Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
R oderick caught Clarissa’s arm as she began to collapse and supported her as best he could when his own world was spinning.
“There now,” he murmured. “It’s all right. Breathe.”
She did so, but barely, and she shook her head at him, almost as if she could will what was happening away. But neither of them could. In what felt like half-time, Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart burst fully into the room together, arms flailing and voices barking at once.
“Sir, you have gone too far,” Mr. Lockhart shouted, even as Mrs. Lockhart reached for Clarissa and dragged her away roughly. Clarissa tripped over the edge of the carpet with the sudden, violent movement, but her mother didn’t stop.
“My poor child!” she said, but Roderick realized she was smiling as she spoke. Smiling. His heart sank, his stomach turned. Was this a trap? He had always avoided those so deftly. But not today.
He almost feared looking at Clarissa, feared seeing that she had been involved if this was what he believed. But when he did, he saw her cheeks were bloodless, her eyes glassy and shocked. That reaction seemed real, that horror and fear. Certainly her pain while she wept had felt real .
And her kiss? Oh, that had felt very real. And far more powerful than he could have imagined after she’d spent the entire party sniping at him.
He shook that thought away and forced himself to pay attention to what was happening around him.
“Please,” he said, and his voice sounded thick. Mrs. Lockhart continued shrieking and he lifted a hand. “Madam, please . Lower your voice. We don’t need the whole party to be aware of this, it will only cause more trouble and a scandal I would hope you wish to avoid for your daughter’s sake, if nothing else.”
Both the Lockharts appeared confused by that notion, for clearly neither were thinking of their daughter now. Had they ever? By this behavior, he had to guess no.
“Clarissa,” he said gently. “Please sit before you fall over.”
She swallowed hard, her gaze flitting to his, holding there. She was seeking, searching him. What did she find, he wondered. At last, though, she extracted herself from her mother’s grip, one that had left red finger marks on her upper arm, and staggered to a chair before the fire where she took a place and then covered her face with her hands.
Her father, who hadn’t even looked toward his daughter, folded his arms. “My lord, you have disgraced my daughter with the shocking display that we have all intruded upon.”
Roderick ran a hand through his hair. “I agree, to kiss her was imprudent.”
Clarissa didn’t look up from her hands, but her shoulders shuddered a little. In agreement?
“Imprudent?” Mrs. Lockhart repeated, and then snorted. “Why, I believe if we had intruded even a few moments later, we would have found her with her innocence taken!”
“Mama!” Clarissa gasped, and now she did look up from her hands. Where before her expression had been pale, her cheeks were now dark red with humiliation.
The vicar stepped forward, holding up his hands as if to calm the situation. “Now, now. We needn’t get into detail about all this. We all know what we saw. And perhaps if this had been a simple kiss on a terrace it might be something ignorable. And yet you two were in a chamber alone, and the kiss was quite…quite…”
“Filthy is what it was,” Mr. Lockhart provided, and shook his head not at Roderick but at Clarissa. “I am entirely disappointed.”
“Are you?” Clarissa said softly, and glanced up again, this time at her father. “Because your eyes say otherwise. How could you do this? How could you?”
Roderick bit back a gasp. It seemed she believed the same intentions from this intrusion as he did.
“There is only one solution now,” her mother said, stepping forward with her hands fluttering. She was smiling again. Roderick didn’t think she even knew she was doing it. “You must marry.”
And there it was. Roderick’s stomach turned and Clarissa let out a low, pained moan, like an animal who had been injured.
“Quite right,” Mr. Lockhart blustered. “If you two were doing such a thing in the library with the door not even fully closed, what else might you have already done? Compromised, that’s what you are, Clarissa. Compromised , and there is a toll to be paid for such a thing. I demand it, my lord.”
Clarissa turned her gaze to Roderick and slightly shook her head. She might as well have screamed no at him. Grabbed his legs and begged him to set her free.
He feared he couldn’t. No, the trap had been sprung on both of them.
“How could you do this?” Clarissa whispered. “How could you two do this to this man? To me ?”
“You did it to yourself,” Mr. Lockhart said with a sniff. “All that expense and work to make you a proper lady and instead you act like a common?—”
Roderick stepped forward then and put himself in front of Clarissa, as if he could stop the sling of an arrow he feared would pierce her heart .
“Enough,” he said. “Enough.” He drew a shaky breath. “You will not blame her for something that is my fault. I found her in the library, I…” He thought briefly of the sight of her, leaning against the library shelves, sobbing. All he’d wanted to do was comfort her. “ I lost control. And yes, given the reaction, I understand perfectly what needs to be done.”
She rose behind him and clasped his arm with both her hands, tugging him so that he faced her. “Oh, no! Kirkwood, no!”
He stared down into her face. It was streaked with tears, pink with continued humiliation, her eyes were wide with fear and horror. She was lovely somehow, in the midst of it all. He had kissed her because she was lovely. And yet neither of them wanted this. All his dreams were about to die.
“We must marry, Clarissa,” he said, as gently as he could manage when his heart felt like it was being torn in two. “I’ve created a situation where there is no choice but to marry.”
