Brooks nodded. As he walked with her, Brooks began thinking of ways to persuade them into letting August stay on at Linfield. Unfortunately, his ideas were limited. “Why do you look so alarmed?” August asked, her eyes searching his. “Is something bad about to happen?”
He quickly shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he replied, offering a reassuring smile.
* * *
Charles was sitting behind his desk when they arrived, looking quite pleased with himself. Lady Bolton stood by the window, her face like marble. Charles waved to the two seats in front of him. “Sit down, please,” he said.
Brooks and August exchanged a look, then moved to sit in the two chairs across from Charles. Lady Bolton paced behind them while Charles spoke. “Now that Father’s gone, Mother and I have come up with a solution for the little problem he has left us.”
August shrank into her chair. Brooks did his best to remain calm, though he found himself wanting to lunge at Charles more and more. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Father wanted August to have a season, but Mother will be in mourning for the next few months,” Charles explained. “She cannot be her chaperone. We have been considering other options, and—”
“Why don’t you wait a year?” Brooks interjected. He would reason with them, he thought. Once they saw August’s charms—and she received some much-needed polish—they would be happy to chaperone her next year.
Charles furrowed his brow. “You haven’t even finished listening to what I have to say,” he said, annoyed. “We thought August could go and stay with her aunt, Lady Ramsbury.”
Brooks gripped the arm of his seat. So it was as he suspected. He turned back to Lady Bolton, who gave a little shrug and paced on.
“Wouldn’t you like to meet your aunt?” Charles asked August as if she were a little girl. She glanced at Brooks, her forehead wrinkled with confusion. Of course, she couldn’t know Lady Ramsbury’s reputation, so she would see no issue living with her in London. To her, Lady Ramsbury was likely just another relative to meet that was hopefully nicer than her brother.
Turning back to Charles, she smiled. “That sounds like a lovely idea. I would love to meet someone else who is related to me and maybe stay with them awhile.”
“Wonderful!” her brother exclaimed, grinning and clapping his hands together as if nothing had ever pleased him more. August appeared excited as well.
“Are you sure Lady Ramsbury is the right chaperone for August’s entrance into society?” Brooks asked before brother and sister squealed with too much glee. August gave him a confused look. “A girl only has her first season once, after all.”
“Oh, come now, Brooks,” Charles said with a smile. “My aunt isn’t so bad. A bit eccentric, perhaps, but—”
“She has a terrible reputation,” Brooks interrupted, not wanting to dance around the subject any longer. He looked over his shoulder at Lady Bolton. “August needs someone to guide her, not debauch her.”
August raised her brows at him in the same defiant way she treated him the morning they first met. She turned back to her brother. “Well, I think she sounds lovely.”
“What—”
“That’s the spirit, August!” Charles exclaimed.
Brooks gritted his teeth together. “But—”
“I will write to her immediately.”
“You!” a voice shouted from the doorway.
Brooks turned and looked, though he remained perplexed by August’s response to his comment. Shouldn’t a young lady worry about being debauched? But Rosamund stood in the study before he could say anything, pointing an accusatory finger at her brother. Rutley rushed in behind her, reaching for her waist. She batted his hand away.
“You have mortgaged my future!” Rosamund yelled. She charged at him with a very unladylike scream, but Rutley grabbed her around the waist, pulling her backward. She let out a loud sob, crumpling against his chest.
Charles stood up, his hands on his hips. “For God’s sake, man!” he exclaimed. “Why would you tell her?”
“She tried to cry off!” Rutley shouted back. Rosamund still sobbed against his chest. “I thought I would tell her what was at stake.”
Brooks clenched the arms of his chair. Rosamund pushed Rutley away, stumbling toward her mother. “Mama, did you know?” she asked.
Lady Bolton’s eyes darted toward Brooks, and soon Rosamund was looking at him, a look of horror in her eyes. “Brooks?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I only found out—”
“You all knew!” she exclaimed, looking about the room wildly. She then gestured toward August. “You all knew except August!”
Rosamund dashed out of the room, the sounds of her cries echoing through Linfield Hall.
Chapter Ten
“I will turn her out before I let her cry off, Rutley,” Charles said to Rosamund’s fiancé sometime after she left the room. “I doubt she would rather be homeless than marry you.”
Rutley arched a single eyebrow. “A comforting thought,” he said sarcastically. “I will return later this week, once tempers have cooled.”
When August first saw Rutley at dinner the night before, she thought him very handsome. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes and a profile that resembled a Renaissance sculpture August once saw depicted in a book. Judging by looks alone, August wondered why Rosamund didn’t want to marry him, but now she was beginning to understand. Tempers did not just cool after what had happened in the study.
As Rutley left the room, Lady Bolton moved to do the same. “I will go check on her,” she said. “I’m sure I can think of a way—”
“No,” Brooks said, standing up from his chair. August carefully watched him, waiting for him to say more. She was still annoyed over his comments about her aunt debauching her. He seemed to think she was this delicate flower, in desperate need of his or someone’s protection. But how bad could her aunt’s reputation be? She was a dowager duchess, after all.
