by Georgie Lee
They started off but only made it a few steps before Cecelia’s shoe caught the hem of her dress. The gown pulled and she heard it rip before she stopped, looking down to where the hem hung ragged.
‘I’m afraid the gods will have to wait.’ She frowned, annoyed at their time alone together being delayed. ‘I’m sure one of the maids can help me with this.’
‘Then I’ll wait here for my nymph to return.’ He flicked his teeth with his tongue and Cecelia nearly forgot the hem. As much as she wanted to follow him, she couldn’t risk ruining the dress. She didn’t have the money to replace it.
Lifting the skirt a little to keep it from dragging on the grass, she ventured inside in search of a maid. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the darker room as she moved through it and into the Gothic hallway just beyond. She looked back and forth, thinking to go right when a woman’s voice caught her attention. She followed the sound, hoping it might be a maid when a snippet of conversation made her freeze.
‘Mrs Thompson is a nobody,’ came Lady Menton’s high voice, ‘and she’s trying to foist off her cousin on our son.’
Cecelia crept closer to the door of the room where the voices emanated. It stood slightly ajar and she leaned against the wall, out of sight to listen.
‘She’s a close friend of the Marquess and his family,’ Sir Walter responded. ‘A man like Lord Falconbridge could do a great deal for Adam. You want him in Parliament. The Marquess could get him there.’
‘If Lord Falconbridge were married to her, it would be different. I spoke with Lord Malvern and he told me about the rumours circling her. I won’t throw Adam away on the cousin of Lord Falconbridge’s whore, not when there are other wealthy young ladies with more reputable connections.’
Cecelia didn’t wait for Sir Walter’s response, but stole away from the door, fear following her as she struggled to find her way back out of the house. This was how it had begun in Virginia, people whispering in corners, repeating General LaFette’s awful lies. She struggled to breathe as she tried first one room and then another, not finding the sitting room she’d come in through. If it happened again, if everyone turned against them, where would they go, how would they survive?
She finally turned into the empty sitting room overlooking the back portico and pressed herself into the shadows next to the door. Rubbing her trembling fingers over the gold pendant, she fought to steady herself against a barrage of anger, shame and discouragement.
Outside, Randall’s deep voice cut through the muffled murmur of the guests. She hurried out of the room and down the steps to him, not caring who saw her or what they thought. Randall loved her and he’d protect her. She only needed to speak with him and settle all the worries making her chest tighten.
Seeing her, he hurried across the grass to meet her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t speak of it here. Let’s walk down to the lake.’
They turned, ready to leave, when a man’s slurred voice rang out over the party.
‘Lord Falconbridge, I see you’re enjoying the delights of the country.’
Cecelia’s back stiffened and she turned with Randall to find the young man who’d entered with the Hartleys staggering towards them.
‘Who is that?’ she asked, gripping his arm.
‘Malvern,’ he growled, lacing his hands behind his back.
‘You’ve been missed in London,’ Lord Malvern announced in a loud voice, glancing back and forth between her and Randall. Far behind him, Lord Hartley nearly dropped his plate on the bowling green before shoving it at his wife and rushing towards them.
‘Mrs Thompson, I presume.’ Lord Malvern offered a wobbly bow, then struggled to straighten. ‘You’ve made quite a name for yourself this Season as Lord Falconbridge’s light o’ love. Had I known your name sooner, I might have won a tidy sum at White’s.’
Randall rushed at the man, who stumbled back, nearly banging into his uncle. ‘You will apologise to the lady at once, or I will demand satisfaction.’
Lord Malvern’s mouth opened and closed as though struggling to form some witty response which might spare him the apology and the meeting at dawn. It never came and his uncle slapped him hard on the back. ‘Apologise or I’ll blow your stupid head off myself.’
Lord Malvern’s bravado wilted and with a childish pout he turned to Cecelia. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve caused offence, Mrs Thompson.’
