by Cheryl Holt
Lady Rebecca repeated the phrase slowly, as if clarifying for a dunce, and that’s precisely what Fanny felt she was. She heard the words, and she saw Lady Rebecca’s lips moving, but she couldn’t grasp the awful implication.
“You’re engaged?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since I was a little girl. Our families contracted that I would one day be Lady Henley, then Duchess of Clarendon.”
Fanny’s heart broke in an instant. Michael had lied. Michael had lied about everything.
“The Duke told me Lord Henley was betrothed, but I didn’t believe him.”
“I can see that. You seem like a good person, Miss Carrington—a tad misguided and deluded perhaps—so I’m not certain how to tell you this either, but our wedding is in two weeks.”
“Two weeks!”
“Yes, and I need him to come home. He can’t continue to tarry with you. You have to let him go.”
Fanny was so stricken she could barely remain seated on the chair. She clutched at the armrest, holding on for dear life, lest she slide to the rug in a stunned heap. A sick dread was building in her stomach.
From the moment she’d met Michael, he’d been engaged. From the first time they’d kissed or made love, each time he’d chatted with her, played with her, slept with her, he’d been engaged.
She’d made so many excuses for him, had lied to herself and pretended that their actions were permissible. Right and wrong, morality and sin, had become irrelevant.
She was a naïve fool, no better than the lowest scullery maid who lifted her skirt with the lord of the manor for the promise of a penny.
“My wedding is so close,” Lady Rebecca was explaining, “but he has refused to stay in London with me—because he’s wanted to be here with you, instead.”
“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know any of this was happening.”
“It’s been so embarrassing for me. My father’s acquaintances have been throwing all these parties for us, but Michael is never there, and I’ve had to invent stories about where he is and what he’s doing.” She stopped, letting the import of her remarks sink in. “I’m growing afraid that he won’t show up for the ceremony, Miss Carrington. If he didn’t show, I would absolutely die of mortification.”
“Lady Rebecca, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.”
Fanny stared down at her lap, feeling petty and small. She’d forged ahead with Michael, oblivious to the consequences, ignoring the strictures by which she’d been raised, never worrying over who she might be harming.
She wished the floor would open and swallow her whole.
“I want you to go away, Miss Carrington, and I want Michael back. I want you out of our lives, and I don’t want you to contact him ever again.”
“Of course, of course.”
“I was prepared to bribe you to make you leave.”
“You don’t have to bribe me! I’ll go as soon as I can pack a bag.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They were being so civil that Fanny wanted to gag. She’d like to loathe Lady Rebecca or find some fault about which to gloat, but the truth was that Lady Rebecca was exactly the type of woman Fanny had imagined Michael would eventually marry.
Michael belonged to Lady Rebecca, and Lady Rebecca belonged to him. Fanny was an intruder who had usurped what she shouldn’t have.
“Do you remember Lady Anne Wainwright?” Lady Rebecca asked.
“Lord Henley’s sister? Yes.”
“She’s advised me that you’ve had some financial troubles, so I have a suggestion that I hope you’ll consider.”
“What is it?”
“Well, Michael has been fond of you”—Fanny cringed at how familiarly she said the name Michael—“and you’ve been very gracious to me. I would hate to have your circumstances worsen because of Michael’s misbehavior. I suppose you could seek assistance from your natural father.”
“My...father?”
“Yes, the Duke told me it was Lord Trent, and you could approach him, but you should be aware that he’s had other daughters come forward. He’s never helped a single one, so it’s not much of an option for you.”
Fanny was stunned again by how blithely the man was mentioned as being her sire. Was it common knowledge? Did everyone know but Fanny? The conviction with which the Duke and Lady Rebecca spoke of the matter was disconcerting. What if they were correct? What if it was Trent?
“I’ve never even met him,” Fanny said. “I would never go to him with my hand out like a beggar.”
“I can understand why you wouldn’t, so I took the liberty of visiting your sister.”
“You talked to Camilla?”
“She’s become quite the popular London hostess.”
“Has she?”
Fanny had sent three letters to the address Michael had given her, but Camilla hadn’t answered any of them.
“People flock to her parties.”
“Isn’t that grand?” Fanny muttered. At least one of the Carrington sisters’ dreams were coming true.
“She’s invited you to London to stay with her while you find a new...situation for yourself.”
“How kind.” Fanny was dazed, not sure of what she was saying.
“Here is her address in London, as well as some cash for the journey.”
“Thank you.”
“Now then, I must insist, Miss Carrington, that you never speak with Lord Henley again. Can you promise me you won’t? Can you give me your word?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just that I know how adamant Michael can be. He might track you down. He might demand that you come back to him.”
“He definitely might.”
When he settled on an idea, he was like a dog at a bone and couldn’t let it go. If she refused him, he’d be even more driven to persuade her to change her mind. She’d have to vanish completely, would have to take Thomas and sneak off to someplace where he’d never think to search.
