The fashionable world has been considerably surprised by the recent announcement that His Grace, the Duke of Norham, is to marry Lady Cassandra Ashford. The match, though unexpected, is said to have received the approval of Her Majesty.
***
Breakfast at Ravenshire House had become an exercise in endurance.
John sat halfway down the long table, his attention fixed upon the meal in front of him. Across from him, his mother was reading a society pamphlet with increasing irritation, while at the head of the table, his father ate calmly, unfazed by the awkward tension in the air.
This, like many other traits his father possessed, infuriated John.
Right then, nothing seemed capable of disturbing William. Not criticism, not anger, not even the open resentment of his own son. John could look across the table at him with all the hatred he felt burning behind his ribs, and William would not so much as bat an eye. He remained utterly indifferent to it all.
That was what John hated most.
His father had never respected him as a man, nor had appreciated any of John’s contributions to the family. William scarcely took him seriously at all. John was his only son, yet William treated him like an insignificant blip in his large existence.
For a man who had always craved either admiration or fear from those around him, such indifference was difficult to endure. He had grown up beneath the weight of his father’s disappointment, always looming over him like a storm that refused to pass.
John spent much of his life trying to prove himself worthy of the Ravenshire name, and William never seemed satisfied. Every accomplishment became the foundation for another expectation. Every success was met with the question of what he might have done better. John could not remember the last time his father had looked at him and seemed genuinely pleased.
Now he understood the ultimate consequence of William’s disappointment.
Hugh.
The name had been sitting in John’s mind for weeks, growing more intolerable with each passing day.
His father intended to alter the succession and make his cousin heir to the Ravenshire marquessate. John would be left watching another man inherit everything he had been raised to believe would one day be his.
Hugh might not have been his favourite person, but their dealings had always been cordial. Of all his cousins, he was the only one John neither looked down upon nor secretly detested. But after learning of his father’s plans, whatever affection John held for him was gone, consumed by an unquenchable anger and jealousy.
He was yet to confront William about it.
There was no use in doing so while his father still held every advantage. If William truly intended to change his will, John needed to know how far the arrangements had progressed before confronting him. Acting too soon would only give his father time to prepare for whatever challenge John intended to pose.
Across the table, Agnes’s attention was still fixed on her pamphlet. As her eyes moved slowly over the printed column, the colour in her face deepened.
She read another line, then another. Her fingers tightened around the pamphlet until the paper creased beneath them. The more she read, the more pronounced her displeasure became.
At last, she flung it onto the table, looking like she was already at her wit’s end.
"That wretched girl," Agnes hissed. The words cut through the awkward, suffocating tension. She stared at the pamphlet as though it had personally offended her. "Not even a few months," she seethed. "Not even a few months since she cast our son aside, and already she has found herself another man. And not merely another man, but a duke."
William continued eating as though he had not heard a word of what was said.
Agnes looked toward him, clearly expecting some indication that he shared her outrage. None came.
Her eyes hardened, her indignation swelling until it seemed she could no longer contain it.
"One might think she had been waiting for the opportunity to rid herself of John," she went on.
John glanced at his mother. He had thought precisely the same thing.
Cassandra left him. Worse, she humiliated him. She took the engagement that ought to have secured his future and threw it away as though it meant nothing.
His father was not a man who forgave easily. He held John responsible for the entire ordeal, even blaming him for the manner in which Cassandra chose to end their relationship.
Her foolish decisions further strained an already fragile relationship between father and son, and it took every ounce of John’s self-control not to strike her across the face at that picnic, to make her suffer for all the trouble she brought upon him.
There was something deeply offensive about the speed with which Cassandra recovered from their broken engagement. John secretly hoped that the second arrangement would collapse as well. He wanted her to face the humiliation of another failed engagement. It was the least of what she deserved.
Agnes snatched up the pamphlet again, still incensed by what was written on it.
"The fashionable world has apparently decided this is some great triumph," she said bitterly. "Cassandra Ashford, the future Duchess of Norham. How very convenient. She wastes no time replacing one man with another."
William finally glanced up from his plate and levelled his wife with an unimpressed look.
"You ought to pay less attention to those papers," he chided. While his wife liked to pretend that their son was the most perfect person in the world, a man without faults, William had always been able to see John for who he truly was.
William was never impressed by what he saw.
Agnes’s head turned sharply. "Are you aware that she is marrying Draven Montague?"
"I am aware."
Agnes looked affronted by his blithe response.
"And you have nothing to say? How are you not bothered by this?"
William set down his cutlery and steepled his fingers in front of him, giving her his full attention for the first time since they sat down for the meal. There was only disinterest and boredom in his eyes, as though the matter she found so deeply troubling barely deserved his consideration.