4th Time Lucky

Asked and Answered

This was one of her nightmares with a prettier painting palette.

In her last lifetime, Devlin announced their engagement to a room full of his peers. It was a party she threw in her home - she handed him a stack of invitations, sending a few to local business owners she knew. It was money he was after, not status. Money for the cause. Money for the revolution.

She was merely the means.

At the time, she thought she was clever. She was convinced that as much as he was using her, she was using him. She'd quickly check off marriage, create an heir, then leave this world the way she was meant to. Devlin was strong enough to stand up to her Uncle. She was sure he'd be able to stop Astor from trying to take over her business.

And he did. He wasn't suckered like Rigel. He wasn't so in love with her that he'd be blinded to Astor's manipulations.

Devlin probably never loved her at all.

The moment Devlin announced their engagement, without checking with her, she smiled and went along with it. It checked off marriage, right?

It was how their relationship had started, and how it would continue. The wedding was a political maneuver. The business was turned toward smuggling information, then weapons, for the revolution. Funding the revolution. Burying bodies in her fields for the revolution.

He did it all without her knowledge. It was so subtle. She was easily distracted by his deflections and half truths. It was as though she woke up one day and her life wasn't her own anymore. She was so far removed from the captain's chair she couldn't even make a suggestion to her life's heading.

The only thing she was in control of, by the end, was her pregnancy. That baby was all she had any say in. He was her reason to keep going, even as Devlin crushed her under his thumb.

In the end, she didn't even have control over that.

And it all started just... like... this.

"This is my cousin Derry, and his wife Ellen." Edgar was narrating every encounter. "Marquess Christoff and his fiancée, Lady Helena."

"Pleased to meet you," Katherine intoned, shaking hands and curtsying. Again, again.

More faces, more names. She could see the pattern she'd lived before. A ball room full of people she had to impress. A fiancé who did what he wanted and she was expected to nod and smile.

Edgar was looking more relaxed with each couple he introduced her to. His hands more sure against her back as he propelled her from one end of the room to the next.

Katherine could see his mother and Emily's entourage gathering themselves. This was not the time or place to push back.

More people. More names she wouldn't remember.

The Duke kept looking back. What was he wanting to see?

Katherine put on a practiced smile and hollow expression. It was new to this face and old to her soul. She held it in place until they ran out of friendly faces.

The Duke turned her toward him at the edge of the room. The only introductions missed were those of Society around his mother.

"All right to keep going?" he asked, trying to read her expression and coming up with nothing.

Katherine's true answer was no, but she couldn't see how this would play out. If she said no, would he move like Devlin and dig his fingers into her arm, forcing her to go?

She thought she liked Edgar, but this situation was blurring her reality. Maybe, the rushed courtship was all a show. She would say no to the wedding and he would be back with more honey to lure her in. The cycle would hope. Again. Perhaps there were no good men. The marriage part was the actual curse of the demon.

"Whatever you need, your grace," she replied.

He paused. She could see his thoughts turning over. What did he need?

He dropped his voice low so only she could hear his reply.

"I'm sorry I surprised you."

Katherine blinked slowly, like an animal trying to indicate its docility. "It's fine."

"I didn't think it through. I thought this would protect you from them." He glanced toward Emily and Marianne's cluster of women (their husbands were wisely hanging back in a cluster of their own).

"I don't need protecting from them," she said. "I'm fine. Their approval isn't important to me." When the revolution swung into Civil War, none of this Society would matter. Something new would rise in its place.

"I know. I'm not asking for their approval. I'm telling them you have my protection."

Katherine looked out at the room, thinking of everything she was able to accomplish without a man at her side in her first lifetime.

"I don't need that either," she said.

Duke Albrecht looked like he had been smacked. "Are you... saying you don't want to get engaged?" He waited for her to confirm, but she stayed still. The future was muddled, and Katherine couldn't tell if it was safe to make a choice. The Duke barely hid his worried expression. "I thought you wanted a quick engagement; something about your Uncle's claim to your home?"

"I did," Katherine confirmed. Quietly, in equal measures brave and stupid, she pushed him. "I just wanted to be asked."

He cupped his hand against her cheek, his eyes soft. Katherine tried to take this for what it felt like, erasing her previous life one memory at a time.

"I'm sorry." His thumb lightly traced the curve of her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to rewrite her history. "Katherine, will you marry me?"

In the time it takes to breathe with intention, she thought of many futures, and many pasts. Katherine had flashes of images: her parents' graves, that demon's eyes, and her Uncle's smug greeting. She looked at Edgar's patient expression and his worries tucked into the corner of his lips.

"Katherine?" If this was an act, he was very good. His eyes shone with the threat of tears, surprising even himself. He whispered, "Are you saying no?"

She gently took his hand off her face, holding it, knowing others were watching their every move. "I'm saying if we do this, it's done together or not at all. You can't make decisions for me. No surprises."

I'm not doing that again, she vowed to herself.

"Of course. I'm sorry. My mother makes me crazy sometimes and I jumped ahead. Can we pretend that I was here on time, and that I introduced you without the threat of a forced engagement?"

"We can."

"Then allow me to start over." He cleared his throat and knelt before her, in the full view of the ballroom. When it was told in the circles of gossip later, it would be painted as the story of a romantic man, an embarrassment to highborn people everywhere, and a nigh-inappropriate display of affection. Those who couldn't hear his heartfelt speech made up their own versions later, each more fantastical than the last.

This was the Eddie she thought about late at night. Katherine set aside her mask and allowed a genuine smile to appear.

"Katherine Sachar, I invited you here tonight because I want you by my side in all things, big and small." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers a fraction too long. "I pledge to support you and be your equal in all things. Whatever we do from this moment on, we do together. Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"

She squeezed his hand, to be sure it was real, before giving her answer: "Yes, I will."

He really must have planned the proposal for tonight, because from within a pocket appeared a ring. It had a large round purple and black gemstone, not unlike the colors of her blackberries. It slipped easily on her finger as he rose to his feet.

Before she could process the magnitude of her decision, he swept her in for a kiss. The lights danced behind them like fireworks, and nothing else mattered.