“It would hurt me, Miss Carrington. If I found out you were together with him, after you swore that you wouldn’t do it to me, it would hurt me very much. I’m about to be a bride. I simply couldn’t bear to learn that he was unfaithful and that you were the cause.”
“I understand, and you have my word. I’ll never see him again. I swear it to you.”
Lady Rebecca stood, and Fanny stood, too.
“I believe I can trust you,” Lady Rebecca said.
“You can.”
“I’m sorry to have been so blunt. I’m sorry we had to meet like this.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Fanny flashed a wan smile. “I’m an adult, and I was taught how to behave. Lord Henley is just...”
She stopped, realizing she could never explain to his fiancée how wonderful it had been to love him, but Lady Rebecca recognized what Fanny had been about to say.
“I know what Michael is like, Miss Carrington. I’ve known him a very long time.”
She started out, ready to fetch her coat and depart, when the front door opened. Thomas bustled in, and Michael traipsed in behind him.
The three grown-ups were frozen in their spots, all of them looking astonished, looking guilty. Michael’s stunned gaze shifted from one woman to the other, as if he couldn’t figure out how he was actually seeing them both in the same room.
Thomas didn’t notice the awkwardness. He rushed over to Fanny and hugged her around the waist.
“It was too cold to ride, Aunt Fanny,” he chattered, “so we came home early.”
Fanny took a deep breath, forcing calm, as she stroked a hand across his icy cheek.
“Why don’t you scoot to the kitchen and have Cook make you some hot chocolate? Tell her I said you can have two cups.”
“I will! I will!”
He raced off, and they waited until he’d disappeared, the terrible moment stretching to infinity.
“Rebecca,” Michael finally choked out, “what are yo
u doing here?”
Lady Rebecca was very brave, very poised. “Miss Carrington and I have agreed that you must return to London with me.”
Two bright red splotches colored his cheeks, and Fanny couldn’t guess if he was about to grovel, lie, or shout at them, but whatever the comment, she didn’t have to listen to it.
“Would you excuse me?”
She hurried away, but she couldn’t reach the stairs without passing by Michael. He touched her arm, and she halted, but peered straight ahead.
“Fanny...” he murmured, pleading in his tone.
“I can’t talk about this now.”
Blindly, she hurried on, barreling up the stairs, not certain of her direction. Once she was out of their sight, she collapsed against the wall, worried that she might be ill all over the carpet. She hovered there, sick at heart and inconsolable when, to her dismay, she realized that she hadn’t climbed far enough. She could hear them in the foyer.
“I’ll be at Henley Hall,” Lady Rebecca told him. “I’m spending the night. I’ll advise the housekeeper to expect you for supper.”
He let out an anguished sigh. “All right.”
“I’ll have the staff make preparations for tomorrow. We will travel to London— together—in your coach.”
The suggestion pricked at his temper. “Don’t order me about, Rebecca.”
“I’m not ordering you. I’m merely informing you of what I want to have happen. You have humiliated me for the last time,” she said with great dignity. “You will come home with me in the morning, and you will proceed toward our wedding with as much courtesy and amiability as you can muster. I have not asked much of you, but I am asking this.”
“And if I don’t choose to scamper after you, as if I’m your pet dog, what then?”
“Then we will call off the wedding. I hope that is not your decision, but the resolution is in your hands. I need to know that you are still eager to marry me, and that you can make me happy on my wedding day by giving up your mistress. I will expect your answer at supper. At Henley Hall.”
There was some rustling, the door opened and closed, then Fanny ran down the hall to her room. She went to the bed and rolled onto the mattress, and she gazed at the ceiling, wishing she could die.
Michael trudged up the stairs, yearning to be anywhere but where he was. For over an hour, he’d delayed the pending conversation by dawdling with Thomas, but he couldn’t put it off forever.
For so long, he’d been tormented over the future, and it had finally arrived and had been just as awful as he’d anticipated. He was marrying Rebecca in two weeks, but he hadn’t breathed a word to Fanny. The sole occasion she’d questioned him, he’d denied it. What must she be thinking?
She’d relinquished much to be with him, but she wouldn’t ignore infidelity or adultery. It wasn’t in her nature.
He spun the knob and entered their bedchamber. She was in a chair by the window, and she was so silent and still that she might have been a Madonna in a painting. Her hair was plaited in a single braid down her back, and she’d changed clothes and was wearing the green muslin dress she’d owned before he ever met her, before he’d bought her a wardrobe of fashionable gowns.
The fact that she changed into an old dress provided evidence of how far they’d walked out onto a dangerous precipice. Was she going that very second? Could he let her go? If he did, how would he survive the coming months without her?
He shut the door and leaned against it. They stared and stared, a gulf as wide as an ocean separating them.
“You lied to me,” she seethed. “I asked you if you were engaged, and you lied to my face!”
“I know.”
“I had to find out like this! How could you put me in such a despicable position? How could you do such a hateful thing to me?”
“Would you have stayed with me if I had told you the truth?”