O nce when she was five, Clarissa had fallen from a boat into the lake. Under the water, she had heard her mother screaming, heard the men shouting, and then she had been hauled back to the surface. In that moment, it was the same. The sounds were hitting her ears. Words she couldn’t fully understand because they felt like they were coming from outside the bubble where she was waiting to be saved.
Then her mother grabbed her arm and shook her back to reality. “Oh, congratulations, my love!”
Clarissa stared at her. Mrs. Lockhart looked so thrilled. Like this was the happiest of occasions, not something to be mourned. Worse, it made her family’s machinations all the clearer and from Kirkwood’s narrowed gaze, he knew that as well as she did.
How much he despised Clarissa for it remained to be seen .
He shook off her father’s attempt at congratulations and said, “I would like to speak to my future bride. Alone.”
Her father had the gall to laugh at that and slap Kirkwood on the shoulder. “No harm in it now, eh? But don’t forget, you’ve made your statement that you will marry her in front of the vicar. That is the same as saying it to God, Himself.”
“I’ve no intention on going back on my statement, sir ,” Kirkwood said, the frost on every word. “I don’t go back on my promises.”
He said that while he turned his gaze back on her. Was that a threat? Or supposed to be a comfort? She didn’t know. Right now she didn’t know anything. It all just felt like a bad dream, but she couldn’t wake up, even when she pinched herself in desperation.
He motioned toward the door and her parents departed, arm in arm, as if this whole situation had only shored up their own union. The vicar followed, a troubled expression on his lined face. Kirkwood sighed and then softly closed the door behind them. He didn’t turn toward her for a long moment, but leaned there, as if gathering his strength.
When he did face her, they stared at each other wordlessly for what felt like a lifetime. Grief and guilt filled her at his expression. At her knowledge of exactly what had been done to force this man into a future he wanted no more than she did. One she only hoped could be escaped.
“Clarissa,” he said softly.
She rushed toward him, hands outstretched. “I cannot apologize strenuously enough. I am so deeply sorry, my lord.”
He sighed. “Roderick. If we are to marry, I cannot endure you my lording me.”
She blinked. Roderick . She supposed she’d known his name. Someone must have said it to or around her at some point. But when she thought of him that way, it felt intimate. To call him that…even more so.
“We cannot marry,” she said instead of acknowledging the request.
“And yet we must, thanks to my imprudence. ”
She bent her head. “Not entirely yours. Mine, as well. And I know you aren’t a fool. You see the truth.”
He was quiet a moment. “You mean, I suppose, that your parents have sought to force this union.”
For a moment she fought for the words. Once she said them and supported what he so clearly suspected, he’d surely hate her. Why wouldn’t he? “Y-yes, my lord.”
He let out his breath slowly and paced away from her, across to the window that looked out onto the garden. He was silent and she forced herself to be the same. She would bear this.
He turned at last and speared her with his bright green stare. “Was that why you told me to stay away a few days ago? Because you knew their plans?”
“No!” She reached for him once more but this time let her hand fall instead of touching him. “Oh no, I didn’t think they’d ever go this far.”
He seemed to measure her with that response, but his reaction was neutral. “How far did you think they’d go?”
He was requesting confession and he was owed that, in truth. He was being forced into this far more than she, after all. She’d always known that she wouldn’t have a choice in a husband, not truly.
“After the ball, my—my mother suggested that you would be the preferred match for my parents.” His lips tightened and she wanted to stop, but forced herself to continue. “Your fortune, your position, all of it was what they’ve always dreamed of when they thought of my ultimate marriage.”
“Never emotions,” he asked softly. “Never your heart.”
She blinked. “No. They don’t care about my heart. They care about raising themselves in Society. I know I’m not supposed to speak ill of them, I am to respect them?—”
“They don’t respect you,” he interrupted.
“Oh.” She pondered that. “I suppose they-they don’t. But either way, that was what they wanted. I knew they intended to push us together, to try to encourage a match. But I had no idea that they would do what they did today. ”
“You mean follow me when I followed you. Try to catch us alone, hopefully doing exactly what we were doing or…” His gaze flitted over her briefly and she suddenly felt hot again, like she had when he was kissing her. She pushed that unseemly feeling aside. “Or even more.”
She wetted her suddenly dry lips. More. She didn’t know much about the more that came after kissing. Her mother would tell her, she supposed, now that she would marry.
“Yes,” she said. “Even if we hadn’t been—been,” she dropped her voice, “kissing when they found us.”
A little smile tilted the corner of his lips. “Whispering it doesn’t change what happened.”
She glared at him. There was nothing amusing about any of this. “Well, even if we hadn’t been doing that, they likely still would have tried to make our being alone together into an offense that required a marriage.”
He nodded. “I thought the same.”
“I had no part in arranging this. I promise you.”
His jaw was still tight and she found herself wondering if he believed her. Wanting him to believe her. Why, she couldn’t really say. They hadn’t been friends. More like enemies even at the beginning, and then they’d come to tolerate each other, kissing aside. And yet she didn’t want him to tar her with the same brush her parents so richly deserved.
