He turned his body on the seat to face her fully.
"I want a partner," he said. The gravel in his voice was gone, replaced by a stark, absolute honesty. "I inherited this title three months ago. My brother drank himself into an early grave and left the estates in chaos.
I spent the last ten years in the army managing men who were bleeding into the mud. I know nothing of ballrooms, Anna. I despise the simpering, the fawning, the endless exhausting performance of it all." He leaned closer.
"Yesterday, I watched you for twenty minutes before I approached you. I watched you manage three different men, steering them toward your sisters with the tactical brilliance of a field marshal. I watched your mother berate you, and I watched you absorb it without flinching, without breaking.
You see the mechanics of this world. You see the ugliness beneath the silk." Anna swallowed hard. "I see it because I am not allowed to participate in it." "You are participating in it right now," Arthur said gently.
He reached out. He didn't ask permission. He took her gloved hand in his.
His grip was firm and grounding. "I do not want a woman who will faint when the estate accounts do not balance. I do not want a woman who requires constant praise to survive the day. I want someone who can stand in the dark with me and not be afraid." Anna looked down at their joined hands.
The cynicism that had protected her for so long was screaming at her to pull away, to laugh it off, to tell him he was mistaken. But looking at him, at the weariness around his eyes, the set of his jaw, the desperate truth in his grip, she saw a reflection of her own exhaustion.
He wasn't a fairy tale prince. He was a tired man looking for an equal. "My mother will demand a terrifying settlement," Anna heard herself say. The words were a test, a final attempt to push reality back into the fantasy.
Arthur's mouth twitched into a genuine smile. "I own half of Yorkshire, Anna. I think I can afford your mother." "Arabella will cry for a week." "I will send her a very large diamond to dry her tears."
Anna finally looked up, meeting his dark eyes. The suffocating weight of the park, the stairs, the whispers, it all seemed to fade into a dull background hum. There was only the leather seat, the dappled sunlight through the oak leaves, and the solid undeniable reality of the man beside her. "I do not like the social season," Anna warned him, her voice barely above a whisper. Arthur's thumb brushed gently over her knuckles.
"Then, Miss Hawthorne," he said, "we shall go home." The return to the Hawthorne residence was not a triumphant procession. It felt like a military extraction. Arthur pulled the phaeton to a halt before the weathered stone steps of the townhouse. Before his groom could even reach the horses' heads, the front door swung open. Lady Hawthorne stood on the threshold, framed by the doorway like a gargoyle defending its nest.
Anna didn't wait for Arthur to assist her. She climbed down, her boots hitting the pavement with a solid grounding thud. Arthur was beside her a second later, his presence a sudden massive wall between her and her mother's impending hysteria. They walked up the steps together. "Your Grace," Lady Hawthorne breathed, her eyes darting frantically between Arthur's impassive face and Anna's surprisingly calm one.
"I trust the park was agreeable." "It was crowded," Arthur replied simply. He did not wait for an invitation. He stepped past Lady Hawthorne, taking Anna with him, and walked straight into the drawing room. Arabella and Cecilia were exactly where Anna had left them, frozen in a tableau of anxious waiting. Arabella's eyes widened at the sight of Arthur's hand resting casually on the small of Anna's back.
"Leave us," Arthur said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't look at the sisters. It was a command issued with the absolute bone-deep authority of a man used to being obeyed instantly. Cecilia grabbed Arabella's arm and practically dragged her out of the room.
The doors clicked shut. Lady Hawthorne remained, her chest heaving beneath her restrictive corset. She looked at Anna, a terrifying mixture of calculation and panic swimming in her eyes. The political maneuver theory was dead. Now she had to pivot.
She was a woman who had spent twenty years surviving on social scraps. She knew how to salvage a shipwreck. "I am a man who prefers brevity, Lady Hawthorne," Arthur began, dropping his hand from Anna and turning to face her mother. He stood in the center of the faded floral rug, making the room look entirely too small. "I intend to marry Anna. The banns will be read on Sunday.
We will marry by special license before the end of the month." Lady Hawthorne opened her mouth. She closed it. She opened it again. "Anna." She tested the name as if it tasted like copper.
"You wish to marry Anna?" "I just said so." "But Arabella—" "Arabella is a remarkably beautiful young woman who will undoubtedly find a husband who appreciates her specific talents," Arthur cut in smoothly. "I am not that man.
I want Anna." Lady Hawthorne's gaze snapped to her middle daughter. It was not a look of maternal pride. It was the sharp assessing glare of an appraiser who had just realized a dusty vase in the corner was actually Ming Dynasty porcelain.
"The Hawthorne estate is encumbered," Lady Hawthorne stated abruptly. The pretense of romance vanished. The mask dropped.
This was the battlefield. She understood. "My son's debts are substantial. If you take Anna, you take her without a dowry." Anna flinched. It was a truth she knew intimately, but hearing it weaponized in this room, laid bare before Arthur, brought a hot flush of shame to her cheeks.
She looked down at her hands. "I do not need a dowry," Arthur said. His voice was cold enough to freeze water. "And her sisters?" Lady Hawthorne pressed on, stepping closer, smelling blood.
"Arabella requires a proper season. Cecilia will need a sponsor next year. As a duke, your connection to our family—" "Stop." Arthur took one step forward.