She didn’t reply, shaking too hard with anger and embarrassment to trust her voice.
‘And the Marquess,’ his uncle insisted.
‘My apologies to you as well, Lord Falconbridge.’
Lord Hartley grabbed Lord Malvern by the arm and dragged him away.
It was then Cecelia noticed everyone watching them, including Lady Menton, who bit her nails as if a flock of sheep had just tromped though her party. Cecelia could practically hear the word whore whispering through her mind and everyone else’s.
She swallowed hard, searching for Lady Ellington, but she didn’t see her or any other kind faces in the crowd, only hard stares and disapproving looks. Whatever they thought of her and Randall, it had found an outlet in Lord Malvern’s insolence and not even decorum or respect for Randall’s rank could keep their thoughts from showing on their faces.
‘Come with me,’ Randall said, taking her by the arm and drawing her back towards the path.
She followed him into the shade of the trees, leaving the party behind, but not her shame. Not even Randall’s firm grip could shield her from the sting. She’d spent so much time in London maintaining her reputation, only to watch it slip away in one nasty remark. Unlike General LaFette’s lies, nothing Lady Menton and Lord Malvern had said was untrue. Cecelia and Randall were lovers and now everyone knew.
She glanced up at Randall, the tight set of his jaw and his hard eyes frightening her more than Lady Menton’s comments.
The path opened on to the shore of a small lake with a Greek temple perched on the opposite side. They could see nothing of the house from here, but through the trees, the occasional high voice from the party drifted down to them. Randall let go of her and marched to the edge of the water, his body stiff, and she felt him pulling away.
* * *
A breeze rippled across the water’s surface, pushing small waves over the pebbled shore to nip at Randall’s boots. His hands moved to his back, but he caught himself and forced them to hang at his sides. His fingers tightened into fists until they shook with the pressure, the tension rising to his elbows before Cecelia’s hand slid over his knuckles.
‘Randall?’
He eased open his fingers.
‘Malvern will regret what he said today.’ He stroked her cheek, her stricken face making his blood boil. ‘How dare he try to humiliate me. I’ll rip him to shreds in every gaming room and club until he’s driven from London.’
‘Why? He only said what many were thinking, including Lady Menton. In the house, I heard her tell Sir Walter I was your whore.’
‘Who is she to judge us?’ he sneered. ‘The daughter of a merchant with nothing to recommend her except a willingness to bow and scrape before her betters and weasel her way into society.’
She let go of his hand. ‘She’s only doing it to help her son, the same way I’ve helped Theresa.’
‘She’ll ruin him with all her grasping. Insulting you is like insulting me. Doesn’t she know I could raise or lower her son with a few words?’
‘She doesn’t just want standing, but a respectable match for him. At the moment, Theresa and I can offer neither.’
‘Of course you can. Increase Miss Fields’s dowry.’ Randall began to pace, the small stones shifting beneath his boots. ‘If Lady Menton is foolish enough to toss it away, then I’ll see to it your cousin has a hundred other suitors clamouring for her hand.’
‘There’s no dowry
, no money and none is coming from Virginia.’
He came to a halt. ‘What?’
She stood alone against the water, her face as desolate as the dark surface of the lake. ‘I’m poor, Randall, painfully so. Paul stole everything and what little I have was advanced by a moneylender with no hope of repayment. Until today, all I had was my good name—now even that’s gone. I must know, will you make me respectable again? Can I give Theresa at least that?’
He stared at her, everything falling into place—Mr Rathbone, her town house, her worry over her reputation and the refusal to trust him or tell him the truth. Yet none stunned him as much as Madame de Badeau’s words ringing through his mind.
She’s subtle and you won’t see her plan until she has you before the vicar.
No, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I thought if you knew the truth, you’d push me away like you did in the conservatory.’
He grunted as if she’d slammed him in the chest. ‘And I thought you’d forgiven me.’
‘I have forgiven you, that’s why I’m telling you now.’
