Capturing the Viscount (Rakes and Roses Book 1)

by Win Hollows

  “What did you say, Remington Rothstone?” she came close and put her finger in his face. “How dare you interrupt your own mother! After all your father and I have given you in this life, don’t you think for a second I can’t take it away!”

  Rem frowned bemusedly. “Are you threatening to kill me, Mother?”

  “I have ways of making you wish you were never born,” she said solemnly, her eyes boring in to his.

  He raised his brows. “I don’t doubt that.” He sat up fully, forcing his mother to take a step back and put her hands on her hips. “However, seeing as none of the things you are accusing me of are true, I think we can put a hold on the unmentionable torture for now.”

  “And just what is not true?”

  “Mother, everything I told you before is true. Our balloon was sabotaged, men were killed, and we had to stay where we were until it was light enough to find our way back. I did not assault anyone’s virtue. Laura’s Parrington’s precious virginity remains quite intact, more’s the pity. So, in case it’s not clear, she most definitely isn’t pregnant either. It was all innocent, at least on our part.” He stood up and took his mother’s hands in his own. “I’m still the son you raised to be a gentleman. And I still have some shreds of decency left. When we came back, I offered for her. She…she refused.” He dropped her hands and sat back down, forcing himself to think about the expression in Laura’s eyes as she rejected him. He ran a hand over his face, the dark circles he had earned over the past few weeks in sharp relief to his sallow skin.

  His mother didn’t say anything for a long time, but sat down on the divan next to his chair. “I’m sorry, Remmy.”

  “I’d rather not rehash it if it’s alright with you,” he stated, not meeting her eyes.

  “I understand.” She put her delicate hand on his arm. “But sitting here feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to solve the problem,” she said gently. “What she is facing, fair or not, is much worse than what you will have to suffer for this.”

  “I know. But what am I supposed to do?” Frustration colored his tone. “She said no. Just like that. I can make her marry me.”

  “No, but now she might reconsider based on the current situation.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he mused, staring across the small room at nothing. Rain pattered the long window on the opposite wall, murky daylight barely showing through the edges of the silver-threaded curtains. “She was…adamant when last I saw her.”

  His mother frowned. “Why do you think that is? I thought you two were getting on famously,” she inquired.

  “I thought so too. I don’t know what happened. All of a sudden, she had this look in her eye like I had…drowned her favorite kitten or something.”

  Penny frowned. “And this was right after you’d told her how you felt?”

  “Yes, I-“ Rem stopped and blinked. “Well, it was right after I proposed.”

  Penny’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not the same thing, Remington.”

  He blushed, something he hadn’t done in years. “I might have…er…left that part out of the proposal,” he winced.

  Lady Rothstone groaned and rolled her eyes. “Men.” She stood and walked to the door of her drawing room, her sage green dress fluttering out behind her.

  “Mother?” Rem watched as she left. “Mother?” he called louder, but she continued walking.

  Apparently, the conversation was over.

  Rem knew he would see her there, but was not looking forward to it. Two days had not been enough time to plan out what to say, and it was not the most romantic place for a reconciliation. Daniel Craigerton’s funeral would be attended by all of the ton’s elite, every family who was presently in London socially obligated to pay their respects. His mother and father had arrived before him and knew he would be sitting with his contemporaries. The Alliterates had arrived at different times, but all had automatically sat down in the same row towards the front, the three men only nodding their greetings to one another. Somberly, they sat, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

  All of them had known Daniel, had spent time with him both at Eton and had caroused around town with him since then at various times. Tris had been the closest to him recently, although Rem knew Con was a distant cousin of Daniel’s.

  “Any word on the cause of death?” Con asked, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  “Not that I’ve heard,” replied Tris, and Rem shook his head. He had inquired at Scotland Yard the day before, also checking on the status of the investigation into the Honeymoore murders, but had had no luck with either of them.

  They fell silent and stayed that way throughout the ceremony performed by the clergy and speeches made by family members. It was clear that Craigerton had been a typical gentleman of the ton, pursuing amusements more than anything else, but, by all accounts, a good son and brother.

