by Stacy Reid
Her throat burned with the need to cry. “I see.”
He took her hands between his and gently squeezed. “I overheard Papa and Mama just now in the smaller drawing room.”
She met his eyes, alerted to the discomfort in his tone. “Tell me,” she demanded hoarsely.
“It seems there are plans to announce to the newspapers that a match has been made.”
Maryann jerked. “When?”
“In a few days. The marriage negotiations are almost finalized.”
She pulled her hands from Crispin and surged to her feet, walking over to the wide sash windows. The press against her heart grew even heavier. “How can they ignore my wishes in such a manner?”
“Perhaps they are thinking of your happiness. You are three and twenty,” he reminded her again.
“Yes, I am such a hag,” she said with biting sarcasm. “You are seven and twenty, and I am not seeing you being pressured into a match that will only make you miserable.”
Her brother stood beside her and placed his arm around her shoulder. “Give him a chance, Maryann. Tonight, take the opportunity to speak with him. Mama said she has it on the highest authority he will ask you to partake in at least two dances, signaling his intention to the polite world. So you must attend, I am afraid; our mother will not accept any excuses that will muddle her plans.”
“I suppose I must go.”
“You must,” he said gently. “But when you converse with him, be very mindful of your tongue.”
“Crispin!”
“Come now, poppet, in the early days of your come out you were too free and decided with your opinions, and what did that lead to? A rumor that you will not be a biddable sort of wife but one who believes herself equal to her lord. A lady who is too uncompromising with her tongue is considered a shrew.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and had the grace to flush. “I do not believe it to be so, you know that. I simply urge you to be mindful with Stamford.”
Maryann folded her arms below her bosom, unable to sort out the emotions tumbling through her. At her come out she had been so thrilled and eager to meet the young lords who had also seemed eager for her attention. After all, she was the daughter of an earl and possessed a handsome dowry.
The first time she had given her opinion on the misery of orphaned children and widows of war, ladies had tittered, and men had acted as if she committed a faux pas. The gentlemen had been discussing it freely, but she had learned that was not an invitation for the ladies to join their conversation.
She’d come to realize her disconcertingly direct manner of speaking was an affront to the gentlemen’s arrogance and conceit at their supposed innate superiority. This knowledge had really been driven home when at a picnic at Kensington Gardens, she’d given an opinion of a farming technique she had read about in an Agricultural report on her father’s desk some months prior. It hadn’t been an expert opinion, but it had not been valued.
With distress, Maryann had realized the indulgent ear her father granted her whenever she spoke on diverse subjects was because he loved her. He valued her. He had cherished the time they spent walking in the gardens in Hampshire chatting and laughing, or when they rowed on the lake and she read to him. And in that moment, when other debutantes had tittered, the gentlemen had looked suitably irritated.
That very night, the honourable Nigel Huntington, who had been paying her attention for the season, informed her that a lady did not own the intellectual capacity to understand politics and matters men discussed. Maryann still recalled the shock and discomfort she had felt upon overhearing a gentleman she found amiable and charming referring to her as “too plain to inspire any true attachment, too mouthy to be marriageable, but her dowry was tempting.”
She had only been eighteen at the time, but Maryann had known she could not marry a gentleman of wealth and connections if he, too, did not treasure her. For what would such a marriage be like? One without genuine affections and a willingness to laugh and speak on any matter that came to the heart?
She closed her eyes against the memories, and the reasons society had contrived to stack against her in order to render her unfit to marry in the opinion of their best and brightest.
But Lord Stamford is interested.
Her heart ached, and she leaned forward to press her forehead to the window. The coolness of the glass centered her. “There was a time I dreamed of marrying a handsome gentleman, being courted with poetry, long walks, and perhaps stolen kisses,” she whispered.
“And do you not have those dreams anymore, poppet?”
“I see something hovering beyond those earlier hopes. I close my eyes to sleep and I feel it…a presence at the edges of the shadows…waiting for me….to maybe leap.”
“That’s it, I am taking those bloody books away,” Crispin muttered.
Maryann laughed lightly, masking the tumultuous feelings rioting inside. “I will dance with Stamford tonight.”
At that moment, the man lingering in the shadows of her dreams rose in her thoughts, and she inhaled sharply.
Nicolas St. Ives, the Marquess of Rothbury. Her heart fluttered like wild birds were in her stomach as some undefinable sensation hooked inside her chest. The marquess had only to be in the same room with Maryann, or she only had to think of the wretched man, and the response came unbidden.
I must not think of him, she reminded herself fiercely. The marquess had no notion of her existence, and he was nothing but a speck that crossed her path occasionally, even if he had always done so with such enigmatic allure. She would not recall the night in the gardens, either, for after finishing his cheroot, he had merely returned to the ballroom.
A heavy sigh of relief left her brother, and she knew then that their mother had asked him to convince Maryann of the suitability of the match. Swallowing down the discomfort rising inside, she rested her head on Crispin’s shoulder, hoping she had made the right decision.