“August should go,” he said, looking down at her. August quickly turned toward Lady Bolton, who stood motionless in the doorway. “She is the only one of us with whom Rosamund isn’t angry.”
August supposed that made sense. But as far as she saw it, Rosamund’s family had treated her very poorly, whether her brother would admit to it or not. August wasn’t entirely sure what comfort the sister Rosamund had only known for one day would bring her, especially when August seemed to be the only one in the dark about what Rosamund meant when she said her brother had mortgaged her future.
After Lady Bolton reluctantly agreed with Brooks, August went upstairs like a nervous soldier marching into battle. Rosamund’s room was on the second floor in the opposite wing from her father’s. When she reached the landing, she tried not to think of his dead body down the hall. What would he say if he knew such a nasty argument had occurred between two of his children the day he died? He probably would have been so disappointed.
As for her, she was upset she didn’t get to know him more—if only to get more information about her mother out of him. The woman’s identity might become a mystery that her father took with him to the grave. When August reached Rosamund’s door, she slowly raised her fist, knocking on it.
“Go away!” her sister immediately shouted back. “I do not wish to speak to anyone!”
“It’s me,” she called back. “August.” When there was no response, she continued. “I have been asked to check in on you. They say I’m the only one with whom you aren’t angry. I can’t promise to be much comfort, seeing how we hardly know each other, but—”
The door swung open. Rosamund stood on the other side, her face blotchy and wet with tears. When she saw August, she let out a loud sob, then dashed back toward the bed, throwing herself upon it. August closed the door behind her, frowning. She sat down on the bed beside Rosamund, a crumpled heap beside her. Sighing, August wondered what to say. If she were in a similar position, what would comfort her? Perhaps she might not want to talk about
it all. Maybe a distraction was in order.
“Your brother has ordered me to go and stay with Lady Ramsbury in London,” she said suddenly.
Rosamund sniffed, turning to look at her sister. “What?” she asked, her eyes swollen from crying.
August smiled sadly at her. “I am to leave Linfield and go live with our aunt. I suppose if Charles thinks she would take in someone like me, she might also take in someone like you, even if you decide to go through with calling off your engagement. Since your brother said he would toss you out of the house if you did, I thought I would mention it in case that’s what you wanted to do.”
Rosamund seemed to consider this for a moment before loudly sighing. “Oh, August, I am not sure what to do!”
“I’m not sure what you should do either,” August admitted. She only just met Rosamund, and she barely knew Rutley or their history as a couple. “But I also have no idea what you meant when you told our brother that he mortgaged your future.”
Rosamund sat up, moving to sit beside August on the edge of the bed. “The duke told me that he paid off my brother’s gambling debts,” she explained, all the while sniffling. “If I do not marry him, my brother will owe him twenty thousand pounds instead of only eight. Do you see now? My brother will fall into financial ruin if I do not marry the duke.”
August chewed her lip, considering this. She thought of her inheritance, the one that her father suddenly bequeathed her. That explained why Charles did not like her. It was not out of loyalty toward his mother. It was the fact that she had taken twelve thousand pounds from him—twelve thousand pounds he desperately needed.
“Or,” August began, her mind spinning, eager to present an alternative to Rosamund, “we could forget all about Charles. I could give half my inheritance to you, and we could both go live with Lady Ramsbury.”
Rosamund laughed. “That does sound like a marvelous idea, but I’m not sure I could forget Charles entirely. He is my brother. I do love him, and I do not wish to be turned out of the house.” Looking around her sister’s bedroom, August did not blame her. The entire house was magnificent. “Besides, does Lady Ramsbury know she’s about to take two nieces under her wing?”
“I’m not sure she knows she’s about to take one, let alone two,” August admitted. Now they were both laughing. When they were through, Rosamund sighed again.
“You are a kind girl, August, but you should have your inheritance,” she said with a sad smile. “That’s what Papa wanted for you, and I think I want it for you as well. You may have told me about your life at Hardbury and Portsmouth without a single complaint, but I have already decided you deserve a much easier future. You mustn’t worry about me.”
“But—”
“You mustn’t!”
August fell silent, looking at her hands resting in her lap. She felt as though she might cry, and she supposed this was why Brooks told her to be careful with her family. It was easy to get hurt when one cared too much. She felt it now after the emotional tumult of the past few days. She looked back up at Rosamund, tears in her eyes. “It will be hard not to worry about you.”
“Oh, August.” The two girls embraced, both crying. Rosamund buried her face in her sister’s shoulder. “If I do end up getting married, you must come to Linfield this summer for the wedding.”
“If your mother and Charles will allow it, I should like that very much.”
“I will force them.”
When they were through with the tears, Rosamund took a deep breath. “So,” she began, backing away from their embrace to look August in the eyes, “you are to live with Lady Ramsbury. Are you prepared?”
August furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Is it true that her reputation is terrible like Brooks said?”
Rosamund laughed. “My aunt has had a line of gentleman callers at her door ever since her husband died. The London papers love to report on their comings and goings from her home in Mayfair, which I suppose may make her seem rather scandalous to someone who doesn’t know her.”