“No.”
He nodded, feeling no triumph at being proved right.
“Then why would I have? I adore you; I always have. I couldn’t bear to have you go off on your own to God knows what fate. Call me selfish if you wish, but I wanted to keep you with me. Where we could be together. Where I was sure you’d be safe.”
“Do you have any idea how mortified I am?”
“Don’t leave me,” he implored.
“I have to. I promised her.”
“I don’t care what she wants; I don’t care what she asked of you. I am asking you not to go.”
“Are you going to Henley Hall to dine with her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you traveling to London with her tomorrow?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“You have to, Michael. You have to.”
“Not unless you swear that you’ll be here when I return.”
“And when would that be? Shortly after your wedding? Or shortly after your honeymoon?” She looked very pale, as if she might faint.
“I don’t know that either,” and he truly didn’t. He had no idea what he would do.
She glanced down at her hands. They were tightly clenched in her lap, her knuckles white with strain. “I always thought that something better than this would happen to me in my life. I loved you, and I stayed here for you. I did everything you wanted, I gave you everything you sought, and all I can ask myself is why? Why did I?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t believe that you are.” She glared, her derision clear, his time with her slipping away, dwindling to a few precious seconds. “You should leave now. You have to go to Henley Hall. The two of you need to resolve this.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You can’t depart until we’ve worked out a plan for you.”
“And what sort of plan would that be? Will you furnish me with a house and an allowance? I don’t suppose your new wife would approve of the expenditures.”
“What do you want me to do, Fanny? What do you want me to say?”
“Let me ask you one question.”
“What is it?”
“Do you want to marry her? Do you want to go through with it?”
Did he want to? Hell, he’d never wanted to. “It’s all arranged.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you want to do it?”
“No.”
“Then why would you?”
“She’s...she’s...”
He couldn’t explain his betrothal or the aristocracy’s obsession with ancestry. When uttered aloud, it seemed so idiotic.
“She’s what?” Fanny pressed.
“Out of all the available candidates, she’s the best one. Our fathers are eager for the union, and she’s very rich. In many ways, she’s perfect for me.”
“But are you in love with her?”
”It’s a business venture, involving fortunes and property. Love has nothing to do with it.”
She studied him, digesting the statement as if it was the silliest thing she’d ever heard.
She chuckled, but sadly. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel sorry for her.”
“Why would you?”
“Because she’ll never know what it’s like to be cherished by you.”
“I told you it’s not a love match. She’d never expect it to be.”
“So let me ask you something else: Have you been having carnal relations with her—while you’ve been having them with me?”
“No. We would never dally before the...ah...the...”
He stumbled to a halt, and he deemed it an indicator of the level of his distress that he’d spoken without reflection. He didn’t intend to imply that he respected Rebecca more than Fanny, or that Rebecca’s virginity was more valuable than Fanny’s.
Fanny finished the terrible response for him. “You would never make love with her before the wedding, because you would never dishonor her?”
There was no reply that was appropriate, and anyway, the damage was done.
A look
of grief came in her eye as if—with the admission—he’d killed something fine and rare.
He forced himself away from the door, and he went over to kneel in front of her.
“Fanny, my dearest, darling Fanny, please forgive me.”
“I don’t think I can.” Her voice showed no emotion.
“I love you,” he said. The declaration was wrenched from the core of his being, but she merely snorted with disgust.
“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Michael. You insult me when you do.”
“I do love you!” he insisted. “I love you so much, I’m dying with it.”
“But it’s too late, and it really doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want to hurt you. I had to marry, and I picked Rebecca, but then, I met you and...and...how could I not love you?”
She placed her palm on his cheek, appearing very wise, and it seemed that she was about to say something profound, but Peggy knocked and peeked in.
“Master Thomas is asking for you, Miss Fanny. Will you see him?”
“Yes, Peggy, inform him that I’ll be down shortly. And would you fetch Lord Henley’s hat and coat. He’s having supper at Henley Hall.”
“Very good, Miss.”
“He’ll spend the night there, then he’s needed in London, so he’ll be away for a time. Have his horse saddled, would you?”
“Certainly.”
“He’ll be down in the foyer in a few minutes.”
Peggy slithered off, and Fanny used the interruption to scoot away. For a moment, she was standing, and he was still on his knees, like a beggar, like a supplicant.
He held out his hand.
“Don’t do this, Fanny.”
She linked their fingers and helped him to his feet. “You can’t stay here. You have to talk to her.”
He pulled her into a hug, squeezing so tightly that he was surprised he didn’t crack her ribs.
“Promise me that you’ll remain here until we can figure out a new location for you. I have to be assured that you’re safe and well.”
“Oh, Michael...”
“Swear it to me!”
“Yes, yes,” she sighed. “I’ll remain here until I hear from you.”
She tried to twist out of his grasp, but he wouldn’t release her, and she physically pried his fingers away. He reached for her again, and she moved across the room, the bed a barrier between them.
