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Edward passed a hand through the tousled thatch of his hair. Selina had given him a brief outline of the Roma’s current situation as they had ridden out from Blackwell. To move the community now would indeed spell disaster.
‘So, you see, it’s what I must do. Grandmother forbids it, of course.’ There was a ghost of that terrible smile again. ‘But I won’t allow a repeat of what happened tonight.’
It was unthinkable. Edward paced a few steps away from her, noting with perverse amusement the way the group of women standing nearby flinched backwards. She couldn’t. The very idea that Selina would consider sacrificing herself for the good of her community was madness.
A commendable sentiment, Edward thought, but utter madness.
The fact that he couldn’t see how to prevent it from happening pained him more than he cared to admit. He had no choice other than to acknowledge that she was a remarkable woman, quite unlike any he’d met before, and the notion of her in such danger was abhorrent to him. Of course she would face that danger bravely—there was that damned flicker of admiration again—but still...
If only there was a way he could reliably intervene...a set of circumstances that meant Harris and Milton could never touch her and she would be permanently out of their reach...
They would continue to hunt Selina, of that he was certain. Their lust for vengeance for her perceived victory and the pull of that generations-strong prejudice was too powerful. Neither common decency nor the pleas of their wives would prevent them from attempting to punish Selina and the other Roma. She had escaped them not once, but twice, and now their resolve would be firm.
No doubt it was the rumours of his family’s mistreatment of the Roma that had made the men feel safe in persecuting them, Edward mused darkly. Charles had done something terrible, and Ambrose had all but chased the travellers off his land. Their prejudices had been clear to all—perhaps people suspected that Edward shared their sentiments.
The idea that he might so easily have followed their unthinking bigotry was uncomfortable. Thank goodness I was taught better than that, he thought, his eyes on Selina’s silent face.
His childhood Romani friends had done him that favour, by including him in their play and allowing him to be himself in a way frowned upon at his austere home.
And that little Roma girl who showed me such rare kindness will never know the difference she particularly helped to make.
Her tender care of him was something he hadn’t experienced at Blackwell Hall; his mother had been only occasionally attentive, in a detached sort of way, and Ambrose had never so much as lain an affectionate hand on his shoulder.
The thought of his father caused a pain in his chest Edward could have done without, and resentment swelled within him once again as the contents of that enraging final letter ran through his head.
Having been temporarily replaced by the severity of Selina’s situation, his own troubles now returned to the forefront of his mind with a vengeance, and Edward felt his insides twist with renewed anger at the late Squire’s meddling. Time was running out for him to claim his inheritance—a needless pressure born out of one man’s obsession with control.
But Edward was his own master and always had been—that was what his father had hated so much. To make Edward obey him in death in a way he hadn’t managed in life would have been Ambrose’s final victory.
An idea exploded into Edward’s consciousness with such vigour he could have sworn he heard it. Of course. It was so simple—and wouldn’t it neatly solve Selina’s problem at the same time as his own?
He would obey his father’s will to the letter—right down to the final dot of the final ‘i’. He would marry as instructed—but not to the kind of woman Ambrose would have so ardently desired, nor one in any way reminiscent of the lady who had taken his heart only to grind it into dust.
It was risky. People wouldn’t like it. Certainly his father would have been beside himself with rage. But the opinion of society had never mattered much to Edward and, given the desperate circumstances of both parties involved, it now mattered even less. There was even some satisfaction to be taken in knowing he was, as always, acting according to his own wishes—dictated to by nobody but himself.
‘Miss Agres?’
Selina had turned away from him. Standing before the fire, only her silhouette was visible to Edward’s gaze, outlined in sparks and tongues of curling flame. He could see the tension in her back and knew it was only by sheer willpower that she was maintaining her composure.
‘Yes.’
‘I think I may have a solution to your current dilemma—depending on your answers to two questions.’
‘Have you?’ Her tone was flat and devoid of curiosity. ‘And what would those questions be?’
Edward ignored how dull she sounded, feeling his hopes beginning to build. ‘The first is: What is your age?’
She didn’t turn to look at him, her eyes still fixed on the flames before her. ‘How is that of any relevance?’
‘Please. Humour me.’
She sighed, as though it was an effort to find the words to reply. ‘Very well. I am recently turned twenty.’ The fire crackled, sending sparks swirling into the night sky. ‘Your second question?’
Edward reached for her. At the first touch of his hand on her shoulder Selina jumped and swung round to face him, a frown of distrust clouding her features. Edward smiled as the expression in her dark eyes, at first wary and fearful, turned to frozen astonishment as she watched him drop to one knee and take her small hand in his own.
‘Selina Agres. Will you marry me?’
Chapter Four
‘I—What? What did you say?’
Selina gaped at him, feeling her mouth drop open in shock. Had she misheard? Surely he could never have said what she thought he’d—
‘I said, will you marry me?’
She stared downwards, first at Edward’s intent face and then at their hands, joined together in a clasp uncomfortably like that of a pair of lovers. His hand was so much larger and yet it held hers so gently—almost tenderly, a disloyal voice in the back of her mind murmured.
To her horror, a sensation not unlike the warmth of a fledgling fire kindled beneath Edward’s firm fingers, flickering against her skin and stealing upwards towards her arm. The feeling crept higher, warming her against her will, until it reached her chest and settled there, burning inside her with an inexplicable heat that sent her heart fluttering.
On the very edge of her field of vision she could just make out Zillah, watching them in uncharacteristically mute shock, for all the world as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Selina wasn’t sure she believed it either. He couldn’t be serious—of course he couldn’t. Whatever had possessed him to make such a cruel joke at such a moment?
‘Have you run mad?’ The flickering embers of sensation sparked further, beginning to smoulder, and Selina snatched her hand from Edward’s grasp, cradling it against her body with the other as though he had truly burnt her with his touch. ‘Or do you think to mock me?’
‘Neither, I hope.’ Edward rose lightly to his feet again, and Selina took a step backwards, out of his long reach. He didn’t attempt to come closer, but instead regarded her calmly as she glared at him. ‘I asked in earnest.’
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