  Rem couldn’t help but wonder what would be said if her were to die tomorrow. Would a life of leisure be all he was known for? Flitting through London on a cloud of privilege and idle debauchery? Did he have any more substance to his existence than Daniel Craigerton had had?

  As the future Duke of Rothstone, he had many obligations that would take up his time and resources. His primary duties would be to see to the welfare of the people living on his estates and to fill his parliamentary seat. He knew he would be able to influence change in his position, just as his father was currently doing. He knew his father to be a conscientious man who took great pains to research and promote causes he deemed worthy within his political sphere.

  But Rem wasn’t in that position yet and hopefully wouldn’t be for quite some time. His father was in good health, and Rem wasn’t so eager for his title that he wished him ill. He knew other men of his age who couldn’t wait for their sires to die off so they could come into their inheritance, but he was not one of them. It had been impressed upon him from an early age that he would assume a seat of power and that he needed to be ready for it. Right now, however, his existence seemed to be in a state of limbo. He managed his Viscountcy’s estates and a dukedom estate near Brighton, his favorite, and had been doing so since his father gave him the run of it all on his eighteenth birthday, but no other true obligations encumbered his time. He did have his own charitable endeavors, but compared to the working class, they couldn’t even be considered hobbies.

  The ceremony was coming to a close, Daniel Craigerton’s casket now being removed from the church’s public sanctuary room while several people cried or sniffled as quietly as they could.

  What had he been doing with himself the past decade?

  He knew the answer, and it was a bitter tonic indeed. The same thing as Daniel Craigerton: living for himself.

  Rem didn’t want to live for just himself anymore, he was realizing.

  He wanted to live for her. For the woman in the green dress who carried illegal gadgets around and loved running through the woods and stating her mind, despite her inexperience. The woman who was scandalized by his flirtations, but who caught fire at his touch.

  Rem ached for her with a fierceness he didn’t know was possible. The past three weeks had been filled with the worst kind of self-pity, drunken philosophical bents, and revisiting old haunts that he discovered were not as alluring as he had previously thought. He didn’t want to continue his existence like this anymore. He needed her, and that was all there was to it.

  Spotting her in the throng making their way to the Craigerton family to offer condolences, his heart sputtered for a single second. From where he stood further back in line with Tris and Con, he could see her golden hair pinned up under a small black hat that dropped a half-veil over her face. The rest of her, he assumed, was swathed in black as well, like everyone else, but he would know her profile anywhere- the dainty nose, stubborn chin, and sloping upper lip with its rosy hue. She was with her parents, moving slowly along in line towards the front of the church.

  Should he approach her? It didn’t feel quite right. Not here with all of
these people around them. He looked around at the sizable crowd and began to notice something…off. Several people were staring, and when he met their eyes, they widened and fell away, but the whispers did not. Behind black feathered fans and polished, pale hands, those around him spoke in hurried hushes, but they weren’t particularly bothering to hide their whispered words.

  “…heard it was a pagan ritual…danced naked…woods.”

  “…if he doesn’t marry her, damned if he does.”

  “It’s indecent…both to be…same room with good…”

  Rem felt his jaw clench. He glanced to where Laura had been last, but couldn’t see her any longer. He knew that if he was hearing such sentiments, she might be as well.

  “Don’t these people have anything better to talk about?” Con asked in a low voice, straightening his diamond cufflinks.

  “Can’t think of anything, no. Dancing naked in the woods, were you, then?” Tris raised his brow irreverently.

  “Those parasites had better not subject Laura to such talk,” Rem said through clenched teeth. Rem saw Laura’s family make their way to the Craigertons and begin to pay their respects, but the process was interrupted by Lady Craigerton herself. Laura stood in front of the woman, murmuring a greeting when, of a sudden, Lady Craigerton grabbed the hem of Laura’s hat and ripped it from her head, proceeding to throw it to the floor beneath her heel.