…
Several hours later, Maryann stood on the sidelines of the Countess of Metcalf’s impressive ballroom, tapping her feet to the lively music leaping from the orchestra’s bows. Stamford had appeared a few minutes previously and made the rounds with a few of his cronies. He stood by one of the impressive Corinthian columns which was swathed in swirls of golden silk, then the man had engaged in deep conversation with the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. Stamford did not stay long with their prime minister and soon moved on to speak with Lord Metcalf. Maryann discreetly assessed him, reluctantly admitting that the earl was very handsome for a man over fifty. Nor did he carry obvious excess weight that so many an older man was prone to gather.
On the opposite side of the ballroom stood the popular set of the last few seasons, led by the incomparable Lady Sophie. Since the screaming incident in the ballroom a couple weeks prior, she had been licking her wounds in private. They existed in a society where a favored belle of the season could become a pariah with nothing more than a whisper in the right ear, and it was normally Lady Sophie’s devilled tongue doing the whispering. But it would take more than one embarrassing incident to teach her a lesson and see her toppled from the lofty pedestal on which she’d placed herself.
Her coterie had been silent and not up to their usual mean-spiritedness since their unelected leader had withdrawn from several events. And that was enough for Maryann to celebrate as a victory. Those they normally tormented would get a reprieve from their cutting snide remarks and cruel pranks and might even be allowed to shine a little.
Lady Sophie’s bully-ruffian set consisted of James Foundry—a young lord who had been declared the most eligible viscount in all of England, Sir Thomas Belfry—an impoverished young man only made popular because he was reputed to be the cicisbeo of the Marchioness of Deerwood. There was also the ravishing Lady Minerva and Lady Justine, both daughters of distinguished earls and celebrated beauties,
and Lady Henriette, daughter of the Marquess of Gilmanton. The six reigning young lords and ladies were inseparable, and for a very brief moment in time Maryann had been a part of their crowd.
She hadn’t been as fashionable or declared an unrivaled beauty, but her wit and her family’s connections had made her acceptable. Until that day when she had been required by Lady Sophie to publicly cut and humiliate Miss Anna Fielding.
Maryann had been unable to act in such an unkind and ruinous manner to the young girl, whose only misfortune had been for several gentlemen and society sheets to refer to her as the reigning beauty of the season. It hadn’t mattered that those same people lifting her up had bemoaned the fact her family was merely genteel, her father only a captain in the royal navy with little connections.
Lady Sophie had been greatly insulted, and Miss Fielding was to bear the brunt of her displeasure. With a sigh, Maryann recalled the terrible distress she had felt when it was her, instead, whom they had publicly cut the following day in Hyde Park as they strolled down Rotten Row. Then the cruel whispers had started, calling her “a dowdy wallflower,” or those referring to her as “plain,” and then those calling her a “shrew with a viperish tongue.”
They had all been orchestrated by Lady Sophie because Maryann had dared to act independently of their awful orders, and those in society keen to have the support of a duke’s daughter had gladly wagged their tongues to make Maryann’s life miserable.
She had wept at the loss of their supposed friendship, especially the bond she had believed she shared with Lady Justine. It was astonishing that they had once spent hours sharing dreams and confidences. Now Justine glared at her, and it was clear they suspected Maryann of playing a role in what had happened to Lady Sophie.
Why, she could not fathom, not when they had made so many enemies with their thoughtless, banal cruelty. She lifted her chin and graced them with a small, mocking, yet indifferent smile.
A slight ripple through the crowd stole her attention from her former friends. It was Nicolas St. Ives, Marquess Rothbury. Maryann’s heart fluttered uncomfortably; her cheeks grew warm. Logically she knew it was a reaction to his raw, physical appeal, but it distressed her senses to be so attracted to a libertine. Oftentimes she wondered if she was drawn to the dratted man simply because he appeared so improper.
It was the freedom he found in his reputation and scandalous pursuits she found compelling…nothing else.
Irritated that once again she joined the masses in ogling the man, she turned her back to him in time to see Lord Stamford leaving the ballroom.
Maryann sighed. So much for him asking her to dance. Perhaps what they needed to have between them was an honest, heartfelt conversation.
Taking a steady breath, she made after him, careful not to hurry and incite undue attention. Once in the hallway, she hesitated, uncertain as to the direction the earl had taken or even if she should follow the man.
It took her several minutes of entering different rooms before she came upon a small, intimate parlor nestled at the end of the prodigious hallway. She rapped her knuckles on the door, and once again no answer came forth. With a heavy sigh, she twisted the knob and stepped inside, only to falter.
A man and woman were entangled on the sofa by the fire. Loud, almost frightful noises came from the woman, who bounced with shocking vigor in the man’s lap. Maryann was about to step back when the man lifted his head and stared right at her.
It was the earl, her supposed intended.
The shock of it was like an icy blast to her chest. Maryann struggled to take a breath and to move. The couple’s actions were shocking. To her distress, the man cupped the woman’s buttocks between his large hands and urged her to move even faster atop him, and she was moaning and begging him for something.
