Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

by Lynn Messina - Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

  “Indeed I am not free, my lord,” she said, pleased that her voice sounded cool and calm, as if her heart weren’t pounding painfully in her chest. “I am committed for the next dance. It seems you are wrong again.” With that dismissal, she brushed by him with every intention of hiding behind Evelyn for the rest of the evening. It was an act of shameful cowardliness, but she was happy to admit she was a milksop if it saved her from further humiliation.

  Deverill had other ideas, however, and as she tried to pass, he clutched her arm. “I’m afraid you’ll have to disappoint your next partner, for I have prior claim on you. I believe you owe me a conversation from yesterday.”

  He spoke quietly but forcefully and if Catherine couldn’t tell from his tone that he was angry, she could tell from his grasp, which was quite strong. Feeling trapped, Catherine looked around the ballroom for someone to come to her rescue, but she knew she could not call attention to herself.

  “Let go of my arm, Deverill,” she said softly, though she wanted to scream it.

  “I am not letting you go, ” he said, his expression resolute. “You can provide fodder for the gossipmongers by struggling to get away from me. That’s your prerogative, of course. Or you can come with me to the balcony, where we will have our talk. You decide.” His fingers tightened. “I’ll wait.”

  He made it sound as though she had a choice, but Catherine knew the only option available to her was acquiescence. Even their standing together so closely at the edge of the dance floor would start tongues wagging soon. “Very well, my lord.”

  With his hand on her elbow, he escorted her to the balcony, which was quiet and empty save for a few dozen flickering candles. It was a cool night, and although the servants had opened the doors to let fresh air into the ballroom, nobody seemed inclined to seek it out.

  Catherine shivered and walked over to the ornate railing, which overlooked gardens lit by lanterns and moonlight. It was a beautiful sight, dreamy and romantic, and she felt a renewed sense of melancholy that she would never have anyone with whom to stroll through a garden. Damn him for doing this to me.

  Since Deverill had yet to speak, she decided that she must initiate conversation. The sooner their business began, the sooner it would conclude. “I am here, my lord,” she said, without turning around. If she could, she’d have the entire exchange without looking at him once.

  The sound of his footstep signaled movement, and Catherine felt his approach as much as heard it. Stopping directly behind her, he ran his hands gently over her bare arms and whispered softly, “You are exquisite tonight.”

  Catherine closed her eyes as if absorbing a great blow. She didn’t know which was worse—his touch or his words. She pulled her shoulders forward, effectively breaking the contact, and coldly thanked him for his compliment. “Was there something else, my lord?”

  With a groan he spun her around. Suddenly she was in his arms and he was laying heated kisses along her neck. “Do you know what it has done to me, watching you in that dress going from one young man’s arms to another’s, fluttering your eyelashes like an accomplished flirt? You are ravishing in red. You should always wear it.”

  Catherine’s breathing became labored, and she realized that she was well out of her depth. These feelings—she didn’t know how to handle them. And he made her feel so much. “Lord Deverill,” she said, her voice thin and uneven, “I fear this is highly improper. Pray excuse me.”

  But he didn’t excuse her; he didn’t even let her go. He simply traced a trail of kisses up her neck and along her cheek. “I don’t think that is possible, my dear.” His voice wasn’t quite steady either. “I don’t think I can do that at all,” he reaffirmed before laying his lips on hers.

  Catherine knew that she should not be on the balcony kissing Julian Haverford, Marquess of Deverill, for several reasons, the least of which was the potential scandal. Most important, she needed to protect her own well-being. If things continued like this, she might never recover. As it was, she would wear the willow for him for months to come.

  But she didn’t fight the kiss. Indeed, she melted into the marquess, wrapping her hands around his neck and playing with the soft hair on the back of his head. She knew the kiss would end soon enough, and when that happened, she would turn and walk away from him. She would leave him alone on the balcony and not look back. She couldn’t look back. It would hurt too much. She couldn’t imagine why he would do this to her—toy so ruthlessly with her emotions—but maybe that just was what sophisticated gentlemen of the ton did.

