Andrew shrugged. “I have learned from the best.”
“I suppose that is true.” The Duke leaned back in his chair, and they were silent for several tense minutes.
At length, Andrew rested his glass on top of the desk and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees.
“Father, please. You have to help her.”
The Duke closed his eyes and groaned. “Andrew, you do not know what you are asking of me…”
“I know you are saying you are so against my being with Miss Snowley because Mother wants you to be.” Andrew was finding more and more just how little the Duchess truly thought of Penelope. Where she had once praised the girl, his mother now made snide remarks against her character nearly every time they spoke. He had yet to tell either of them of his engagement, certain his mother would explode in a fury.
“Surely you are sympathetic to our plight?” he pressed.
Drumming his fingers on the desk, the Duke did not respond for several moments. Finally, he nodded.
“I am, son. You know that I am.”
“Then help us.” Andrew was the closest he had ever been to begging his father for anything. “Order the publishing house to drop the suit and reach out to the constables to drop the other charge. You have enough influence that they would do as you told them.”
His father’s jaw was tight. He rubbed a hand across his forehead.
“Son, this is a complicated matter…”
“What if it were Mother?” Andrew snapped, running out of patience. “What if she were the one in trouble? You would move heaven and earth to help her. You risked everything to make her your wife. Why can you not see that is what I am willing to do for Miss Snowley?”
The Duke stared at Andrew, a plethora of emotions running across his expression. Though it was impossible to tell now, as the Duchess was always so regal and the continued epitome of societal fashion and grace, she had not always been so. When his parents had met, the Duke had been a young man with no desires to wed, and the Duchess had been a governess in the house of a neighboring peer.
As his father told the story, he had gone to call on the neighbors one day with his own mother, and he had spotted the governess in an adjoining room as she cared for the children of the house. His heart had been lost in that instant. From that point onward, he had looked for every excuse he could conceive to visit her. Soon, the two had fallen in love, and the scandal that had followed rocked the Lockeder household.
“Andrew, your mother was and is the love of my life. I was willing to do anything to make her mine, and it nearly ripped my family apart. My parents were furious with me, and very nearly disowned me. But I continued the course because I was sure she was it for me. Are you sure Miss Snowley is it for you?”
“Yes, Father,” he answered without hesitation. “I am positive. Miss Snowley is the only lady I have ever or will ever want. I love her with everything I have.”
“And she loves you in return?”
“Yes.” Though she had yet to say the words, he did not doubt Penelope’s feelings for him. “She has agreed to marry me.”
The Duke gawked at him, clearly stunned. “You proposed to her? Without consulting me? Did you even ask the Baron’s permission?”
“It was a rather spontaneous thing, I will admit. I do not regret it, however. I want her to be my wife, no matter the consequences. I am confident we will be able to face whatever storm darkens our doorstep, so long as we are together.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, the Duke said, “I wish you had considered the timing of your engagement before you asked for her hand. This will only further complicate matters.”
“I will not give her up, Father,” Andrew declared. “Banish me from this house if you wish. Disown me if you must. Miss Snowley and I will be together, with or without your help.”
His father appeared exasperated. “Andrew…”
“What have you done?”
Andrew and the Duke both turned at the horrified voice to find the Duchess standing in the study doorway, her eyes wide, her expression aghast.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Andrew?” the Duchess snapped, moving into the room to stand over him. “I asked you a question. What have you done?”
He stared up at her, baffled. “I…I do not know what you mean, Mother.”
“You proposed to that Snowley girl?” Her voice melted from shocked to enraged so quickly, Andrew could only stare up at her in stunned silence.
“My love, calm yourself,” the Duke interjected gently, clearly as surprised by his wife’s volatile reaction to the news of Andrew’s engagement as he was.
“Do not tell me to be calm,” she snarled, tearing her eyes from her son to level a glare on her husband. “You agreed to stand firm in this so that Andrew would not ruin his future.”
“What are you talking about?” Andrew’s voice grew louder with his frustration.
She turned her eyes back to him. “You will rescind your proposal to Miss Snowley today! My children will not be saddled with some Baron’s offspring. You and your sister’s futures are bigger than that unremarkable family. I will not allow you to throw it all away for a nobody!”
Andrew shoved to his feet, rage exploding within him.
“Do not speak of the Snowleys in such a disrespectful way,” he growled. “They are proving themselves a more honorable, loyal household than our own grand selves.”
“You watch your tongue when you speak to me,” the Duchess hissed. “I am your mother. The Snowleys and their scandals have nothing to do with us and need not mar our family name more than they already have. There are countless suitable young ladies for you to settle yourself with. Any of them will do far better than her.”
