The Earl and the Wedding Crasher (The Brides of Elderglen #3)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

" D ear Louisa!" Alexandra stood at her place at the breakfast table and crossed the room, taking Louisa by the arm and drawing her to her old space at the table. It should have been so comforting to be back in her old home where she had spent so many years being loved by the best sisters in the world, and yet Louisa could barely summon a smile as she sat.

"Good morning," she said softly, looking at the place that had been set for her and wondering that it was already served with her favorite breakfast of a toasted bun and a little bit of the family honey. "I hope that I have not kept you waiting long."

"Since when do we wait on anyone?" Penelope asked, laughing a little. She was sharp this morning, her hair tied at her neck with a broad bow and her eyes dancing with wit as she cut her usual boiled egg into thin slices to eat on toast. "I would have devoured your breakfast without a smidge of sympathy, sister, had you not come down in time."

"I should not have allowed it," Alexandra said confidingly. "I would have rescued your plate."

"You would have tried," Penelope said. "I am taller than you."

"You are not!"

"At least a whole inch, I have measured!"

Louisa smiled faintly and poured a small cup of coffee. At St Vincent she was used to breaking her fast with coffee and a small cake or some toast, the richness of the bun in front of her made her feel as though her stomach must turn.

Was it possible for her tastes to change so fast? Or for the usual merry noise of her family to feel alien and strange now, so different from the chatter of the children and Cedric's occasional wry presence? How could she laugh ever again at Lexi or Penelope when her heart was aching to think of what she had left behind and the cold hopelessness of what she must return to?

"Now girls," Father said dryly. "Settle. Your sister has not come back to listen to bedlam and mayhem on her first morning."

"It is not so very different to usual, father," she said slowly. It was his thoughts, his ideas that she feared the most. He had been so distant when she had left to be a married woman, not that he had ever been particularly present for her before. His eyes had glanced over her as though he still could not see her, even as a bride. Would he tell her to leave again as soon as was polite? Would he be cross that she had quarreled with an Earl and was risking bringing the family into the quarrel?

"Perhaps not," he said calmly, looking at her above his morning letters. "But you need some peace, Louisa. It is not so bad to admit to that. Stay as long as you need, your room will always be here for you."

She could not speak for a moment. It was exactly what she had always wished he had done for her, seen her, offered her comfort, that it was impossible for her to say a word without revealing how near tears she was. Perhaps he could tell, because he quickly finished his coffee and withdrew to his study, patting her awkwardly on the hand before he left.

"My dears," she said hoarsely, wiping at her eyes with her kerchief. "Whatever was that? Is Papa feeling quite well?"

"Oh quite well," Penelope said briskly. "He's always like that now. He asked me about my walk to town the other day and I was so startled I dropped all my parcels on the ground. I think I scared him from asking any more questions for many days, he kept looking at me, opening his mouth and then leaving the room."

"One of the parcels was full of eggs," Alexandra said with a small laugh. "That would alarm anyone."

"He's stopped drinking," Penelope added. "I could swear to it. I have been checking the bottles in his study and the levels are the same as they were weeks ago."

"And he has not gambled in a long time now," Alexandra added. "We are managing not to lose money now, it is such a relief, Louisa."

"I can imagine," Louisa said faintly, her head swimming at the idea of a sober father who was not gambling all of their money on dogs and horses and cards. She was almost old enough to remember father before the death of their mother, the stern and distant father who was yet competent at running the household and sometimes could be drawn into conversation on her day and the things she had learned. It had felt like she had lost two parents back then, the man who had been left had been a stranger. "Whatever can have happened to him? I do not think I ever expected him to speak so fairly to me, I thought he would send me back to St Vincent as soon as he could."

"I think he is realizing how a family should be, perhaps," Penelope said slowly. "Whatever it is, I hope it continues. It is far nicer having the extra money and having him at dinners instead of having to make sure he has not drowned in his cups."

"I am managing the household purse now," Alexandra added. "Papa still has no head for sums but he realizes it and told me he would be glad of the help. It is quite nice to be able to use my mind to make sure that we are doing better."

"But Lexi," Louisa said. "You have debuted, you are sure to have many suitors for your hand. Are you not likely to have to give up the position back to father when you marry?"

