Charlene hadn’t stopped feeling guilty since Lord Ambrose had made his original proposal, but somehow, she felt even worse now. Still, as she laid eyes on the Marquess once more, she felt only revulsion.
She had never expected to marry out of duty. In her naïve mind, she had imagined a love that could conquer all, a passion that would lift her match above the realm of mere mortality.
She expected a man who was her match, a life full of good-natured debates and tender moments.
She had pictured her life with Eric, when she really thought about it. She’d been picturing him by her side ever since that one innocent kiss, now so long ago.
It felt like a lifetime, really, since she and her father had saved Eric’s life after that adder bite in Raven’s Hollow. She could hardly remember the person that she had been back then.
Of course, given how quickly time seemed to be passing by now, that was hardly any surprise. Since her father’s arrest, Charlene felt as though the weeks had passed in a matter of mere seconds. Yet they must be coming down to the end of the uncertainty now.
Soon, Lord Ambrose would be through with waiting and would offer all his evidence to the judge. Her father would be sentenced, and Charlene had no doubt that the sentencing would be dire.
The only thing that she could do about it would be to agree to marry this hideous and unscrupulous man sitting across from her.
“Charlene,” Ambrose greeted warmly, but his eyes glittered like those of an adder. “It’s good to see you.” He paused. “You know, I’ve really missed seeing you at the latest balls. You always did cut quite a figure.”
Charlene felt a chill go through her. There was more to the Marquess’ words than what he had said, she was sure. He wasn’t telling her that he found her attractive; he had no reason to do that.
No, he was warning her that her presence had been missed and that he had heard all the terrible things that they were saying about her lately.
Was he still interested in marrying her? He must be, or else he wouldn’t be here.
“Let’s not dance around things, Charlene,” he said. “I need to have an answer for you. And soon.”
He paused. “As you might realize, my words count everywhere. There’s nothing that you can do about it, and nothing that you can do to help your father save marrying me. I hold your father’s life in my hands.”
“You told me that I could have some time to think,” Charlene reminded him, panic in her voice.
Surely he couldn’t expect her decision today, with no warning that he would be there! Of course she had been thinking hard over the past weeks since he had made his proposal, but she was no closer to coming up with a response.
She didn’t want to marry him. She just plain didn’t. But what choice did she have?
She looked over at her aunt, curious to see how Helene was taking all of this. Helene’s face was unreadable, however, no visible emotion on her lined visage.
Still, Charlene could practically feel the older woman’s rebuke. Helene thought that she should marry the Marquess.
Charlene felt anger flash through her. In all of this, she had been the only one out of the family trying to prove her father’s innocence. It was why she had gone to see Eric in the first place.
Hell, her aunt had even gone so far as to say that she thought Aldric might have actually played some role in Lord Henrich’s death!
And yet having done nothing to even try to help her brother, she wanted Charlene to make the ultimate sacrifice of promising the rest of his life to this man.
She wanted to yell with frustration, but she knew better than to make a scene in front of the Marquess. Instead, she ducked her head, acting every bit the sheepish and shy young maiden.
“Please, I just need a little more time,” she said softly. “I’m just not sure that I can see what use you would have for a wife like me.”
As she might have hoped, Lord Ambrose laughed harshly. “Are you not able or willing to bear me an heir?” he asked bluntly.
But at that, Helene finally, mercifully, intervened. “My Lord Ambrose!” she gasped.
“Forgive me, Lady Helene,” the Marquess said. “I know I should not phrase things thus. I can’t help but feel, however, that Miss Ellington is deliberately doing nothing more than to string me along. There is no need for this to be drawn-out.”
He turned to Charlene. “Do but say the words that you will marry me, and your father will be free. You wouldn’t want him to suffer unnecessarily, would you?”
“It’s just all too much!” Charlene cried, putting her hands over her ears. “Forgive me, Lord Ambrose, but I am afraid. I had given up on the idea that I should ever be married, and I hadn’t thought that there was anything that I might do to save my father.
“Now here you are, telling me that both of those things are untruths. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with the choice, and I’m afraid that I just cannot quite make my mind up as to what I should do.”
The tremble in her voice wasn’t faked, but this time, Lord Ambrose’s expression did not soften. “Very well,” he said, getting to his feet.
“I can see that I will get no decision from you today. But I must warn you that you need to make your decision soon. I’ll reiterate: your father’s life is in my hands…and in yours. Make sure you choose what is best for your family, not simply for yourself.”
Charlene flinched as though she had been slapped. As the Marquess rose and stalked angrily from the room, Helene reached towards her niece, attempting to comfort the young woman.