“My Dear, that is enough.” The Duke tried once more to suppress his wife’s tirade, but once again, she disregarded him.
“Mother, do you not hear yourself?” Andrew could not believe the vicious words coming from her lips. His mother was usually so sweet and genteel. The lady before him was snobbish and selfish. “You sound like a madwoman.”
Her eyes went wide as her mouth dropped open.
“How dare you!” she shrieked. “I am looking out for your best interest, something you clearly care nothing for. The Snowleys are practically commoners. She is beneath you, and her brother far beneath Dorothy. Neither deserve you, and I have no doubt the both of them are only latching themselves onto you in order to raise their own stations.”
“You know nothing about the Snowleys if that is what you think of them.”
Penelope was sweet and good. Her concern for propriety and the wellbeing of others was endearing, and she held herself with a grace and confidence that rivaled the finest ladies of the upper class. She was also one of the most distracting and arousing ladies he had ever met. She tempted him without realizing her own seductive pull, reducing him to nothing but a randy lad, with the most innocent of looks.
Even her brother was a commendable gentleman when not annoying Andrew. Honorable, respectful, and hardworking, Andrew could not think of a finer man for Dorothy.
“They reach too far above themselves,” his mother spat. “I will not allow them to drag you two down to their depths.”
“Do you not understand how hypocritical you are being?” Andrew cried, incredulous. “You were a governess when you met Father. A true commoner! They are still of the peerage, and it is less scandalous for me to marry a Baron’s daughter than for a Duke’s son to marry the help!”
“Enough, Andrew!” his father bellowed.
Andrew did not see the slap coming until she struck him. Pain radiated through his cheek, but he merely rubbed at the tender spot as he turned his glare back on the Duchess. Fury as he had never seen in her burned in her gaze.
“You ungrateful, foolish boy!” she snarled. “I may have been a commoner, but I was no criminal like that Snowley wench.”
“You will not speak of her in such a way.” A coldness settled ov
er Andrew that closed his heart to his mother in that moment. She was on dangerous ground, and the more she spoke ill of Penelope, the more treacherous the terrain became.
“What is going on in here?” Dorothy suddenly came running through the door, cutting off whatever sharp retort their mother had in store for Andrew. She stopped and her wary gaze moved between her mother and brother. “I heard shouting all the way down the hall.”
“You are just in time, Dorothy,” Andrew sneered. “Mother has just been listing all the reasons she does not approve of our relationships with the Snowleys. Top of her list is the fact that they are too common.”
Dorothy gaped at her mother. “Mama? Is this true?”
“It is.” The Duchess did not hesitate to respond, and in fact looked proud of her admission. “They are not good enough for either of you. I have thought so from the start.”
“You have?” Now the Duke appeared startled, staring at his wife as if he no longer recognized her.
“I have.” There was a haughty air about her that made Andrew’s teeth grind together. “I disapproved of both the Snowleys, but did not at that time have the means to dissuade either of you from them. Now, their inferiority cannot be denied.”
A treacherous suspicion entered Andrew’s mind. He tried to dismiss it as impossible.
Even she would not stoop so low.
Yet it nagged him, and the more he watched his mother’s self-righteousness grow, the more he feared the truth of how far she may have gone to break Dorothy and him from the Snowleys.
“Mother…did you go to the papers about Miss Snowley?”
The room went deathly still. Dorothy, Andrew, and the Duke all stared at the Duchess, and she gazed back up at her son. Her eyes flickered with fear, and he had his answer.
“You did it, did you not?” he growled. “You somehow found out Miss Snowley’s secret, and you thought it was just the thing to drive a wedge between us, so you made it public, yes? Confess, mother.”
She did not respond for several minutes, her eyes locked with his. There was a whirlwind of emotion in her gaze. Anger, fear, pain, resolve, and annoyance. She scolded him and begged him for mercy with a look.
He did not back down or soften himself to her. He would have the truth, and there was no way she could avoid the repercussions of her actions.
At last, she let out a frustrate huff of air.
“Very well, yes. I was the one who informed the newspapers.”
“Mother!” Dorothy shrieked.
“Joan!” the Duke gasped.
“How did you find out?” Andrew questioned, unwilling to let her get away without spilling the whole sordid tale.
Her nostrils flared as her jaw clenched.
“I disapproved of your relationship with that girl from the beginning,” she confessed, each word sounding as though it were forced from her lips. “I ordered one of the maids to spy on you two, and then Dorothy when she started courting the Snowley boy. I paid the girl a fee for every piece of useful information she brought to me. There was not much at first, but then, she overheard the most interesting conversation.”