‘But not before, not when I asked you so many times to trust me.’ He clasped his hands behind his back, a crushing emptiness seizing him and threatening to shatter his control. ‘You’ve played a good game, madam, all the while chiding me for doing the same. No wonder I didn’t see it.’
‘It wasn’t a game, not with you.’
‘With who, then? Strathmore?’ he bellowed. ‘Was that why you never rebuffed him? You intended to keep us both dangling, so if one didn’t come through the other might?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that, at least not now.’
‘But it was at first, until I became the better candidate.’ A humiliation more piercing than any he’d suffered at his father’s hands flooded through him, made sharper by the memories of Malvern’s words and the judging eyes at the garden party.
‘No. You pursued me for weeks despite my refusals, chipping away at them until I finally succumbed, and you accuse me of playing a game?’
‘Because I see it now, how you led me on with false kindness when all the while you wanted me for your own ends.’
She marched up to him, her chin set in defiance. ‘I did no such thing.’
He leaned in close, his face inches from hers. ‘I thought you were the only person not interested in my title and station, the only one to see beyond it and everything else and to love me for who I am. I see now you coveted it far more and schemed to get it with far more skill than all the others.’
Her mouth softened. ‘No, I love you, I always have.’
She reached up to touch his cheek, but he jerked away.
‘I won’t stand here and listen to any more of your lies.’
He stormed off, following the curve of the shore.
She didn’t love him, she’d never loved him, she’d only used him, playing on his deepest fears to try to bend him to her will.
He came to a stop and squeezed his eyes shut, the pain rippling out from his centre like waves from a large stone thrown in the lake. He struggled to remain standing under the force of it, feeling himself eighteen again, guilty, lonely and grieving, his father’s death fresh on his hands.
Opening his eyes, he climbed the steps of the Greek temple, hurrying to the far side, away from the lake, Cecelia and anyone who might happen by to laugh at his humiliation. She’d made a fool of him and he’d been too blinded by desire to realise it. How Madame de Badeau and so many others would delight to see him now, brought low by the one person he’d believed in the most, the one he’d thought would always believe in him.
Resting his forehead against the cold marble, he drew in ragged breaths, trying to silence the faint words echoing from his past. You aren’t worthy.
* * *
Cecelia sat on a stone bench beneath the trees, staring out over the flat surface of the lake, waiting the way she had for so many days after word reached them of her father’s ship, hoping all was not lost and he might return.
Her father had never come back and neither would Randall.
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the stone bench, anger and pain rising behind her eyes. She’d trusted Randall with her heart and the future and, like almost everyone in her life, he’d let her down.
A fish broke the surface of the lake, then fell back into the empty expanse and she understood for the first time ever her mother’s desolation after Cecelia’s father had died. Digging the heel of her hand into her forehead, she tried to push back the hopelessness and the temptation to dive beneath the surface and never come up.
Rustling on the path made her jump and she twisted to see Lady Ellington approaching.
‘Cecelia, are you all right?’ She looked around the clearing. ‘Where’s Randall?’
Summoning the last of her dignity, Cecelia rose, fighting to keep the stinging tears from falling. ‘I’m fine. Randall is... Well, he’s...he’s gone.’
She crumbled beneath the soft concern etching the Countess’s face and tears spilled down her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands, dropping down on to the bench. ‘How could he have done it? How can this all be happening again?’
‘Oh, my dear.’ Lady Ellington wrapped her plump arms around her, the motherly gesture making the tears come harder.
Everything from the past year drained from Cecelia as she clung to Lady Ellington, the truth pouring out with her choking sobs. The Countess listened in silence, rubbing Cecelia’s back while she spoke. Then at last, wrung out and unable to say more, Cecelia sighed, her body as limp as the damp handkerchief in her lap.
‘You’ve been very brave for keeping your chin up under so much.’ Lady Ellington squeezed Cecelia’s hands. ‘I don’t know if I could’ve done the same.’