  Laura, and several others, gasped, her hands going to her smarting scalp where pins had been yanked out. “What-?” she started, her eyes wide.

  Crack!

  Lady Craigerton’s slap echoed through the church.

  Laura’s small cry followed.

  Rem saw red and began shoving his way towards her, but Con and Tris grabbed him and held on for all they were worth, preventing him from moving towards the scene as it unfolded.

  “How dare you show your face here!” Lady Craigerton shrieked.

  Standing frozen in shock, Laura held her cheek, and Rem could see the skin raising in a red welt all the way from where he stood straining against his friends’ holds.

  “How dare you profane my only son’s funeral with your depraved presence! You should be ashamed! You with your immoral cavorting and whoring yourself out to gentlemen you barely know. Why, my Daniel had even spoken of your charms on the last night I saw him, you- you succubus! You probably caused all of this! Got him into trouble somehow. My Daniel! My poor Daniel!” she cried, her words dissolving into sobs as her husband pulled her against his chest. Lord Craigerton did not say anything, but tears formed in his eyes as he held his wife.

  Lord Parrington spoke clearly, everyone in the church hearing him over the silence that had fallen. “Because you are grieving, I will let this insult pass without calling you out. But it is not my daughter who should be ashamed here today.” He bowed slightly to Lord Craigerton, who nodded as his wife still clung to his cravat. Lord Parrington led his family back towards the doors of the church, the crowd’s murmuring growing in volume once more.

  Laura walked between her parents, her head down and hand covering her stricken cheek. Rem saw tears tracking down her exposed face as she passed by him, separated by about a dozen people.

  The Dowager Countess of Elmsborough, a respected patroness of Almack’s, spit loudly at her as she walked by, the saliva missing her dress by inches.

  Rem renewed his efforts to break free, intending to go to Laura. To do what, he didn’t know, but he needed to be near her, to shelter her from these horrible people.

  “Let it go, mate,” Con muttered, refusing to let go of Rem’s shoulder. “Now’s not the time. It will only cause a bigger scene.”

  “They’re castrating her!” Rem whispered violently, his heart ripping apart at the pain he knew Laura was suffering in this moment.

  “Yes, and they will never be sorry for it. But you will, if you heap even more scandal on her.”

  Tris, on his other side, chimed in. “He’s right, Rem. We need to go now, before the attention turns to you. This way,” he nodded towards a side door that they were close to.

  Laura and her parents were already exiting the building, and he lost sight of her as she went through the arched double doors. Rem let them propel him out of the church and into the cloudy London morning, his fury such that he didn’t wait for any words of comfort, but immediately strode in the direction of his carriage without them.

  His friends watched him go, neither speaking, for what was there to say? And yet, Tris found something which he felt summed up the situation nicely:

  “Bollocks.”

  Con looked on with dark, troubled eyes as Rem disappeared around a corner at the end of the alley in which they stood. “Indeed.”

  This time, Laura did not bother to cry. After the initial shock of the incident wore off, as well as pain in her cheek, she didn’t feel anything. As her parents watched in trepidation, Laura withdrew into herself, not speaking, nor doing anything except stare off into space from her usual spot on the sofa in the downstairs drawing room. For four days, she went through the motions of rising, dressing, eating, and bathing, but it was as if the life had left her body, the spark that made her Laura gone.

  Lady Parrington had attempted to draw her into conversation a few times, but Laura had not been interested, giving polite, but short answers that ended the interactions. She did not read, she did not sew, she did not tinker with her Dag, nor with any other technology she had collected since she’d been in the city. Reginald was the only being she did interact with, but only marginally, as he was allowed to sit in her lap and be petted for stretches at a time.

  Remington Rothstone had appeared on the Parrington House doorstep the morning after Daniel Craigerton’s funeral, and every morning after that, but Laura had refused to see him. He had left a gift, a slim volume wrapped in brown paper, but she didn’t open it or even touch it when Cranston presented it to her. A few other gentlemen came by to call, and Gia, Harry, and Grayson had come by as well, but Laura turned them away the same as everyone else.