August realized then why Brooks might not want her living at her aunt’s. Men coming and going whenever they pleased? To a place where an unattached twenty-year-old girl lived? August was already entering society with multiple strikes against her, including one Brooks didn’t even know. She was not the innocent that he thought she was, not so unaware of why her aunt might enjoy the attentions of so many gentlemen callers. She didn’t know how much longer she could let him think she was a complete innocent.
“Nevertheless, she isn’t so bad,” Rosamund continued. “I think you will like her, and she’ll make sure you receive your polish before taking you out in public.” She paused a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. “Although… I hear she throws a lot of parties at her house on Park Street, so you may have to adapt quickly.”
August was rather skilled at adapting quickly—at least she thought so. The orphanage, Hardbury, and Portsmouth. She had made many homes in her short twenty years. “I wish you were coming with me,” August said woefully. “What if Lady Ramsbury wants nothing to do with me either?”
“I’m sure Charles will write her a very persuasive letter on the subject,” Rosamund replied, squeezing August’s hand reassuringly. “I also believe we will end up seeing each other before the summer.”
August raised her brow. “What do you mean?”
“This mourning period will be over when Charles grows bored of the country, which will be much sooner than propriety demands,” Rosamund said with a sigh. “The same goes for Mother, though she will dread facing the scandal your introduction to society will bring. Still, I wager we will see each other again in London within a month.”
August smiled at her sister. “I should like that very much.”
Rosamund’s blue eyes twinkled. “So would I.”
* * *
August returned downstairs with Rosamund, where Lady Bolton was waiting in the drawing room. For a moment, August thought Lady Bolton might soften toward her after the thankful look she gave her while embracing Rosamund. But Lady Bolton wanted to talk to her daughter in private, so they went to the garden, leaving August behind in the drawing room.
Unable to sit still, she walked through the room, picking up and studying various trinkets on tabletops as she passed them. She picked up a miniature of her brother, staring at it and frowning. The likeness appeared surprisingly friendly, though August knew a much different story. Eventually, she heard someone come in, and she turned to find Brooks standing in the doorway. “I see Lady Bolton and Rosamund have already reconciled,” he said with a slight smile.
“So it would seem,” she said. August put down the miniature and walked toward the fire without saying anything. He joined her there, and they watched the flames crackle and pop at their feet.
“Do you think she will still try to cry off?” Brooks eventually asked.
August tilted her head at him, half smiling. “Perhaps not, especially now that tempers have cooled,” she said. She imitated Rutley’s baritone voice, causing Brooks to chuckle. “In all seriousness, I’m not quite sure. I can tell she does not want to marry him, but I think she understands the risks of calling off the engagement now. Rutley could ruin the whole family if he doesn’t get his way.”
“So you know the truth now?”
August raised her brow. “That my brother is not only an avid drinker but an avid gambler as well? Yes, I do.”
Brooks nodded, looking back toward the fire. “I did try to warn you.”
August wrung her hands in front of her. “I have been thinking,” she said, taking a deep breath, “and I do not think I would like my inheritance if it means my sister must marry a man she hates. If my money would prevent Charles from being ruined by Rutley, then—”
“August,” Brooks said, his voice low and full of warning as he shot her a sidelong glance before turning to face her. “We must rid you of this self-sacrificing behavior of yours. Do not bend to your brother’s will because yo
u think that will make him love you. Let me assure you that it will not. And then where will you be? Poor and obscure again. Charles is a selfish man who will run up his debts again as soon as you have paid them off for him.”
She glared at him. “I do not care about my brother’s love, but I do care about my sister’s happiness. I’m sure you see no merit in sacrificing something of yours for someone you care about, but I do. I wonder if you care about anyone at all.”
“If I did not care, I would not still be here.”
They held each other’s gaze for a long while in silence. August didn’t know what to say. Did he mean he cared about her? Her heart pounded so loudly against her chest that she was sure Brooks could hear it.
“I am sorry for snapping at you,” he finally muttered, turning back toward the fire. “I did not mean to speak in anger. I have only been thinking much of your future in the past forty-eight hours, and for some reason, I have decided I should like to see you happy.”
August nearly stopped breathing. For some unspeakable reason, Brooks did care about her. She felt a flush rising toward her face, straight from her heart. She was thankful he did not turn and look at her, still fixated on the fire in front of them.
“You say you want a family,” he said. “Go to London and find a husband to make one of your own. Aside from Rosamund, I’m sure your family here is useless to you.”
Her face fell. She realized then that Brooks did not envision himself as that husband. Brooks was only a good man who wanted to see her settled in the world after plucking her from her relative comfort as a governess. He had no ulterior motives, only honorable intentions. He was bound to her for now by duty, but that could not last once she arrived at Lady Ramsbury’s.
“And what of Lady Ramsbury?” she asked softly, wishing to change the subject.
“Your brother has sent her a pleading letter regarding your impending arrival in town,” he said, turning toward her and frowning. “I thought we could leave for London today. Charles has lent us his carriage. We will go to Dover Street first.”
Lady August Page 10
