we would end up back where we started, trapped. Frederick said I was wrong, and I think he probably was right.”

“He was,” Aurelia said. “Whatever the outcome would have been, it would have been better than what happened. The ton will ridicule us all our lives for what you did.”

“No, they won’t. They will forget eventually. Sandacre is much too proud to be remembered as a jilted groom. And Frederick is too good.”

She didn’t say Evander was good, and Aurelia paused to wonder why. Meantime Seraphina held her gaze. She was clever and she was honest, and the attempt at an apology was real. But it still didn't account for everything that had happened. And she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” Seraphina asked.

“Not particularly, at this moment.” Aurelia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s all very sudden. I don’t think I expected to see either of you again so soon.”

“But aren’t you glad?”

“I suppose it’s easier this way, since there is no more guessing. We know that you are safe.”

Seraphina nodded. “That's fair too.”

They sat for a moment. Outside the window, the garden was grey and still. It was humid even indoors. Summer was fast approaching.