Content warnings can be found here

Ten minutes later, he was handing Miss Tooting down the steps into the small, but well-ordered garden. She kept her gaze away from him, fixing them instead upon her slippers, which were at great risk of being spoiled by the mud. 

When they were a safe distance from the house, Edward drew a long breath and said, “I do beg your pardon, Miss Tooting, if -”

“You beg my pardon, my Lord?” Her words were hard and cold and sharp. “Pray, for what?”

Edward nodded, and tried to approach the matter from another angle, “I mean, truly, I am sorry that -”

“That what, my Lord Forthenby?” She quickened her pace, keeping the distance between them.

Flustered, he matched her, and remembered in time not to take her by the arm.

“Let us not have any pretence in this matter, Miss Tooting.”

“You object to pretence, then, my Lord? It offends you that one might feign innocence in order to achieve one’s ends? That one might enter into an arrangement without stating one’s true motives?” Satisfied that she had bloodied her claws upon him, she turned and looked full into his face, “You would say that such behaviour was distasteful to you, my Lord?”

Well, quite. 

Which meant that now was the moment to come clean, to kneel if he had to kneel, and beg her forgiveness. It was the time to let her know the truth of the matter - or as much of it as he could let a gently reared creature like her know of it- and to cast himself upon her mercy, but something in her wildly heightened colour, her flashing, dark eyes, stopped him.

She was enjoying this. 

Perhaps it was not the same easy, uncomplicated enjoyment she had from playing the pianoforte, it was something fierce, impolite, and rooted in more anguish than Edward cared to examine. 

But all the same, she was enjoying it.

For in Miss Tooting’s eyes, Edward was a villain, and all the scraping and crawling in the world would only make her see him as a weak one, something snivelling and cowardly, someone like her father. He thought of Mrs Tooting, the faded bruises almost hidden by powder, the kind of disguising he knew too well to miss.

What manner of monster must she think him? An apology could only be an insult. Worse, what with the manners she had been taught, it would oblige her to make some show of forgiving him.

Edward did not deserve even that forgiveness. 

He was revenged on Thornton, even if it were not in the way he would have chosen. Who was Edward, then, to deny her a similar opportunity? If what she wanted was a villain on whom to blame her misfortunes, an opportunity to cast aside all her carefully learned politeness at the expense of the author of her misfortunes, then Edward was an old enough hand at this game. 

So it was that Edward Valance summoned every moment of lordly hauteur he had ever seen enacted in his life, and channelled it all into the innocuous words, “Is this not the laurel walk your father mentioned?”

She tossed her head, and turned to walk along it, not pausing to look back at him.

He followed and, when he was quite sure that the trees sheltered him from anyone spying in the house, Edward reached out and grabbed her arm. At that, of course, she wheeled with shock and anger on her face, and tried to twist her had out of his grip. But Edward had been a fencing champion at the ‘varsity and let her have none of it. “Must you persist in tormenting me, Miss Tooting?”

“I torment you, my Lord?” 

Feeling a complete wretch, he gave her one of those stripping, examining looks that he had spent months honing upon her. Her lips pursed at it, her eyes blazing. Edward released her wrist and shoved her backwards, sending her soft body into the thick, rough verdure of the laurels. 

He advanced one step towards her, but no further. “You question it, madame?” He brought his fist to his chest, laying it hard over his heart, as though it pained him. “I have tried to speak moderately to you, gently, but you persist in provoking me. Do you dare deny the depth and fury of my passion for you?”

Trembling, she drew herself upright, “I have done nothing to encourage you, my Lord.”

“And you claim that is not a torment? That it does not please your fickle nature to see my ardour, and bestow your attentions elsewhere?” 

A real monster would, at this point, have struck her, or at least seized her by the hair. She seemed to be braced for it, and it would have made the picture very pretty. Another possibility would be to press himself against her, in the dank, romantic shade of the laurels, to whisper some poisoned words into her ear. 

But even play acting had its limits. 

“You believe that is torment, my Lord? You would speak to me of torment?” Her scorn was a thing of beauty, the blazing sincerity of her emotions combined with her language learned from far too many sensational novels. Let her take him down; she’d earned it. “Why, by your measure a child might cry agonies if he was denied toy. Do you expect such complaints to move me to pity, in light of the pains you have inflicted upon me?”

“What of them, madame?” It was easy when you got into it. He took another step towards her.

“You have broken faith with an honourable man, sir. Your lies and infamies have caused him to be arrested, pursued, banished? How many sufferings must he undergo to satisfy your pride?”

Edward gave a short, cruel laugh, and subjected her to another of those measuring looks, this time charged through with anger and disdain.

“You deny it, my Lord?”

“Not at all.”

She flinched backwards, further into the hedge, as though not even she had suspected him of such baseness.

“You feel, madame, that I should be troubled by this? That I should regret my actions?”

She trembled back from him, her eyes wide, her chin held high, “Any man of honour would despise such methods.”

His hand came up to her throat. “Never question my honour, madam.”

“I do not question it, sir, I deny it’s very existence.”

She certainly had pluck – and possibly less sense than even Edward himself.

He traced his fingers down the smooth, white skin of her neck, “If some peasant casts his eyes upon something that is mine, Miss Tooting, then I shall see to it that he is suitably punished.”

There were tears, beginning to fall from her eyes, but she continued, strident and strong. “You forget, sir, that I am not yours. That one does not purchase a person in that fashion. Not in this country.”

Edward tightened his grip a little and felt her breath come quick and fast. She was breathing like a girl desperate to spend, and her eyes were not leaving his - yet she hated him. It was both, simultaneously.

He knew that feeling. 

He took another half-step towards her. They were close now, her breath hot on his cheek, her breasts almost touching the front of his coat. “I could buy you like a horse at the market, madame. Do not think I could not.”

Serafina made a small, whimpering sound, and he released her, stepping backwards.

“But I am not the villain you think me.” His every word was ice, was coldness, was scorn, even as he released her throat. “I esteem you - your honour, your devotion,” the words dripped from his lips like insults. “And although I feel you should be horsewhipped, madame, yet I shall speak to you softly for I seem unable to do anything else.”

“You call this softness, my Lord?”

“I call this passion, madam. I call this ardent devotion.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. 

His jaw set, his gaze fixed on her face, Edward struggled to think of some way to end this tirade. 

Not wanting to hurt the girl limited one’s options as a villain, rather.

So it was that Edward Valance settled upon going down upon one knee and saying, “And I would ask that you do me the honour of becoming my wife.” 

He waited for the anger, the abhorrence, the refusal. 

He would not have been surprised if she slapped him.

“You ask what, my Lord?” It seemed as though all the strength, all the certitude had fled her.

“That you… become my wife.” Edward’s tone wavered a little. Demand, he thought, I should have said demand. 

“You offer me marriage?” Her shoulders shook, and she crossed her arms more tightly over her chest. “After... everything?”

“I’m not accustomed to repeating myself,” he said, although he was dangerously close to laughing.

“Well, then,” and her voice trembled as though she did not trust herself to speak. “Then, my Lord, I accept.”

Wait, what?

“You accept?” He could not quite keep the incredulity from his voice. 
“As I have said, my Lord.” It was as though the awful words had given her a new strength. She drew herself out of the hedge and stood tall once more, self-possessed and very beautiful. “Now, if you would be so kind as to walk me back to the house.”

Speechless for perhaps the first time in his life, Edward offered her his arm, and wondering how the bloody hell he was going to explain this to Peach.