But Charlene yanked away from her. “No!” she snapped. “You’ve left this all up to me. You don’t even believe that Father is innocent, and all you can do is push me towards accepting Lord Ambrose as my husband.
“Don’t you dare try to comfort me. You’ve done nothing to even try to save him.”
Helene’s hurt was clear on her face, but Charlene didn’t see it as she rushed out of the room and right out of the house.
She couldn’t stay there for a moment longer, in that prison. She knew all the reasons why Eric hadn’t been to see her, and why he hadn’t sent messages.
She knew that it was for the best that he wasn’t involved in trying to clear her father’s name anymore, but at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling that he had let her down.
She needed to see him. To hear his reasoning for going back on his word. He had promised her that he would do anything in his power to keep her from having to marry Lord Ambrose, but it was looking like that had been nothing more than a lie.
Unless, perhaps, he simply hadn’t been able to send word about any of the progress that he had made?
The next thing she knew, Charlene was pounding on the duke’s door. The servant who answered it looked immediately uncomfortable. “Miss Ellington,” he said. “You can’t be here right now.” He was nervous as he glanced back over his shoulder.
Charlene could hear voices inside, though. “Oh bugger it,” she snapped. “I am sure that Eric is here. What did he tell you, that he had no wish to be disturbed by the likes of me again? What if I was accompanied? Shall I go find a prostitute to stand as my chaperone?”
She didn’t really know where the words were coming from, but panic pushed them from her mouth. Time had all but run out for her father. Charlene was going to have to marry the Marquess.
She couldn’t help but feel irrationally angry with Eric over that. It wasn’t his fault, of course, but he had made her a promise.
“The Duke is in meetings at the moment,” the servant insisted. “He cannot be disturbed.”
“Then I’ll wait,” Charlene hissed. “He can’t be in meetings forever, can he?” She tried to push past the man into the hallway.
The man didn’t seem to know what to do. “Miss Ellington!” he said, as she marched past him. He rushed after her, but it was too late; she was flinging open to the door of the receiving room.
There, she froze, staring into the room. Of course, she ha
d heard the voices, and she knew that Eric wasn’t in there alone. But she couldn’t have imagined this.
There was Eric and his mother, on one side of the couches. And on the other side? Lady Annabelle and her own mother, plus a few other guests.
Charlene immediately felt her cheeks flame with heat. Before she could apologize, though, Eric’s mother was on her feet. “How dare you!” she said, sounding aghast.
“I had thought that in spite of recent gossip, your family had raised you to be a proper young woman. Not the type of woman who burst into a young man’s receiving room on her own and demanded an audience with him.”
Charlene stumbled back a half step, looking desperately at Eric. But he was doing his best to avoid her gaze. What was this meeting anyway? Charlene was only too certain that she knew.
Eric must be getting engaged to Lady Annabelle.
It made her want to cry, but damned if she was going to let Annabelle see her in that sort of position.
All this time, though, Charlene had believed that she and Eric had a special connection. But that was a foolish fantasy concocted by a young girl who thought that a kiss meant a promise.
Eric had never promised her anything. He had simply hoped to repay the life-debt with a kiss. After all, Charlene could never have hoped for better prospects. A kiss from a man who would become a duke was better than she might have ever dreamed of.
She was the one who had spun it into something else. She was the one who had been silly.
Eric had to marry someone like Annabelle. He was a Duke, and Annabelle had status in society. Annabelle would run his estates and look after the dukedom better than Charlene could ever hope to.
Charlene knew she should leave, but she couldn’t seem to make her feet move. She realized she was waiting for Eric to apologize to her.
That was even sillier than the thought that he would be hers. He had nothing to apologize for. He probably didn’t even know about the fantasies that Charlene had spun in her mind over all these years.
Then Annabelle was on her feet as well. “Whatever business you believe that you have here, you must be mistaken,” she said firmly. “I know you’ve threatened Eric in the past, telling him that you’ll murder him just as your father did with Lord Henrich, but it won’t work here!”
Charlene stared at the other woman, feeling as though she had been slapped. “My father didn’t murder Lord Henrich,” she hissed. “Nor would I ever do anything to harm Eric. I suggest you shut your mouth.”
“I suggest that you shouldn’t be around respectable people,” Annabelle retorted, narrowing her eyes. “We all know that those witchy eyes of yours show the truth. You have plotted to kill dozens of men, I’m sure. Perhaps it wasn’t your father who murdered Lord Henrich at all. Perhaps the true culprit is you!”
Charlene stood there for a moment, thinking of all the things that she could say in response to that. But in the end, she knew that there was no point.
