The Earl I Ruined

by Scarlett Peckham

  Westmead had begun to pace. “If all of this is true—and I am not saying I believe you—then why am I reading about it in a bloody gazette?”

  “Apthorp wanted to ask for your blessing, but I forbade him,” Constance said. “It’s my decision whom I marry. I shouldn’t need your permission.”

  “Nor should I need yours to call him out.”

  “Call him out?” she said coldly, the girlish effusion suddenly so absent from her voice it was chilling. “What purpose would that serve?”

  “Justice.”

  “No. Think clearly. It would merely amplify the scandal. And you are far too shrewd to do that. What I suspect you will do is welcome my intended husband into our family and make a great show of seeing that anyone who attempts to cut him understands they do so at their peril. And then you will help him save his bill.”

  “You overestimate my powers to protect him or you,” Westmead thundered back. “If you betroth yourself to him, your reputation will be damned and there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re going to be the talk of the whole nation. And for what?”

  “I enjoy being the talk of the nation. Have you not noticed my concerted efforts to engender just that effect for years? And besides, no one is more adept at shaping reputations than myself. I have a plan. And if you hold me in as high regard as you say you do, you will grant me the capacity of knowing my own will and letting me see it through.”

  Westmead rubbed his temples, looking from his sister to Apthorp and back again. “I see that you’re both determined. What I don’t yet see is why.”

  “Because I love him,” Constance said, in a tone so simple and believable that he once again wanted to weep. “I love him, Archer. I know it might be hard for you to accept that, given I have always made a point of hiding it before. I know you only want to protect me. But you don’t need to. Apthorp will.”

  Damn him if his traitor’s heart did not swell at these words. Damn him if he did not resolve to somehow make them true.

  “Westmead, give us the evening to convince you,” he said quietly. “If you still doubt my sincerity, we’ll call the whole thing off. You have my word.”

  Westmead shut his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Convince me. Otherwise it’s dawn with dueling pistols.”

  Constance leapt up and threw her arms around her brother, her steely demeanor suddenly so featherlight Apthorp wondered if he’d dreamt it. “Thank you, Archer. I knew you were a romantic at heart. Now come, both of you. It’s time for supper and everyone is waiting.”

  As soon as her brother turned and stalked down the hall to the dining room, Constance latched on to Apthorp’s arm to shore him up. He had the look about him of a man who had eaten day-old cockles and was about to pay the price.

  “That was brilliant, your little speech,” she said. “So moving even I nearly believed you.”

  He shifted away, but she clutched his arm more tightly. She was aware she was holding on to him in the manner of a child squeezing an uncooperative cat, but she did not feel any steadier than he looked, and it soothed her nerves to touch him. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop.

  He paused and turned to look at her. “You realize Westmead doesn’t believe us.”

  “Not yet. But he will.”

  She said it more to reassure herself than to convince Apthorp. And what she meant was that he must. Because she’d heard every word her brother had said from her hidden spot beneath the stairs, and when he’d revealed he was an investor in the whipping club, she’d felt like she might plummet through the earth. She would prefer to plummet through the earth than to see his face if he found out what she’d done.

  For what Apthorp had said about the club serving as a haven for people who risked judgment had lingered with her bitterly for hours the night before, like the flavor of raw garlic on the breath. Neither she nor her brother had ever fit their birth-appointed places in society. For her part, she had made this a point of pride, adopting fellow outcasts and eccentrics and burnishing their odd qualities, as she did her own, with vast supplies of insouciance and money. Her brother had gone a different route, disguising his sensibilities beneath a cold exterior and keeping mostly to himself. She did not wish to think too deeply about how a secret whipping house might feature into his private comforts. But if such a place had given him respite from the desolation of their family’s past … well.

  It was enough to know that Archer invested only in concerns that he believed in. If he championed the place, it must be something he cared about ferociously. And she couldn’t stand to see her brother hurt.

  She could never let him know she’d been the architect of it.

  Apthorp stopped walking and forced her to look at him. “Constance, you don’t have to do this for me. If we reverse course right now, it will not be too late to change your mind.”

  She gave him her most serene smile. “I am not doing this for you. I am doing this because I made a mistake I am determined to repair. Just agree with everything I say at supper.”

  He glared at her, looking boyish in his petulance and not the least bit in love with her. She tapped a finger to his scowling lips. “And pretend you like me.”

  He removed her fingers from his mouth and placed them over his heart, smiling into her eyes like she was a precious object.

  “Better, my love?”

  She smirked at him, pleased that he could mount a show of false adoration at will, even if the sight of her seemed to repel him. They would need that skill.

  “Quite. Now, then. During the meal I’m going to excuse myself to freshen up. When I do, I want you to wait five minutes, make an excuse, and follow me down the corridor toward the billiards room.”

  Hilary poked her head through the double doors to the dining room. “Oh, there you are. Do come to the table before Westmead overturns it.” Her eyes fell to where their joined fingers lay pressed to Apthorp’s chest, and the corners of her mouth drew up.

  “Oh my, you two. I knew it, you know. I’ve been telling Rosecroft you had an attachment for years.”