“I didn’t want this, my lord.” She drew a breath. “Roderick.”
His cheek twitched when she used his given name. Somehow it felt right on her tongue, even though she had resisted its use. “No,” he said at last. “Before we kissed, you were even telling me you didn’t truly want a loveless marriage. It’s almost funny.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “If it weren’t so bloody awful.”
“You could refuse,” she suggested. “You could walk away.”
“If I tried, do you think your parents would then cover up what they saw? That they would pay off the vicar so he wouldn’t spread the story and let you go on as before? ”
Protect her, he meant. And she knew the answer to that. So did he, judging from his expression. She bent her head. “Well, I would make it clear you weren’t in the wrong.”
“And destroy yourself in the process?” He shook his head. “I’m a rake, not a villain. Or at least I do my best not to be so. And even if I were, I couldn’t save myself now.”
She blinked. It seemed he was more cognizant of protecting her than her own parents. That he worried about both their well-beings, not just his own. Even after she had judged him ill-mannered. “But?—”
“The vicar saw us kissing. Your parents have made it in his best interest to be part of this, evidently. It was a moment we both surrendered to. We kissed. I think we both wished to kiss.”
She swallowed as heat filled her cheeks. She’d been trying to forget the feel of the kiss. To forget what welled up in her when his mouth was on hers.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I don’t know what came over me, but when you kissed me, it was what I wanted.”
Something flickered in his stare. The same heat that had been there before his mouth found hers a short time before. That heat called to some wanton part of herself that she hadn’t fully killed with propriety. One she needed to kill, judging from the trouble she had found through it.
“Most of the time these little lapses don’t have repercussions,” he said. “We might have found our senses. One of us would have stepped back. We each would have apologized for losing control. And then we could have walked away with a good memory.”
She touched her lips despite herself and his nostrils flared.
“But for—” he said, and cut himself off.
“But for their machinations,” she said with a sigh.
He nodded. “You don’t believe they’d quiet this and based on their uncouth behavior, I agree. So we must marry.”
It felt like everything was collapsing. “I want to say no.”
“But you realize you can’t.” His tone was gentle now and he reached out to take her hand .
She stared at his thick fingers encasing hers, thought of how warm he’d been when he held her, how firm his lips had been. Her heart throbbed faster, betraying her in this moment when she should feel nothing but torment. Especially when there was so much regret and even loss in his stare. Loss. Which made her wonder what his hopes had been before he had the misfortune to be dragged to her parents’ estate.
“Right now we’re both shaken,” he said. “This is a shock. But soon we will sit down and we’ll discuss the marriage. I think we’ll want to make clear what we both want and expect from each other.”
That idea was so shocking she rocked back a little. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
He nodded. “We may not have had many choices in how this came to be, Clarissa. But we’ll have all the choices in how we live it out. Now, let’s join them in the hallway.”
He released her hand and motioned to the door, but as he reached to let them out, she said, “Roderick?”
He turned back. “Yes?”
“You are being very kind about his. Very gentlemanly whether I deserve that consideration or not. I appreciate it.”
He smiled slightly. “I hope I’ll eventually live down whatever your first impressions were. And that we’ll come to some balance that doesn’t include actively despising each other.”
Then he opened the door and revealed that her family was in the hallway with the vicar still at their side. Only now they had seemed to call out for others. There was a small crowd gathering. Clarissa’s heart sank as she stared at the curious and somewhat judgmental faces.
“And there is the happy couple,” her mother cried out.
There was a light applause from the gathered few. Clarissa jerked her stare to Roderick and found his jaw set so hard she feared he’d break his teeth. But he didn’t lash out. No, he reached back and took her hand.
“Happy, indeed,” he said, and tugged her gently to his side. “I see Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart have announced the joyful news. Well, how could any of us keep it in until a more appropriate time ?”
Her father laughed. “Well, there’s no use being too worried about appropriate now.”
Clarissa turned her head. Great God, what had they said to the others? “We are all a little overwrought,” she said. “I hope you will all remain quiet about this…this happy news until we can make the official announcement tonight at the supper.”
There were many whispers and nods amongst the gathered crowd and then the handful of people her parents had dragged into this dissipated. Roderick glanced down at her. “I think I had best find your cousin before someone tells him this news before I can.”
She nodded. “That might be best. I’ll manage…them as best I can.” She glanced at her parents.
Roderick squeezed her hand and then strode off. But she was warmed by him regardless. She felt like she had an ally. Whether or not she deserved him.
She pivoted toward her parents. “Did you just destroy my reputation with part of our party?”
“We landed you a husband,” her father said, his smile falling. “Better than you have done the last few years, isn’t it? You should be thanking me. And I thought that since the gentleman didn’t seem that excited to be your bridegroom, that making sure he couldn’t wriggle out of it was best.”
She shook her head. “Well, you have what you want. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go lie down. We should announce the engagement officially at supper, as I suggested. Until then, please don’t make this situation worse for him. Or for me.”
She staggered away up the hall then, not waiting for their response as she would usually do. She could no longer do that. Not when everything in her world was spinning. Everything in her world had been torn apart and the future looked like a horrible, empty space.