  The fifth day after the funeral, Laura began to speak in a limited capacity and to engage in the world around her, although not with any of her usual joy or humor. Her parents began to hope that she would return to her normal self and that, perhaps, given the number of people who had persisted in calling on her, she would be able to traverse society again in the future.

  The sixth day, that hope was shattered.

  Laura had, surprisingly, accepted a caller, stating that she might as well see what people were saying about her. The gentleman was one of several who had begged an audience after the scandal had broken, a Lord Charles Norris, son of the Earl of Sterling. It had started out well enough, Lord Norris taking off his hat as he entered the drawing room. His light blonde hair was controlled with pomade and artfully arranged in the current style of windswept curls, his clothes in the first stare of fashion.

  Laura had been informed by her eager mother that he was quite wealthy and had not been connected with any particular miss of the ton. Lady Parrington thought it was best to give them a few minutes alone, as long as the door was open. There was no time to waste if a proposal was being considered.

  He greeted Laura with a bow, taking her hand to place a lingering kiss on the back of her hand before sitting across from her. He sat on the edge of his chair and asked her how she had fared recently.

  “Oh, well, you know…” Laura waved a hand dismissively. “It been rather nice having some time to myself,” she said wryly.

  Lord Norris smiled, his straight white teeth beaming. “I, for one, have missed seeing your tempting features lately.”

  “I appreciate that, My Lord.” Her heart beat a little faster. Perhaps there were still people who would accept her, offer for her.

  “I am very fond of your charms, Miss Parrington. Laura, if I may,” he stated.

  Laura blinked, wondering if it was appropriate to give him use of her Christian name. However, he didn’t give her time to do so, but merely kept
speaking.

  “And that is why I wanted to discuss a future with you, Laura.” He leaned further forward and grasped her hands in his. “If you would consider my proposal, I would be the happiest man alive.”

  Laura sat back, her eyes wide. Apparently, she needn’t have worried so very much. “Oh! I…well, I- I would have to think about it, Lord Norris,” she sputtered, her mind a whirl of noise, most of which was neither pertinent, nor helpful.

  “Of course. I understand.” He smiled and squeezed her fingers. “But please be assured that I am willing to top any other offer you are sure to receive. I am willing to agree to any terms you desire, my sweet.”

  Her posture stiffened, her senses prickling with unease. She slid her hands from under his and put them firmly back in her lap. “Terms? Forgive me, but I’m not aware to what you’re referring, sir.”

  “I mean, whatever you want, Laura. To me, you are worth it.” He flashed his blinding smile again.

  She hesitated, her brows knit with confusion. Looking down at his perfectly shined Hessian boots, she asked. “Do you mean, for instance…an expedient wedding?” She looked up and met his earnest eyes with a tilted head.

  And now it was he who looked confused. “Wedding? Did you-? Did you think I was offering you marriage?” He sat back immediately, his features twisting into an expression of horror.

  “Why, yes, as a matter of fact,” Laura stated, her tone one of frustration. “What other sort of proposal is there?”

  He laughed, the sound slipping out before he caught himself and cleared his throat. “You can’t be serious.” He paused, waiting for an agreement, but Laura merely raised a brow.

  Her heart pounded in her chest. What was going on? What exactly was he asking of her?

  Lord Norris elaborated in flabbergasted tones. “I can’t possibly marry you. You’re a social disgrace! You wouldn’t be allowed into any sort of gathering. My mother wouldn’t even let you past the front door. But,” he rose from his chair to kneel on one knee in front of her, grasping Laura’s hands again, although she was leaning as far away as possible. “-that doesn’t matter to me. I want you in my life. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you at that soiree. You have no idea how many times I’ve pictured-“ He had the grace to flush and look down. “-pictured being with you,” he finished haltingly. His voice was sincere as he looked into her eyes once more. “I would take such good care of you, Laura. You would never want for anything.”