Anger and humiliation crawled through Maryann.
The shock of it had frozen her, but she lifted her eyes beyond their shoulders to the ormolu clock. The ticking sounded inordinately loud.
It felt like interminable minutes passed before she heard the girl’s horrified gasp. And Maryann wondered if he had even removed his gaze from her. It was a matter of pride that she had not run away despite her revulsion. Finally, she lowered her gaze. The lady was young…perhaps even younger than Maryann, and she wasn’t a guest at the ball but a worker in the household. The young maid was frantically trying to dress herself, while the earl remained reposed on the sofa, his mien uncaring and amused.
It galled her unspeakably that he was amused.
He gave the young girl some coin, which she tucked between her breasts before bobbing a quick curtsy. She rushed past Maryann, uncaring that she jostled a lady in her bid to escape. Maryann felt like such a child standing there still, gripping the knob.
“You’ve interrupted my pleasure,” he said coolly, his gaze flickering over her dispassionately.
She stared at him, noting that he did not appear rumpled or undressed. He was even lazily drawing on a cheroot. This was the man who had offered for her. This was a man old enough to be her father…except he wasn’t anything like her papa.
“Do you often dally with those who might be too afraid to lose their position if they resist your charms?” she asked with chilling acerbity.
His brow arched, and he took a deep draw of his cheroot before saying, “I take my pleasure wherever I want, whenever I desire it.”
“Even if the lady is unwilling?”
His lips curved, and she was astonished at the sensuality in them and how much more handsome it made him. The earl did not look like a man to be two and fifty, with his lean, athletic physique and hair barely dotted with gray. “Oh, she was willing…they all are.” And you will be, too, remained unspoken but somehow filled the air between them.
Such raw emotions filled Maryann that it left her shaky and breathless.
Over the last four years, she had formed incredible friendships with several other ladies who had inappropriately been given the sobriquet of wallflowers as well, and all of whom had been cruelly informed either by society or their families that they weren’t “pretty, witty, wealthy, or well-connected enough” to take part in deciding their own fates. They must be used in bargains to bring gain to others and be happy about it.
When she had made her debut in society a few years ago, her hope had been to secure a husband to love. One who would love her just as much and proceed to build a large family together. Her other friends hungered to travel the world, learning other cultures, one of being a singer, another wanted to be a celebrated writer, another an inventor.
Such impossible and hopeless dreams.
Maryann had never before realized how improbable each of their successes actually would be to achieve.
A powerful agitation and dissatisfaction with life had urged Maryann to dare all of them to reach for those dreams, no matter the cost. Life was theirs to live only once, and it should count where it mattered the most—to their hearts and happiness. And damn everyone to hell who did not believe they deserved to reach for a contented life.
Yet when she lay awake at night in her bed, searching her heart for her dreams, all she found was emptiness and fright. Such terrible fear, for she no longer knew what she wanted and felt unmoored, a ship without an anchor drifting aimlessly on the wide-open sea.
She felt that very terror now, staring at the earl. Her family expected her to rest her future on this man and she of course should be grateful he would take a known wallflower to be his bride. Her heart pounded a furious rhythm. “There is a rumor you have a mistress,” she whispered.
Humor lit in his dark brown eyes. “You are well informed for a lady of your background. I like that. It shows an inquiring mind and that I was not wrong about you.”
She stared at him in muted shock, a desperate feeling of unreality creeping through her. It was a tidbit gleaned from a reluctant-to-gossip Crispin.
It felt naive of her, but she had to query, “I gather your dalliances, all of them, will cease once you are married?”
The earl’s amusement grew even more pronounced. That man even had the temerity to chuckle. “Of course not. You are pretty enough to tempt me from time to time…but not enough to satisfy my urges, I’m afraid,” he said. “I am a very base man, and I do not shy away from my carnal nature, nor will I apologize for it—to anyone.”
She struggled with the urge to be mindful of her tongue, recalling her promise to her brother.
The earl stood, sauntered over to a small table which held a decanter of amber liquid. The earl poured the drink into two glasses and lifted one to her in offering. “A drink, Lady Maryann?”
Her chest rose on a ragged breath, and she tightened her fingers on the doorknob she had not realized she still held. If he had possessed some shred of decency, she could possibly have married him and tried to chase her dreams by his side. But what had he to recommend him save he was an earl? A wealthy one?
There was nothing. Nothing in him she could respect or esteem. He was a swine.
Unable to hold her tongue any longer, she scathingly asked, “Why did you offer for me if you have no interest in respecting and cherishing the woman you marry? If you have never attended a wedding before, those are the vows. It does you no credit that you would make your wife…your countess a laughingstock, a woman to be pitied and whispered about in society’s drawing rooms with your salacious and unapologetic behavior! Not even servants may be saved from your lechery!”
He downed his drink in one go and set the glass on the table with a decisive clink. Then he strolled over to her, gripped her chin, and tilted her face to his. “I like intelligence in a woman. So many of you try to hide that behind bland smiles and insipid chatter.”