If Annabelle had made up her mind that Charlene’s eyes were a sign of witchery, then there was no convincing the woman otherwise. She focused on Eric, the one person in this room who truly mattered at the moment.
If Eric had made up his mind to marry this woman, then that was for him to decide. She might not much like the idea of it, but that was just the way that things were. He was a duke; he wasn’t for her.
“Are you…” she started to ask. But then she realized that this was none of her business. Eric didn’t owe her any explanations. Hell, Charlene already knew the explanations.
Eric was a Duke. And she would only ever be second-class to him. She might not be a peasant, but she definitely had no right to lay claim to his time.
She felt embarrassed just standing there. She should have listened when his servant told her that Eric could not see her now. Instead, she had barged in here like she had some right to his time.
Another of the lies that she had told to herself over the years. He had sent her letters, so she had assumed that she had some claim to him. Time to realize that she didn’t.
She turned to leave, trying to deny the stinging of her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. She just wasn’t.
Lady Annabelle followed her out into the foyer, however. “You’re going to pay for this. Don’t think that you won’t,” she told Charlene. “Someone like you has no right to approach Lord Eric the way that you have. You’re going to pay.”
Charlene spun back around to face her, but the words died in her mouth when she saw that Annabelle wasn’t the only person to follow her out into the hall. Eric was there as well, and his mother behind him. If they had heard Annabelle’s threats, they were ignoring them, however.
Suddenly, Charlene remembered that she wasn’t angry at Annabelle. She was angry at Eric. He had told her that he wasn’t interested in Annabelle. And what’s more, he had kissed Charlene.
Now, he was acting as if she was every bit the loose and immoral woman that everyone was whispering that she was. She felt anger flare hot in her belly.
“I’m disappointed in you,” she informed the young duke, her voice quavering slightly but her words ringing out with truth. “But then, I suppose you have an image to uphold.”
She took in a deep breath, willing her hands to unclench. She could feel her nails digging into her palms.
Eric looked tired. “Miss Ellington, as I’m sure you realize, there are certain responsibilities that come along with my position.”
He sounded tortured, but Charlene wasn’t going to let him off that easily.
“Of course I realize that,” she snapped. “But you were the one who promised me help if I needed it. I understand though; it was only words. No duke would care to look down at the lower class and offer them help, no matter if my father and I did save your life.”
With those parting words, Charlene started to leave. But Annabelle wasn’t through, or wanted to have the final say. “What will you do now, arrange to have him poisoned too?” she spat.
Charlene froze. She knew better than to react, but at the same time, she knew that there wasn’t any lower that she could sink in their eyes.
So when her hand automatically went up, she didn’t hesitate before making contact with Annabelle’s cheek in a hard slap that resounded through the foyer.
After that, there was silence. Then, as though in slow motion, both Eric and his serving man made to apprehend her. Charlene brushed them off, though, heading towards the door.
“No,” she muttered, as Eric opened his mouth to say something. He snapped his mouth shut before she could hear whatever it was – rebuke? Apology? Explanation?
Then, she ran off, trying to hold back her tears. She wondered if anyone had seen her leave Eric’s manor on her own this time. She wondered what they would have to say if so.
It didn’t matter, she decided. Her reputation and her life were already destroyed. None of it mattered anymore.
Chapter 19
Lord Eric Cumberland, Duke of Havenport
Eric paced back and forth in his study, his guilt eating at him. He was cut to the bones by the things that Charlene had said to him.
He hated that she had walked in to see him there with Lady Annabelle and the woman’s mother. He knew what it must have looked like to her.
It would have appeared that while she was locked away in her manor, hiding from gossip, he had forgotten all about her and moved on.
It would have appeared that while she was worried that her father could be sent to the gallows any day, Eric only cared for planning his engagement.
His heart was broken just thinking about what she must believe about him. And yet he knew that there was some truth to her accusations.
He had promised her help, and he hadn’t done anything to help her. Of course he had tried. He had tried to track down information about who had really done it.
Then again, he had been sitting on this information about Harvey Parsons for too long, without doing anything about it. That was inexcusable.
&nb
sp; Not everything that she was thinking about him was true, however. He hadn’t been planning on meeting with Lady Annabelle and her mother.
In fact, he hadn’t known anything about that meeting until they had arrived. He wasn’t sure if he believed his mother when she said that she hadn’t agreed to the meeting ahead of time.
Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time that Annabelle had shown up unannounced at his home. The fact that she had brought her mother this time was likely so that his own mother wouldn’t think she was doing anything improper.
Either way, she had been there, and Charlene had walked in on that. It must have looked like he was truly courting the woman.
A Wicked Scandal For The Bluestocking (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 14