  His hold on her slackened and he released her lips. Tilting his head back, he ran a gentle hand through her curls without saying anything. He simply held her like that for a while, staring down at her with green eyes.

  The moment lingered sweetly, and Catherine felt a sense of connection, as if they were linked on a fundamental level. But she knew it was a trick of her own romantical mind—what green girl didn’t imagine she was fated for a handsome lord?—and that the more experienced Deverill wasn’t susceptible to such starry-eyed nonsense. The thought that this overwhelming feeling was one-sided humiliated her even more, and she took a step back, breaking the contact.

  “Is that all?” she asked, her voice steely. Her heart was racing at a bruising pace, but he would never know it from looking at her. If she had her way, he would never, ever know what he had done to her with only a single kiss. She would not be that weak, not Catherine Fellingham, veriest quiz.

  Her words—or rather her tone—had the desired effect, and he dropped his arms to his side. “Catherine,” he began, a little hesitantly, “I know you’re angry—”

  “Angry, my lord?” Catherine laughed bitterly before realizing that it would be much better if there were no emotion in her voice at all. She took a deep breath and said almost calmly, “No, my lord, I am not angry that you and Lady Courtland were using me to relieve your ennui. Perhaps if I hadn’t overheard your conversation, I would’ve been susceptible to your charms and surely then I would be heartbroken right now. However, as they say, forewarned is forearmed. I wasn’t at all taken in. Indeed, to be completely candid, I was using you, as well. I have never been fashionable, and I welcomed the opportunity you provided for me to meet other, more interesting men. It was my pleasure to fall in with your scheme. In fact, I have been meaning to thank you.”

  The determination, which had been present in his face from the moment he confronted her in the ballroom until now, seemed simply to sap away. “I see, Miss Fellingham,” he said, his voice and countenance suddenly indifferent. “Thank you for explaining the matter to me. Good evening,” he said with a bow. Then he walked across the balcony, into the ballroom and disappeared into the glittering crowd.

  Entirely alone on the balcony, Catherine felt the emotions she’d smothered for so long overwhelm her, and it took all her strength not to fall to her knees and weep like an infant. Determination alone kept her back straight and her head high, and when Freddy found her still standing there looking at the gardens twenty minutes later, she seemed completely composed.

  The carriage ride home was quiet, with neither she nor Evelyn inclined toward conversation. Lady Fellingham launched into a monologue of chatter—can you believe what the Duchess of Trent did? Did you see Lord Bromley’s waistcoat?—but finding no corresponding enthusiasm to encourage her gossip, quickly fell silent. For her part, Catherine was grateful for the respite and was too immersed in her own misery to wonder about Evelyn’s muteness.

  It was only after they got home that she realized something was terribly wrong with her sister. Evelyn’s face was pale, unnaturally so, her lips were drawn into a tight line, and she had a distracted air that quite rivaled anything that Catherine, in all the years of knowing her somewhat selfish sister, had ever seen. It wasn’t merely exhaustion, for she had seen Evelyn stay out much later than this and dance many more sets than she had tonight and remain so full of energy that they had practically to drag her to bed. This evening, she climbed the stairs
listlessly and disappeared into her room without saying good night to anyone.

  Catherine tried to go to sleep, but her sister’s face haunted her to such an extent it even overcame her preoccupation with her own sorrows, and she climbed out of bed, lit a candle and walked down the hall. The house was very quiet because everyone was sleeping, and as she stood in front of Evelyn’s door she could clearly hear sobs from the other side. She knocked gently, and when her sister didn’t answer, she tried again.

  After a few moments, Evelyn’s blotchy, red face appeared at the door. “Yes?” she said, wiping tears from her eyes and trying to pretend that she hadn’t been crying.

  Catherine pushed her aside and stepped into the room. She sat on the bed, pulling her sister down next to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly.

  “Nothing.” She sniffled pathetically. “Why”—hiccup—“do you ask?”

  “Oh, Evelyn,” Catherine said, running her hands through her sister’s hair, “if you could see your face right now, then you’d really have something to cry about.”