"Lexi doesn't plan to marry at all," Penelope said, mischief in her eyes. "She is to be an old maid making sums in her head, and I shall be there with her making sure that she eats regularly."

"I do not need to be taken care of, you cheeky thing," Alexandra exclaimed. "And you shall marry once you are asked, I'm sure. You simply have not been out yet."

"Wait, wait," Louisa held up her hands for silence. "Have pity on your older sister, dears and speak slower for my ancient hearing. What do you mean you are not to marry?"

Alexandra sipped her tea calmly. "I have no interest in it. I am sure it is very pleasant for those of you who have married to have your own places and be mistresses of the house, but I do not care for a husband at all. Father needs me here and I am basically the mistress of our own estate myself. There is no need to seek a man who might demand things of me or order me about when I am perfectly happy where I am."

"Oh Lexi," Louisa said, biting her lip. "You have changed so since I have been here last."

"So have you," Penelope said. "I can see how red your eyes are, are you ready to speak to us about why you have made this sudden visit now or are we to continue pretending nothing is wrong?"

"Penelope," Alexandra said sharply. "You promised!"

"I promised to be still for breakfast. Louisa has finished her coffee and father has retired. I am free of my promises."

"Let us not talk of it here where father might overhear us," Louisa said quickly, her throat hurting again at the thought of her own new home that she had thought was becoming so dear to her. "Let us instead take a turn in the grounds and I will answer all your questions in time. I cannot bear it if Father should feel he must get involved."

Penelope agreed under Alexandra's stern gaze and the three of them withdrew to change their shoes as it had rained the night before and the garden was sure to be full of mud. Louisa felt her heart thundering in her breast with anticipation. Would they understand what had happened or tell her how foolish she was to expect anything else from a man who had been forced to marry her in the first place?

"All right," Alexandra said as they walked slowly about their favorite spinney of elm trees, each sister on one of her arms. "Now speak. What is it that has brought you back to us so suddenly?"

"And looking as though someone has died?" Penelope added, safe in the knowledge that Alexandra could not kick her from the other side of Louisa. "Do I need to summon a carriage and sweep away to St Vincent to hit your husband with a book?"

"We could hit him with something bigger than a book," Alexandra said thoughtfully.

"We could, but Louisa would like it so if it were a book. You cannot deny that there would be a poetry to it."

"I suppose I cannot."

"My dears, please," Louisa squeezes both of their arms gently to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand. "There is no need for anyone to be hit with a book, and I must have a sincere promise from both of you before I go on. You are not to take it into your heads to bother Cedric with anything I have said. It is my marriage and I must muddle on in my own way. I will not have others interfering."

Both her sisters looked mutinous but surprisingly it was Penelope who agreed first and Alexandra only agreed when assured that Cedric had not done anything to harm her.

"Very well," she said finally. "But I shall hold the right to think mean things about him."

"If you must," Louisa said tiredly. "I cannot order your thoughts."

"I am sure Evelina often wished that she could," Penelope said tartly. "Now that we have sworn our solemn oaths please do tell what is wrong, I am worried about you."

Louisa swallowed several times hard. The words were stuck in her throat, and she was not sure that she could dislodge them past the painful lump of shame and hurt that rose any time she remembered the way Cedric had looked at her when he told her that there could never be anything between them. "I - I did not think I should like Lord St Vincent. He was so very full of himself when we first met, he acted as though every young lady must be in love with him and he was tired of it but expected it nonetheless."

"I recall you saying how annoying he was when we were shopping for your gown," Alexandra said dryly. "You had quite the long list of sins that you were holding against him."

"He is a deeply annoying man!" Louisa protested, her cheeks heating and tears springing to her eyes at the same time. It had been so much simpler when she had not known what her feelings meant, when she hadn't uncovered what love really felt like and had it denied to her. "Oh he is so irritating, and he is always teasing me or flirting with me to make me cross. I find him quite impossible!"

"Oh Louisa," Alexandra said softly, squeezing her arm.

"Is it so bad as that?" Penelope added. They looked at her with soft understanding in their eyes and Louisa knew in that moment that they already knew how she really felt, they could see through her to that truth.