  Constance gave her cousin a conspiratorial smile, though she was not sure how poor Hilary had come to that conclusion, given that prior to this week she and Apthorp had communicated mostly in veiled insults.

  They followed her into the dining room, where the family was assembled in their usual positions. At the head of the table sat Rosecroft. To his left, Constance’s sister-in-law, Poppy—the Duchess of Westmead—and beside her the duke, who was looking surlier by the minute.

  In the year since he had married, her brother had become far more fluent in expressing his emotions. This was charming when it manifested as tenderness for his wife and baby, but far less agreeable when he was angry. He no longer stared at you in cool dispassion when he wanted to murder you; he took great pains, and exercised considerable verbal precision, to let you know.

  “Thank you all for welcoming us,” Apthorp said to the assembled family. “I apologize if our news has caused you shock. We did so wish to tell you privately. We are baffled by how rumors reached the papers before we had the chance.”

  “Yes, they’re an affront to decency, those dreadful hacks,” Constance said. She was pleased Apthorp had taken the initiative to distance her from the gossip.

  “Well,” Hilary said, lifting up her glass. “I suppose a toast is in order? Rosecroft, will you do the honors?”

  Rosecroft stood and raised a glass. “To the unexpected news,” he began.

  “Salut,” Archer said, and gulped down his entire glass of claret in one swig.

  Rosecroft, who had clearly intended to say more, cleared his throat uncomfortably and sat back down.

  Hilary looked at Archer and shook her head. “I don’t know why you are behaving as if this is a shock. It’s been clear to me they care for each other for years.”

  “Yes!” Constance nodded vigorously, shooting her cousin a grateful smile. “You were all rather dense not to see it.”

  She heard her
brother grinding his molars from halfway across the table.

  Poppy, no doubt hearing it too, cleared her throat. “Well, my dear, you could perhaps forgive the rest of us for being taken aback. The two of you were rather convincing in your dislike for one another. Perhaps you could tell us how this … attachment … began?”

  “Oh yes,” Archer drawled. “Do. I can’t wait to hear this confabulation.”

  “It’s not a confabulation,” Constance said, pleased at Poppy for the opening. “More like … a conspiracy.”

  Archer slammed his glass on the table. “Damn it, Apthorp. I warned you—”

  Constance reached across the table and put her hand on her brother’s fist. It was touching, in a way, how angry he was. She was rather shocked he cared so much.

  “No, I mean I conspired with a rosebush to make Apthorp fall in love with me. Years ago. In the maze at Rosemount, a few days after James and Hilary’s wedding. It was entirely my fault, you see.”

  Because things that went awry in their family usually were her fault, this seemed to mollify her brother. He, and everyone else, stared at her, waiting for the story.

  Of course, that meant she needed to invent the rest of it. Quickly, and with feeling.

  She had always found the best way of making a convincing narrative was to base it upon truth and embellish it until it fit one’s purpose. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the exact emotions of that dreadful day.

  “It was that first summer you summoned me back to England,” she told Archer. “I’d been in France for so long I’d developed an atrocious accent—do you remember?”

  They all nodded.

  “It was before we realized Tante Louise was ill, and so every time she was meant to chaperone me, she fell asleep, poor thing. And I, being the terror you all adore, took advantage of it by sneaking off onto the grounds when I was meant to be resting in my room. That was when I realized that Apthorp had a habit of strolling through the garden maze every afternoon at three.”

  Apthorp looked at her oddly.

  “At the convent school in France, I was never around young men, and certainly none that looked like Apthorp.” She gestured at him, to seem helplessly lovestruck. “Forgive me for being forward, but you all have noticed what he looks like? Has there ever been a more beautiful man?”

  It was rather a relief to be able to acknowledge Apthorp’s prodigious beauty out loud for once, instead of merely sneaking jealous glances at him from the corner of her eye.

  “Get on with it,” her brother said, looking like he had eaten a rat.

  “I was an excitable girl of fourteen, as you remember, and Julian was the newly minted earl, all serious with newfound purpose and therefore scarcely aware of my existence. And you know I can’t stand to go unnoticed.”

  They all exchanged pained nods.

  “I tried all sorts of tricks to catch his eye. Asked about his sister, hid his books, tried to persuade him to play in my theatricals. He ignored me. Naturally, I began to plot.”

  “Naturally,” her brother muttered. A good sign, as it meant he did not entirely disbelieve her tale. Which was fair, as so far every word of it was true.

  “I had been reading Tante Louise’s books when she was sleeping—she was fond of those wicked memoirs by French courtesans that summer—and they filled my head with ideas of seduction. I thought if I could only catch Apthorp alone and declare myself to him, I would instantly bestir his passions.”

  She could see her brother’s face becoming man-killing again, so she reached out across the table and patted his hand. “Spare us another threat of dueling pistols, Your Grace. I will put you out of your suspense: it didn’t work.”

  Hilary and Poppy chuckled. Even Archer and Rosecroft seemed to relax a bit. Constance didn’t dare look at Apthorp, lest she lose her nerve. Instead she plastered her face into a rueful smile and leaned in, to draw their sympathies.