  Catherine had been teasing—she wanted only to draw a smile from Evelyn—but her words upset her more. She jumped off the bed and cried, “Don’t say that. It’s not true. I care about other things. I am not selfish. I’m not.” She dissolved into a fresh batch of tears. “I’m not.” And much in the way that Catherine had wanted to earlier on the balcony, she curled up into a ball and began weeping like a baby.

  “Oh, dear, dear.” Catherine bent to her knees and hugged Evelyn as the sobs racked her body. “Please stop crying. If you don’t stop crying I’m going to start myself and then we’ll be in real trouble. The way I feel right now, I could cry a small ocean.”

  After five or so minutes, the crying subsided and Catherine held her until it stopped completely. Then she made Evelyn stand up. “Come, let’s sit on the bed. You’ll tell me all about it, and it won’t be nearly as bad as you think it is. Come,” she said again when her sister resisted.

  “No, Catherine, I can’t. It really is that bad,” she insisted. “But all will be well. I just need to get used to…it.” Wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown, she straightened her shoulders and said with a calm that frightened her sister. “I’m fine now, thank you, darling. Go back to sleep.”

  Catherine marveled at how composed her sister appeared. But she knew that it was only a façade, and there was no way she was leaving the room until she found out what was the matter. “You cannot gammon me, Evelyn. I can tell something is dreadfully wrong, and I’m going to stay here until you tell me what it is.”

  Evelyn sighed deeply, turned her back toward Catherine and said, “Very well, on the morrow I will announce my engagement to Mr. Oscar Finchly. You’re the first to know and can now be the first to congratulate me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Catherine exclaimed.

  Throwing back her shoulders, Evelyn said, “We are engaged, and I’ll thank you not to ridicule my fiancé.”

  Catherine grabbed Evelyn’s arm and swung her around. “What insanity is this? I know you dislike the man intensely. What would compel you to act in such a fashion?”

  “Nothing compels me. I do it of my own free will. I…I love him with all my heart and am very happy with our engagement,” she said, wiping away a stray tear.

  Catherine didn’t know the last time she had heard such errant nonsense. Perhaps it was earlier that evening when she told Deverill that her heart wasn’t broken. “You don’t love him,” she insisted. “You can’t love him.”

  “Nothing compels me,” she repeated. “I’m marrying him of my own free will. Congratulate me. I’m the happiest woman in the world.”

  At the word happiest, her face dissolved into a fresh spate of tears, but to her credit and Catherine’s surprise, the smile on her face didn’t waver. Nevertheless, there was something in the way Evelyn made the statement that provided Catherine with the missing piece of the puzzle. “He is compelling you! How is he making you do this?”

  Evelyn stood there stiffly, refusing to answer or even acknowledge the question.

  “You must tell me, my dear,” Catherine insisted. “I cannot help you if you don’t tell me.”

  “Nobody can help me,” she said simply, with none of the histrionics in which she usually indulged.

  Her strength amazed Catherine, who, for so many years, thought her sister nothing but a hen-witted piece of fluff. “You must tell me. I can help you. I can, Evelyn. I swear it. You are my younger sister, and I love you. I would never let that man hurt you.”

  With this declaration, Evelyn started crying again. Not the loud racking sobs of earlier but gentle quiet tears that trailed slow paths down her cheeks. It appeared to Catherine as if her sister was weakening. After a while, Evelyn said, “He’s blackmailing me.”

  Catherine wasn’t surprised by the answer, for she had known it had to be something like that. There was no other way Evelyn would have agreed to such a repugnant proposal. “How? With what?”

  “If I don’t marry him, he will tell everyone that Mama was selling commissions in the army. They will send her to jail; I know they will. She’ll rot in some prison without water or food or…or her maid and they will make her work in some horrible factory, like the mines or cleaning chimneys. They will make her wear horrible itchy clothing that will give her skin rashes. And she’ll never see the sunlight ever again.” Evelyn grew more agitated as she contemplated her mother’s dismal future, and her hands started to shake. “Mama wouldn’t survive it. She is too soft, too spoiled. You know that, she would die in her cell and the awful guards would go down there one day and they’d find her lying there on her rodent-infested straw mattress on the ground wearing horribly ugly clothing with a horribly ugly rash all over her and she will be dead. Horribly dead. And it will be all my fault.”

