Page 71 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"Your Majesty." Thomas dropped into a bow—deep, respectful, but not subservient. The bow of a man who had nothing left to lose. "Forgive the intrusion. I am Thomas Harrison. Three years ago, I married Lady Penelope Ashworth in secret. Her father discovered us and had me taken—forcibly—to Australia. He told his daughter I was dead." His voice hardened. "I have spent the last year trying to reach her. To tell her the truth."

Edward's gaze swept from Thomas to Frederick to Lord Ashworth, who had gone the colour of curdled cream. "Carthedge. You appear unsurprised by this... revelation."

"I am not, Your Majesty." Frederick stepped forward, producing the leather folder he had kept close all evening. "My man of business, Mr. Thorne, has spent the past weeks investigating the circumstances of my betrothal. What he discovered was... illuminating."

He opened the folder, his voice carrying to every corner of the ballroom.

"Three years ago, Lady Penelope Ashworth married Thomas Harrison by special licence at St. Michael's Church in Wellow. The ceremony was legal. The witnesses were legitimate. The marriage was valid."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Edward raised a hand, and silence fell.

"Upon discovering the marriage, Lord Ashworth arranged for Mr. Harrison to be taken—forcibly—to a ship bound for the Australian colonies. He then presented his daughter with a forged death certificate and allowed her to believe her husband had died in a carriage accident." Frederick held up a document. "I have the original death certificate here. It is a forgery. The physician whose signature appears upon it died two years before the document was dated."

"Lies!" Lord Ashworth's voice cracked. "This is slander, Your Majesty! I demand⁠—"

"You demand nothing." Edward's voice could have frozen the Thames. "Continue, Carthedge."

"The annulment papers Lord Ashworth produced bear the signature of a judge who died seven years before they were dated." Frederick's voice remained level, implacable. "The ecclesiastical court referenced does not exist. The entire proceeding was fabricated to make Lady Penelope marriageable again—so that Lord Ashworth could sell her to the highest bidder." He met the King's eyes. "Which, as it happens, was me."

The ballroom had gone utterly silent. Three hundred guests stood frozen, champagne glasses suspended, mouths agape.

"Lady Penelope Ashworth," Frederick said, turning to face her, "is still legally married to Thomas Harrison. The betrothal contract I signed eighteen months ago is therefore void. It has always been void."

Edward turned to Lord Ashworth, and Frederick had never seen the King look quite so coldly furious.

"Lord Ashworth. You stand accused of forgery, fraud, kidnapping, and—if I understand correctly—what amounts to the attempted murder of a British subject by transportation without trial." Edward's voice carried to every corner of the room. "Have you anything to say in your defence?"

Ashworth's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. No sound emerged.

"I thought not." Edward's voice went cold as winter. "Your title and estates are hereby forfeit to the Crown. You are no longer Lord Ashworth. You are simply... Ashworth. A common criminal, to be treated as such."

A gasp rippled through the ballroom. Stripping a peer of his title was nearly unheard of—the sort of thing that happened in old stories, not in modern drawing rooms.

Edward was not finished.

"As for you, Mr. Harrison." The King turned to Thomas, and his voice shifted—still formal, but with an undercurrent of warmth. "Any man who survived what you survived, who crossed oceans and endured years of hardship to reclaim his wife, has demonstrated a quality of character that puts most of my nobles to shame."

Thomas bowed his head. "Your Majesty, I want nothing but my wife. I did not come here seeking⁠—"

"I am aware of what you came here seeking. And you shall have her—you have always had her, it seems." Edward's mouth curved at the corner. "But I find I am in a mood to dispense justice this evening, and justice demands balance. A title was used to perpetrate this fraud. A title shall be granted to remedy it."

He raised his voice so it carried to every corner of the room.

"Thomas Harrison, for courage and constancy beyond measure, I hereby create you Baron Wellow—" A pause, and Frederick saw Penelope's hand fly to her mouth. Wellow. The village where they had married. "—with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. The Ashworth estates in Hampshire shall be settled upon you and your wife, to be held in trust for your heirs."

The ballroom erupted. Frederick watched Thomas's face—shock, disbelief, and then a dawning joy that had nothing to do with titles or estates and everything to do with the woman standing frozen across the room, tears streaming down her face.

"Your Majesty." Thomas's voice was rough. "I do not know how to thank⁠—"

"Thank me by being a better man than he was." Edward glanced at the guards. "Take the prisoner away. And someone see to Lady Ash—" He stopped, corrected himself with cold precision. "Someone see to Mrs. Ashworth. She appears to have fainted."

The guards moved forward. The former Lord Ashworth made a strangled sound of protest, but no one moved to help him. His wife—no longer a Lady, merely Mrs. Ashworth now—was being carried out by servants. His son was staring at him with an expression of dawning horror. And his daughter⁠—

His daughter was not looking at him at all.

She was looking at Thomas. At her husband. At the newly created Baron Wellow, who had crossed oceans to find her and been rewarded with everything her father had tried to steal.

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