  “I waited for Tante Louise to fall asleep, put on my prettiest dress, and arranged my hair like a sophisticated older girl. And then I slipped into the maze and waited behind an urn near the bench where I knew he liked to read.”

  “Waited would be a mischaracterization,” Apthorp cut in. “I would call it crouched in hiding.”

  She nodded in complete agreement, surprised he still remembered. “Yes, exactly, and as soon as he arrived, I jumped out and threw my arms around his neck and tried to kiss him.” She bit her lip. “I was, er, not very good at it.”

  “She nearly relieved me of my ear,” Apthorp summarized. “Drew blood.”

  She felt herself coloring. “Well, only because you leapt out of my way. I was aiming for your cheek.”

  “Christ,” Archer muttered.

  “Needless to say,” she went on, “instead of winning a courtly suitor, I received a severe scolding, a warning that I risked bringing dishonor upon my family, and Apthorp’s promise to tell Archer what I’d done if I did not behave. Naturally I burst into tears and ran away.”

  “Poor dear. It must have been embarrassing,” Poppy said softly.

  “Oh, humiliating,” Constance agreed. For some reason, she could still not look at Apthorp, though the memory was so old you would think it would be stale by now. “I thought I might actually melt of shame. I went back to my room and wept for hours, and that evening I pretended to be ill so I wouldn’t have to face him at supper.”

  Here, she did peek at Apthorp. He once again looked rather green, and didn’t meet her eye.

  “The next morning I awoke in a very morose mood, determined to do something desperate and poetic like drown myself in the lake or cut off all my hair. But then I noticed there were flowers on my windowsill. A mess of crimson roses—all different lengths hacked off with a pocketknife and tied with twine. It was the ugliest bouquet I’d ever seen. But attached was a note and to this day, I can still recall every word. It said: Dear Lady Constance, please accept these flowers as an apology for my harsh words to you. And with them, my assurance that while you are far too young for suitors now, you will no doubt receive many more bouquets in due time from gentlemen who will admire your spirit, intelligence, and beauty. Until then, I hope you will take to heart the sentiment that strikes me when I look at you: that the best things are worth waiting for. With warm regard, Apthorp.”

  To her shock, she found she could barely say the final line, because she had to wipe away a tear. Rather pathetic, given that the truth of her story had ended with Apthorp summarily dressing her down and forgetting the matter entirely.

  “So you see,” she said, “from that day on, I loved him. Because he is sensitive and kind, even if he does sometimes deserve the name Lord Bore.”

  She used a serviette to dab her eyes.

  “Excuse me,” she said, rising from the table. “I really must freshen up.”

  Apthorp glanced at the clock as Constance left the room. It was half past seven. He had five minutes.

  The family was quiet. He was not the only one, it seemed, who was oddly shaken by the emotion of Constance’s story.

  She was wrong to think he’d been unaware of her that summer. He’d been intrigued by the precocious young lady with the captivating air. But she was four years his junior, and not yet out, and not accustomed to English manners. It would have been appalling to think of her as anything other than a child, and one in need of his protection.

  Besides, he was preoccupied. His father had died the year before and while he’d no doubt meant to get the estate in order long before it became his heir’s problem to sort out, the elder earl had not counted on his heart suddenly stopping at the age of eight and forty. With the title came a new reality: the estate was bleeding money and carrying heavy debts. His mother was frantic that no one should know their circumstances. To stanch the flow, something had to change.

  Apthorp’s strolls in the garden had not been the idyllic pastime of a carefree young man. He’d gone outside so his family would not see him rifling through investment strategies, trying to parse silt
from ash, and coal from granite, and the costs of borrowing against the estate’s future gains—concepts he had not been trained in and strained to understand. He’d been desperate to hide how desperate he was becoming. How inadequate he was to the task.

  Such had been his state when a small presence had come barreling at him and nearly knocked him off his feet into a rosebush, gnashing at his ear. He’d been so alarmed he’d pushed her away before he’d realized what, much less who, she was.

  Perhaps, in his surprise, he’d been less gentle than he ought.

  He remembered that she’d cried and he’d felt bad. But soon enough, his thoughts had traveled back to his accounts, his diminishing coffers, the absurdity of a man so young propping up an estate nearly as old as the kingdom itself.

  He’d not noticed how he’d hurt her.

  So the end of her story—the kind note, the flowers, the respectful words of admiration—was a fiction.

  He’d never apologized for wounding her.

  And now that he recalled, she’d never looked at him the same way again.

  If he’d reacted better in that startled moment, would it have changed the course of both their lives?

  “Well,” the duchess said, turning to him and breaking the silence, “don’t leave us in suspense. Did you send her a bouquet expressing your admiration when she came of age?”

  He cleared his throat, which had grown thick with regret. “After that day, I never stopped thinking about her. When she returned, three years later, she’d grown up. I couldn’t believe the transformation.”

  “I remember,” Hilary said. “It was at that dreadful, rainy house party we had at my lodge in Devon. You spent the entire week gazing at her. You pulled me aside and asked me how many seasons young ladies waited before they married.”

  He winced at the memory of that trip. “Well, by then things had gone so badly with the mines I couldn’t have proposed.”