She turned to walk toward the next exhibit, desperate to keep moving before her knees buckled.
Darius stepped into her path. He didn't touch her, but his sheer physical presence halted her in her tracks. He looked down at her, the museum light catching the harsh, stubborn angles of his face.
"I am not going alone," he said.
Beatrice's breath hitched. She stared at his cravat, refusing to look up. "Are you inviting my aunt? Because I must warn you, she gets violently motion-sick."
"Beatrice, look at me."
She squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second, fortifying her spine, and looked up.
"Come with me," Darius said. It wasn't a romantic plea; it was a grounded, urgent demand. "Marry me."
The silence in the grand hall was absolute, save for the distant clearing of the footman's throat. Beatrice stared at him. She waited for the punchline. She waited for the cynical reality of the world to crash down and correct this massive, impossible error in logic.
"Why?" she asked. The word was a weapon—sharp and defensive.
Darius didn't flinch. "Because my estates require a duchess. Because the line requires an heir."
"Any of the sixty women in this city with a dowry and a perfect pedigree can give you that!" Beatrice fired back, her voice shaking with the effort of holding her ground. "Caroline would give you that! You need political alliances. You need untouched wealth. I bring you nothing but a scandal and a trunk full of mended stockings!"
"I don't need wealth. I own half of Northern England," Darius countered, stepping closer, closing the gap until the polite distance of society vanished. "I don't need political alliances. I buy the politicians. Do you want to know what I actually need?"
He reached out and took her hand. He didn't ask for permission: he stripped off his leather glove, took her bare hand in his, and gripped it hard. His palm was rough, warm, and entirely real.
"I need someone who isn't afraid of me," Darius said, his voice dropping to a raw, ragged whisper. "I need someone who will look at my ridiculous wealth and sigh in exhaustion. I was drowning in a foot of water in this city, Beatrice, and you were the only person who pointed out I could just stand up."
Beatrice stared at their joined hands. The cynical armor she had worn for six years was cracking, falling away in heavy, useless shards.
"I am not a romantic, Darius," she whispered, using his name for the first time, her throat aching with the sheer vulnerability of it. "I will not write you poetry. I will likely argue with you over the household accounts. I am entirely pragmatic."
A slow, brilliant smile broke across Darius's face. It reached his dark eyes, lighting them with a profound, unshakable relief.
"Thank God," he murmured. He raised her hand and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. It was not a courtly, polite kiss; it was a seal, a contract. "Marry me, Beatrice. Be my duchess. Fight the accounts. Fight me. Just don't ever go back to being invisible."
Beatrice looked at the man who had seen through the fern, through the silence, through the faded dresses. He wasn't offering her a fairy tale; he was offering her a partnership—a real, messy, fiercely protective life.
She tightened her grip on his hand. "Very well," she said, a small, wry smile finally breaking through her defenses. "But I absolutely refuse to let my aunt plan the wedding."
They were married exactly nineteen days after the incident with the sugar swan. It was a Tuesday. It was raining.
Aunt Agatha had spent the preceding forty-eight hours in a state of hysterical mourning, mourning the society spectacle she was being denied. She had begged for Westminster Abbey; she had pleaded for a bishop, a choir, and at least four hundred guests. Darius had coldly procured a special license, tipped a parish vicar handsomely, and arranged the ceremony for 8:00 in the morning in a damp, empty chapel off St. George's Square.
Beatrice did not wear white silk. White stained; white was for women who did not have to step over muddy puddles to reach a carriage. She wore a tailored traveling habit of dark charcoal wool trimmed in severe black braid. It was the most expensive piece of clothing she had ever owned, paid for by a quiet, anonymous draft sent to her modiste by Darius's man of business.
The chapel smelled of wet stone and old beeswax. Caroline sat in the front pew, aggressively weeping into a lace handkerchief. Aunt Agatha stood rigidly beside her, looking as though she were attending an execution rather than a wedding.
Darius waited at the altar. He wore a dark gray coat that perfectly matched Beatrice's dress, though they had never coordinated it. He looked immovable. The dark circles under his eyes were gone, replaced by a sharp, focused energy. When Beatrice walked down the short aisle entirely alone, he didn't offer a polite smile: he stepped forward, taking her hand before she even reached the vicar, bypassing the ceremonial weight entirely.
"You are certain?" he murmured, his voice pitched so low only she could hear it over the sound of rain lashing the stained glass.
"I have already packed my trunks, Darius," Beatrice replied, her voice steady. "I am not paying to have them unpacked."
The corner of his mouth twitched. He turned to the vicar and nodded.