"It is," she said, and sobbed a little at the admission. "It is even worse. I love him dearly, I love him more than I knew I could love but he does not love me at all."

"No! He must surely," Alexandra said, her face washing over with confused alarm. "No one could know you and not love you."

"Perhaps he does not know how you feel," Penelope added but Louisa shook her head.

"Alas, I am afraid he does," she said bitterly, her throat tightening even further. "I spoke to him about it. He had kissed me, you see. But the next morning when I went to tell him how I felt he told me there was nothing between us, that he had no interest in me and we are merely business partners. We have a marriage on paper and that is all."

There was a short silence, the grip on her arms from both sisters getting fiercer the longer the silence lasted.

"I shall kick him at the next ball I see him at," Penelope said. "I promise I shall. How dare he speak to you so!"

Alexandra nodded sharply, "You deserve love, Louisa, you do. And to kiss you and then tell you that you should not have it is more than cruelty!"

"It is a cruelty that I did not expect from him," Penelope said. "I know that Theodore is fond of him and I do not think he should feel so if his friend ,was the kind to trifle with a lady this way."

"Perhaps, but perhaps he does not know him well."

"I feel as though I can never face him again," Louisa confessed, a tightness in her chest easing a little at the immediate way her sisters had leaped to support her. "How can I return ho- to St Vincent knowing that is how he feels about me?"

"I cannot imagine how hard it would be," Alexandra said slowly. "But I must speak to you of something that will surely impact how swiftly you return."

"Is now the time?" Penelope said, frowning.

"Now is more the time than ever. If she stays with us too long it will only make things worse."

"But it is not her fault what people are saying," Penelope said. "I don't see why it should control her life!"

"That is the way that things are ," Alexandra said, frustrated.

Louisa cleared her throat. "Can you tell me what you are talking about please?" she said, trying not to sound as frustrated as she felt. "I shall then be able to make my own decisions about how it will impact me."

Alexandra nodded seriously, leading the three of them to a garden bench so that they could sit down. It was an old friend, the bench. A place where Louisa had read many books aloud to her sisters, written letters to Evelina and Margaret, or sat to talk with Alexandra in cool summer evenings. She felt so disconnected from it all now, like she belonged neither here nor at St Vincent either.

"I have heard things," Alexandra started carefully. "A lot of things about you. At parties or balls or from others repeating what they have heard in society."

"People don't say things to me," Penelope said. "They know I would have things to say right back to them if they did."

"What have they been saying?" Louisa asked, a coldness settling inside her. "What is it that has been happening?"

"It started with talk about the wedding," Alexandra said. She looked uncomfortable, unhappy, as though this was not something she liked to repeat. "About how when you stopped the wedding and said that Cedric was in love with you, you were lying. Perhaps how our family was trying to get you married to a nobleman when you didn't have particularly good prospects."

"That -"

"I know," Alexandra said, stopping Louisa from continuing. "But it has gotten worse. We could have guessed some people might say such things about such a scandal, even with protection from Evelina and Margaret. It has gotten worse, though. Some people say that you weren't looking for a husband at all, but for attention - from men."

"They're saying that you would gladly receive attention from any man who would give it to you," Penelope said bluntly. "That you are so promiscuous as to even look for it from a man about to get married."

"Oh my lord," Louisa gasped, feeling the blood drain from her face. "However could anyone say such a thing about me?"

"Someone said that they saw you slip into that rowdy masked ball six months ago, that you went out of your way to lose pieces of your costume to young gentlemen," Alexandra said. She was kind as ever and did not tell Louisa that she had told her so, and Louisa could hear it still as loud as a bell.

It had been such an innocent evening of fun, gambling a silly little thing like her reticule away and having fun in a way she had never dreamed that she could. Lexi had always said that acting the way she had, the dares that she had set herself with the list would come back to hurt her and here it was. Someone had finally noticed the wallflower in the worst way possible.

How would she ever recover? What would Cedric do if he heard of it, would he believe it? What he want to cast her aside? She would have to return to St Vincent sooner than she wanted to, any length of absence would only allow the rumors to grow.

Both her sisters wrapped their arms around her comfortingly and Louisa allowed herself to finally cry. How had it come to this?