Page 80 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

She did not even gasp. She felt her face freeze up like some hideous gargoyle, trapped in eternal torment. Her chin fell forward and her lips turned to stone in a hideous, shocked mask.

But she didn’t make a sound. Her father was probably quite proud of her for that. No female hysterics from this quarter.

Mr. Audley appeared to have been similarly affected, but he regained his composure far more quickly, even if the first words out of his mouth were:

“Oh.” and:

“No.”

Amelia thought she might be sick.

“Oh, you will,” her father warned him, and she knew that tone. He did not use it often, but no one crossed him when he spoke like that. “You will marry her if I have to march you to the altar with my blunderbuss at your back.”

“Father,” she said, her voice cracking on the word, “you cannot do this.”

But he paid her no mind. In fact, he took another furious step toward Mr. Audley. “My daughter is betrothed to the Duke of Wyndham,” he hissed, “and the Duke of Wyndham she will marry.”

“I am not the Duke of Wyndham,” Mr. Audley said.

“Not yet,” her father returned. “Perhaps not ever. But I will be present when the truth comes out. And I will make sure she marries the right man.”

“This is madness,” Mr. Audley exclaimed. He was visibly distressed now, and Amelia almost laughed at the horror of it. It was something to see, a man reduced to panic over the thought of marrying her.

She’d looked down at her arms, half expecting to see boils. Perhaps locusts would stream through the room.

“I do not even know her,” Mr. Audley said.

To which her father replied, “That is hardly a concern.”

“You are mad!” Mr. Audley cried out. “I am not going to marry her.”

Amelia covered her mouth and nose with her hands, taking a deep breath. She was unsteady. She did not want to cry. Above all else, she did not want that.

“My pardons, my lady,” Mr. Audley mumbled in her direction. “It is not personal.”

Amelia actually managed a nod. Not a graceful one, but maybe it was gracious. Why wasn’t anyone saying anything? she remembered wondering. Why weren’t they asking her opinion?

Why couldn’t she seem to speak for herself?

It was like she was watching them all from far away. They wouldn’t hear her. She could scream and shout, and no one would hear her.

She looked at Thomas. He was staring straight ahead, still as a stone.

She looked at Grace. Surely Grace would come to her aid. She was a woman. She knew what it meant to have one’s life torn out from beneath.

And then it was back at Mr. Audley, who was still fumbling for any argument that would not leave him saddled with her. “I did not agree to this,” he said. “I signed no contract.”

“Neither did he,” said her father, motioning toward Thomas with a tilt of his head. “His father did it.”

“In his name,” Mr. Audley practically yelled.

But her father did not even blink. “That is where you are wrong, Mr. Audley. It did not specify his name at all. My daughter, Amelia Honoria Rose, was to marry the seventh Duke of Wyndham.”

“Really?” This, finally, from Thomas.

“Have you not looked at the papers?” Mr. Audley demanded of him.

“No,” Thomas said. “I never saw the need.”

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