  Catherine listened in silence as she rattled off this bleak fate for her mother, grateful that her sister had found some drama in her great well of dignity. Odd, but the thought of dealing with familiar, overreacting Evelyn was far more encouraging than dealing with brave, martyr-ish Evelyn.

  “Oh, you poor dear,” she said, enveloping her in a hug. “Is that what you’ve been torturing yourself with? They’re not sending Mama to Newgate.”

  “But ’twas you who said they would.”

  “I was angry, Evelyn, and spoke without thinking,” she explained, regretting now her harsh words. “I only wanted to make Mama understand the seriousness of her crime so that she would stop doing it. I never meant it. It’s not true, dear, and I never meant to frighten you.”

  Evelyn digested this information, and while she clearly wanted to be swayed by her sister’s words, she understood how grave the situation was. “Thank you, darling,” she said, squeezing Catherine’s hand, “for trying to make this seem a little less bleak. However, I am not so ignorant as you suppose. I am well aware of the wretched scandal this would cause if anybody knew. That must not happen. There is the family honor to think about for one, and you and Melissa for another. How will you make a match if the Fellinghams are infamous?”

  Catherine knew that her making a match should be the least of her sister’s considerations, but she didn’t remark on it. The point was the same whether it included her or not. The Fellinghams would be infamous, and she had little doubt that the family would be able to weather the storm. They were respectable, of course, and one of the oldest families in the kingdom, but they didn’t have the clout or the consequence. And it would take a significant amount of clout and consequence to brazen out something like this.

  “There is nothing for it,” said Evelyn, brushing away tears, “but for me to marry him for his silence.”

  “You shall not marry him.” Catherine’s voice was hard and forceful. “I’ll not allow it.”

  Her sister laughed sadly. “Thank you, darling. Your support means the world to me. But there’s nothing you can do. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Please don’t tease yourself about it.”

&nb
sp; “Stop being absurd,” Catherine ordered. “You and I will think of something else, and if we can’t, then fine, the Fellinghams will return to Dorset in disgrace, and Mama will learn an extremely unpleasant lesson about having to accept the consequences of one’s actions. And I, for one, won’t mind. As you know, I never really enjoyed London that much anyway.”

  Evelyn smiled at these words, for the whole family knew that Catherine never really enjoyed London all that much. “No, Cathy, that won’t do. Of course there’s nothing I would rather do than run away to Dorset and hide until this all goes away. But I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to be selfish anymore. Don’t you think that I know what you and Freddy say about me? I know you both think I am a horrid person. And…and maybe I have been horrid in the past but not anymore. I want to be good like you. You can’t stop me. I will marry the horrible Mr. Finchly and…and be happy with my noble sacrifice for the rest of my life.” With that, her control broke and she threw herself onto the bed as yet another bout of tears overcame her. “Now, please leave me alone.”

  Poor waterlogged Evelyn, Catherine thought, much distressed by her sister’s speech. She and Freddy had no idea the damage they had done with their careless words. “No, dear, I won’t leave you alone, so you can save your arguing for Mr. Finchly. We will scrape through this contretemps together. I will not leave you alone to your fate. Don’t worry, my dear. I will think of something that will save you and the family name. There will be no need for your beautiful, noble sacrifice, though I will be forever humbled by your willingness to make it.”

  “Please don’t make promises you can’t keep. I don’t want to have hope. It is better this way.” Evelyn buried her face in the pillow. “We are announcing the engagement tomorrow.”

  Catherine rushed to the side of the bed, got down on her knees and made Evelyn sit up. “No, you mustn’t,” she said, grasping her shoulders tightly. “You must promise me that you’ll wait a few days. I need time to think of a plan.”