"£20,000 from my grandmother's trust, which I cannot access until I am married. A wife whose conduct will raise no eyebrows and cause no scandal. A household manager who will not bankrupt me in the first month."
He paused. "And if I am being honest, a reason to stop."
"Stop what?"
"Everything." The word came out flat, tired. "I have spent the past 8 years racing toward my own destruction, Miss Blythe. I am very good at it. I have lost fortunes at cards, ruined horses, alienated friends, and disappointed my father so thoroughly that he has stopped speaking to me altogether. But I am tired. I am tired of waking up in strange beds. I am tired of owing money to men who would happily break my legs. And I am tired of looking at my sisters' faces and knowing that I am failing them."
The fire crackled. A log shifted, sending up a shower of sparks. Georgiana watched him as he spoke, and she saw that he meant it—every exhausted, self-lacerating word. She also saw that he was a gambler, not just in the literal sense, though that too, but in the deeper, more dangerous sense. He was a man who had spent his life making bets, taking risks, trusting to luck. And now he was proposing the biggest gamble of all, that a practical vicar's daughter could save him from himself.
"You are asking me to trust you," she said slowly. "To bind my life to yours on the promise that you will change."
"I am asking you to enter into a business arrangement. Whether I change or not is irrelevant to the terms of our contract. You will receive your settlement regardless."
"But the school will not," Georgiana said, "if you return to your old habits. If you gamble away what remains of your fortune and end in prison regardless, my reputation is ruined, my position is lost, and the 5,000 pounds will be eaten up by your creditors before I can spend a penny of it."
Sebastian's jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he would argue. Then he surprised her.
"You are right," he said. "I have given you every reason to doubt me. I have no collateral to offer beyond my word, which I acknowledge is not worth much in this county. But I will say this: I have never broken a promise to a woman. I have lied to bankers, cheated at cards, and deceived my own father. But I have never made a promise to a woman and broken it. I don't know why that should matter to you, but it is the truth."
Georgiana considered this. She considered the leaky roof and the ragged primers and the children who came to school with no breakfast in their bellies. She considered her father's worn-out coat and her mother's empty chair at the dinner table. She considered the weight of her own exhaustion, the years of doing more with less, of stretching pennies until they screamed.
She picked up the settlement. "I will need to read this carefully," she said. "And I will need to speak with my father. And I will need your solemn oath that my sisters-in-law will be removed from their school in Bath and brought to live with us within a fortnight of the wedding."
Sebastian's expression flickered: surprise followed by something that looked dangerously close to hope. "You agree?"
"I agree to consider it," Georgiana said firmly. "I am not a gambler, my lord. I do not make decisions lightly or quickly, but I am a woman who knows the value of 5,000 pounds, and I am a woman who has seen what happens to young girls raised without protection or affection."
She stood, smoothing her skirts. Sebastian rose as well, and for a moment they stood facing each other, the ruined viscount and the vicar's daughter, two practical people contemplating an impractical bargain.
"There is one more thing," Sebastian said quietly. "You should know that marrying me will make you a target. The men to whom I owe money, they are not gentlemen. They will not treat you with the deference due a viscountess. They will see you as leverage."
Georgiana met his gaze without flinching. "Then I suppose we shall both have to be careful."
She left him standing in the library, the fire dying behind him, a glass of Madeira forgotten on the table. On the long walk back to the vicarage, she calculated the cost of new slates and tried not to think about the tremor in his hands.
They were married on a gray Tuesday in the small parish church of St. Margaret's with only her father, her two younger brothers, and a handful of curious villagers in attendance. Sebastian's family did not come. His father sent a curt letter of acknowledgement. His sisters were still in Bath, unaware that their brother had acquired a wife.
Georgiana wore her mother's wedding gown, a simple ivory muslin that had been altered twice and was beginning to show its age. She had no veil, no orange blossoms, no bridesmaids. She did not mind. She had agreed to a contract, not a fairy tale.
Sebastian stood at the altar in a coat that had been expensively tailored several years ago and had since seen better days. He looked tired but composed. When he took her hand, she felt that he was trembling slightly, though his voice was steady as he spoke his vows.
"I, Sebastian, take thee, Georgiana, to be my wedded wife."
It was done in 10 minutes. They signed the register. Her father embraced her with tears in his eyes, whether of grief she could not tell. Her brothers shuffled their feet and looked uncomfortable. The villagers dispersed to spread the news.
Sebastian handed her into his carriage, a battered vehicle that had once been elegant, and climbed in beside her.
"Well," he said, "that was unpleasant. I apologize."
"It was a wedding, not an execution."
"I've attended executions that were livelier."
He pulled the curtain across the window and leaned his head back against the squabs. "The deed is done. You are now Viscountess Hale, mistress of Rosewick Park, and the proud owner of a husband who is approximately 3,000 pounds in debt beyond the 20,000 he just inherited."
Georgiana blinked. "3,000? You said you needed money to avoid prison. You did not mention that the marriage settlement would be immediately absorbed by existing debts."
"I did mention it. You simply did not ask the right questions." He opened one eye. "I am a gambler, Miss Blythe, my lady. I have spent years learning to tell the truth without revealing anything useful. You will need to become more adept at interrogation."
She stared at him. The carriage jolted over a rut in the road and she grabbed the leather strap to prevent sliding into him. "You tricked me," she said slowly.
"I did not trick you. I told you I was in debt. I told you I needed 20,000 pounds to access my grandmother's trust. I did not specify that the trust would be immediately dispersed to my creditors. That was an omission, not a lie. There is a distinction."
"There is no distinction whatsoever."
"Ah." He smiled, a thin, weary smile. "Then you are already learning."
Georgiana took a breath, then another. The carriage rattled on. Outside, the gray fields of Kent rolled past, sodden with autumn rain.