‘What good has it done me?’ Cecelia sat back. ‘I still have nothing.’
‘No, dear, not nothing. For all his silly faults, I know Randall loves you, he always has.’
‘No, or he wouldn’t have been so quick to believe the worst of me.’
‘He did it because he believes the worst of himself. It’s why he gets up to all sorts of things in London.’ Lady Ellington shook her head. ‘He thinks if he can make the world adore him, it will fill the emptiness inside him. You’re the only one who’s ever been able to do that. He knows it, but he hates being so vulnerable. That’s why he did what he did today.’
‘I know you’re right.’ Cecelia held up the pendant, sliding her thumb over the bricks before she dropped it to thump against her chest. ‘But I don’t care any more. He’s never been willing to lower himself to truly love me.’
‘Don’t close your heart yet, my dear. Randall is stubborn, painfully so at times, but he’s no fool.’ Lady Ellington levelled a jewelled finger at her. ‘You wait and see. He’ll find a way to deserve you.’
‘Even if there was a way, he wouldn’t try it. His ego would never allow him to admit he’s wrong.’ She twisted the handkerchief. ‘No, there’s nothing he can say or do to make me trust him again, or give him another chance to belittle and humiliate me.’
The Countess rose, taking Cecelia by the elbow and drawing her up from the bench. ‘Come with me.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Home.’ Lady Ellington guided her up a small path cutting through the trees along the far edge of the lawn. ‘This leads up to the driveway without being seen by the house. I’ve already called the carriage. No doubt Theresa is in it and in a state because I’ve been gone so long. She’s so worried about you.’
Cecelia came to a halt, new tears blurring her vision. ‘I’ve ruined her chances with Mr Menton.’
‘Nothing is lost yet.’ Lady Ellington patted her hand. ‘You leave everything to me. I’ll make sure Lady Menton approves of Theresa.’
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‘But what about her dowry and my debts?’
‘That may be trickier,’ she conceded, tapping one finger against her chin. ‘Randall manages my inheritance from both Edmund and my late husband. I can’t draw a large amount without him noticing.’
‘I won’t take money from you. I can’t.’ There was no way she could ever repay it.
Lady Ellington laid her hands on Cecelia’s shoulders. ‘If everything works out the way I think it will, you won’t have to.’
Cecelia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, wishing she shared the Countess’s optimism. Lady Ellington might believe in the strength of Randall’s love, but Cecelia didn’t. Nor did she believe in Mr Menton’s ardour overcoming his mother’s objections.
‘And if it doesn’t work out?’ she asked.
Lady Ellington frowned. ‘Then Randall doesn’t deserve you.’
* * *
Randall walked up the lawn from the stables, Falconbridge Manor little more than a silhouette in the large moon rising behind it. He’d spent a long time standing in the shadows of the Greek temple, unwilling to rejoin the party, unwilling to face Cecelia. Then at last he’d made for the house, only to be greeted by an apologetic Lady Menton and the news the ladies had returned to Falconbridge without him. He’d borrowed a horse from Sir Walter, wandering for hours over the countryside, trying to clear his mind, but calm never came.
He looked up at the window a few down from his. Cecelia’s room. It was dark and he imagined her inside, eyes red from crying. He stopped, the urge to go to her, comfort her and beg for her forgiveness startling him with its strength. More than once during the long ride back from Hallington Hall he’d wondered if he’d been wrong about her and her intentions.
‘I wasn’t wrong,’ he snarled, continuing up the lawn until the warm light in the drawing room greeted him. It had never been about love for Cecelia, and the knowledge she’d so easily twisted his affection for her own ends roiled his gut.
He marched through the drawing room, down the hall and up the stairs, determined to bring this farce to an end. He didn’t care if she was awake or asleep, if she wept or insulted him, it was time for her and the cousin to go and for him to be free of all the torment he’d experienced since first seeing her in London.