“What conversation was that?” Andrew snapped when she did not immediately continue.
She glanced toward Dorothy. “It was the night Mr. Snowley proposed. He told Dorothy all about his and his sister’s little scheme, and the maid overheard them.” Turning her defiant gaze back to Andrew, she finished with, “It was just the scandal I needed to banish them both from this household. I wrote to the paper’s editor immediately and had the maid deliver it in the middle of the night.”
Andrew clenched his fists. “Did you also order the publishing house to file a suit against her? And go to the constables to press a criminal charge on her?”
Her eyes flashed as she looked between him and Dorothy.
“Yes,” she nodded. “I did all those things. I needed to make sure she could not recover from this scandal one way or another.”
Dorothy let out a cry of rage and shock, covering her mouth with her hands. The Duke was silent as he stared at his wife. There was such anguish in his eyes, Andrew’s heart clenched.
“How could you do this to us?” Andrew asked in an angry whisper. “How could you betray us like this?”
“Betray you?” The Duchess sounded offended by the very notion. “I did all this for you. For both of you. Years from now, you would have realized your mistake in marrying those people, but it would have been too late. I saved you from destroying your lives.”
“Destroying our lives?” Dorothy cried. “You tried to ruin our chances at happiness!”
“And for what?” Andrew cut in. “Your pride? Your sense of entitlement? How easily you forget where you come from, Mother.”
“You two do not understand.” She swung an accusing finger between them. “I did not do this for me. Why can you not see that?”
“Because it is simply not true.” The Duke stepped around his desk and stood between his children. He stared down at his wife and spoke in a more even tone than she deserved. “Our children are more than capable of deciding who they wish to marry. Of all people, you should understand the depth of their love for the Snowleys.”
“Your Grace, I…” the Duchess began to stammer.
“Silence!” he barked, making her jump. Her lips clamped together, and she blinked up at him in shock. “You were nothing when I met you. Less than the Snowleys. I loved you despite our differences in station. I loved you knowing your ambition was stronger than your love for me. I loved you and fought for you against my parents, and all of society. I loved you above all else, and yet you forget all that was done to get you to your lofty position now.”
“Darling, that is not…”
“You have betrayed this family and the love I had for you,” the Duke continued as though she had not spoken. “You exposed our children’s beloveds to scandal because your ambition is still greater than your love for any of us.”
The Duchess reached out and grabbed his arm. It was clear by her expression that she finally realized the gravity of her actions.
She was afraid.
“My love, please. I was only looking out for our children. I was protecting the Lockeder name!”
He shook himself from her hold. “No, you were only protecting your own interests. The Snowleys bring little to us by way of position and wealth. We will not expand our holdings by uniting with them, and that, my dear, is what you care about. What you can get from others.”
Tears glimmered in her eyes. “No, that is not it. I swear to you, my intentions were pure!”
The Duke ignored her, turning to look first at Andrew, then Dorothy.
“I wished to never entangle this family in another scandal, but it appears it is unavoidable as Miss Snowley’s novels have been published through our own house. We must find a way to fix this mess your mother has created so that you might both marry your loves.”
Dorothy clutched her hands and gaze up at him with hope burning in her eyes.
“Truly, Papa? You will allow me to marry Mr. Snowley, and for Andrew to marry Miss Snowley?”
Their father’s expression was grave as he nodded. “Yes, my dear. Once all has been made right, you both have my blessing to pursue your respective unions.”
“Your Grace!” the Duchess cried in indignation.
“You will be silent!” he roared, whirling on her. “You have created this disaster with your scheming and pride. While I fix it, you will not be permitted to leave this manor without my permission and escort. During your confinement, I suggest you pray that your children find it in their hearts to forgive you someday. I will not blame them if they cannot, however, as I am not sure I will be able to myself.”
The Duchess staggered backwards as if she had been physically struck.
“You…you do not mean that, husband,” she whimpered.
The Duke’s jaw clenched, and he looked away from her.
“Away with you. I cannot bear to look at your face.”
Andrew and Dorothy watched in silence as their mother fled the room, her sobs echoing in the hallways beyond.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Penelope sat up in her room, staring out the window into the street beyond in a daze. She could not get the sight of those constables at her door from her mind, nor their threats.
Criminal impersonation. I am a criminal. I have broken the law and will be punished for doing so.
Her father and mother had tried to comfort her when she had broken down into hysterics earlier. They had assured her they would do everything in their power to make this right. To get the charges and the suit dropped and banish the threat hanging over her and Harry’s heads.
Lustful Memoirs 0f A Bewitching Lady (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 26
