“You may make her happy for a time, and whether you believe me or not, as a mother it pains me to deny my daughter any modicum of even temporary happiness, but it would be temporary, and she would pay too heavy a price. The price that nearly broke her last time she paid it.” The duchess gave a little shiver, and for the first time Sophia considered the possibility she might actually care about something other than her precious image. “By the time Vic’s regrets would begin to surface and the realisation of what she’d sacrificed set in, it would be too late to salvage her already tenuous birthright. Seven centuries laid low. What could you possibly offer her in return?”

Sophia shook her head. She didn’t know if she had no answer, or if her answer was simply, Nothing.

The duchess apparently recognised her victory but showed little satisfaction in it as she stood back. “I am sorry. I misjudged you and the feelings you clearly have for Victoria. I would rather have a different reality, but in the absence of that I would’ve at least liked to have handled this conversation differently. Had I known sooner, I think I would have.”

“Sure.” Sophia’s voice sounded a little strangled. “We could’ve become real friends.”

“I won’t be so patronising as to suggest such a thing, or even try to part amicably, but I will leave you to your thoughts by saying, I trust you to do right by my daughter, and that is the highest compliment I have left to give.”

Mercifully, she didn’t wait for Sophia to decide if she was capable of a magnanimous response before leaving. And for her part, Sophia managed to keep her jaw clenched until the door closed, because she suspected that if she opened her mouth, she might still tell this woman to fuck off.

She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to drag any of this out or hurt any more people, not even the Wicked Witch of Northland. She wasn’t quite ready to think of her in any more generous terms even if she had revealed herself as motivated by something other than pure malice.

In the end she’d still hurt them, or at least she’d hurt Vic. Sophia, on the other hand, had caused her current predicament herself. The worst part now was having to stew in her own knowledge that the duchess was right, not just about who she was and what she ultimately had to offer Vic, but also what she had to do about it now.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen