A Duchess Worth Vexing (Saved by Scandal #3)
Chapter 1
Chapter One
“Iam considering joining a nunnery,” Lady Matilda Sterlington announced, as though she were declaring that the tea had grown cold.
Her companions did not receive the words with similar composure. Lady Evelyn Firming, her younger sister, sputtered and spilled tea down the front of her gown.
Lady Cordelia Abernathy gave a most ungraceful choke upon her currant scone, and Lady Hazel Thorne was obliged to thump her heartily on the back until she wheezed herself into composure.
At last, Hazel straightened, her expression a mixture of disbelief and censure. “Surely you are joking, Matilda. Where on earth has this notion come from?”
Matilda set her cup back upon its saucer with deliberate calm.
“It is not a joke. I have given it much thought. The new Viscount and Viscountess of Forth have been most kind in allowing me to remain at Forth House these past months, but they are beginning their own family. I cannot impose upon them forever.”
“That is utter nonsense.” Evelyn dabbed furiously at her gown, cheeks still pink with the effort of her earlier cough. “Robert and I both told you—”
“Yes, yes, you told me I was welcome.” Matilda’s grey eyes fixed upon her sister with a patience that was half resignation, half defiance. “They tell me the same. But kindness does not erase truth. They have their own lives to build, and I have no place in them. I have been a burden long enough.”
Cordelia, still gasping faintly, declared. “A nun! Good heavens, Matilda. I adore you, but I cannot picture you in a convent. You do not even rise early!”
Matilda allowed herself a thin smile. “Perhaps I might learn.”
“Learn?” Hazel’s brow arched. “You do not choose a nunnery as one chooses embroidery or Italian lessons. And what is this talk of being a burden? To your sister? To us? Have you lost your sense?”
Matilda’s hands tightened around her cup, though her voice remained soft.
“I have not lost it, Hazel. I have found it. Look at me. I am six and twenty, widowed, childless, and utterly dependent on others for my bread and roof. My parents have endured enough shame on my account, my friends have their own households and marriages, and Evelyn—” Her voice faltered as she glanced at her sister, whose green eyes glistened with too much tenderness.
“You have a child now, a family of your own. You do not need me lingering about, forever in the way.”
Evelyn reached across the table, seizing her sister’s hand with surprising firmness. “Matilda, you shall never be in the way. Not for me and not for Robert, not for anyone who loves you. Do not think for one moment that because I have a baby, my heart has less room for you.”
Matilda looked down at their joined hands. Her pale cheeks colored faintly, as though the warmth of Evelyn’s affection were too strong a flame for her to endure.
“You are very good, dearest. But you cannot see what I do. Everywhere I turn, I am reminded of how much better it would have been if I had simply vanished after… after it all.”
Evelyn frowned. “You speak as if any of it was your own fault.”
“Whose was it if not mine?” Matilda asked cautiously, feeling the familiar sting of old mistakes. “I was na?ve to believe the lies of a man—”
“A scoundrel, you mean,” Hazel cut her off. “There was not a single, human trait about that man. He was pure calculation and misery, therefore: a scoundrel.”
Cordelia chuckled. “She’s right, you know.”
“You all know what I mean,” Matilda replied, grateful for her friends’ efforts at lifting her spirits.
“Of course we do,” Evelyn nodded slowly. “And again, none of it was your fault. You believed a snake charmer, and you were not the only one. Why I almost married him myself!” she added with a look of disgust on her face.
“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Hazel concluded. “And by that I do mean that karma knows how to make things even.”
Matilda inhaled deeply. “It would be wrong to consider anyone’s death a blessing, Hazel.”
“I do consider his one,” Hazel replied stubbornly. “You should, too. And yet, here you are, talking of vanishing into a nunnery when you are still at the threshold of your life. Preposterous!”
Cordelia gave a dramatic sigh and threw herself back in her chair.
“If you vanish into a convent, I shall march after you and demand the abbess send you home at once. Think of it: me, knocking upon the convent door in the middle of the night, begging them to surrender their newest sister! How very scandalous.”
Despite herself, Matilda let out a soft laugh. “You, Cordelia, would find a way to scandalize even the saints.”
“Exactly so,” Cordelia said brightly, brushing crumbs from her sleeve. “So if you wish for peace and piety, do not imagine you shall have them for long. I would not allow it.”
Hazel, though less dramatic, spoke with equal conviction. “You must put this idea from your mind. You mistake pride for prudence. There is no shame in being loved, and less shame in accepting it.”
Evelyn, still holding her sister’s hand, gave it an affectionate squeeze. “You talk of vanishing, of convents and burdens. But I say this, you are still young, Matilda. Six and twenty is hardly the end of life. You might remarry, if you wished it. You might have a home of your own again.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened with delight. “Yes! Imagine it, Matilda. A proper courtship, with all of us watching like hawks so no one takes advantage. Think how amusing it would be, we could frighten away all the unsuitable suitors at once!”
Hazel set her cup aside. “Cordelia is ridiculous, as usual, but she is not wrong. If you wished, you could remarry. You need not be under your sister’s roof, nor your parents’, nor mine. There is no reason to imagine yourself dependent forever.”
For a moment, Matilda said nothing. Her fingers tightened in her lap until her knuckles blanched. Then, lifting her chin, she gave her friends a look at once calm and implacable.
“I will never remarry.”
The room grew still.
“Never?” Evelyn’s voice trembled with disbelief. “Dearest, you cannot mean that.”
“I do. I will never again place my life in the hands of a man. I will never let one dictate what I may do, or whom I may see, or what happiness I am allowed. Marriage is not freedom, it is a cage, and I have already been trapped once. I will not walk into it again.”
Cordelia’s lips parted, her usual smile slipping away. Hazel looked troubled, but said nothing.
Evelyn, however, shook her head with a fervor born of love.
“You cannot speak so. Not every marriage is as yours was. Look at mine, at Cordelia’s.
We are not caged. On the contrary, we are cherished.
To believe yourself forever unlovable is—” She broke off, allowing her voice to soften even more. “It wounds me to hear it, Matilda.”
Matilda’s pale eyes met her sister’s bright green ones. She almost softened… almost. But the words would not be unsaid. “It is the truth. Some hearts are made for love. Mine is not.”
“Do not say such things!” Evelyn cried, horrified. “Do not doom yourself so. Promise me you will not.”
There was a pause. Matilda could feel the weight of all their gazes pressing against her, insistent and suffocating. She wished to rise and leave, but her pride forbade it. And so she managed the smallest smile, and then, the faintest nod.
“Very well,” she murmured. “If it pleases you, I shall not say it again.”
Her sister sighed in relief, Cordelia brightened, Hazel relaxed. The conversation drifted on to lighter matters, and the storm seemed to have passed.
But in Matilda’s heart, the words echoed still.
Never again.
“Ladies, I come bearing peace offerings,” announced Jasper Everleigh, Duke of Harrow, striding into the drawing room with the careless ease of a man very certain of his welcome. He held aloft a ribboned box in triumph, allowing its contents to exhale the sweet promise of butter and sugar.
“Cookies?” one of the ladies exclaimed with delight.
“From Grafton’s,” Jasper confirmed, setting the box upon the tea table with a flourish.
“I had to wrestle three schoolboys and a rather determined governess for the last batch, but I emerged victorious, though alas, scarred in spirit.” He held out his hands dramatically, as though displaying fresh wounds.
The ladies laughed, and his dimples deepened with satisfaction.
His stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Harrow, shook her head but smiled. “Do not listen to him, ladies. He likely charmed the shop girl into parting with them at once.”
“Madam,” Jasper replied, pressing a hand to his heart in mock offense, “you wound me. Must you reveal all my secrets?”
The room rippled with laughter again. He was in his element here, among ladies who were too wise and too experienced to be beguiled beyond amusement. Their laughter was fond, indulgent, and free of expectation. He thrived on it.
One of the ladies, a lively widow with sparkling eyes, leaned forward. “You rascal. Forever buying confections and scattering smiles. Tell us, when will you cease breaking hearts and finally choose one to keep?”
“Ah,” Jasper drawled, sinking into a chair as though preparing for a duel, “but if I chose only one heart, then what would become of the rest of England’s ladies? They would be left defenseless. And I am nothing if not dutiful.”
The chorus of giggles and mock scolding pleased him. He lifted his teacup, the picture of unrepentant charm. “Besides, I am far too young to consider such serious matters.”
“Young?” another lady scoffed, fanning herself. “At one and thirty? That is prime marrying age, Your Grace. You are hardly a callow youth any longer.”
He gave her a dazzling smile. “One and thirty, Lady Hurley, but not yet decrepit. Allow me a few more years of reckless liberty before you chain me to domestic bliss. I assure you, I shall make a far better husband when I am thoroughly worn out.”
His answer, deliberately evasive, drew a fresh bout of laughter.
They thought him teasing, and indeed, he meant them to.
But behind the laughter lay the naked truth.
He would never marry. He had sworn it long ago, with clenched fists and bloodied palms, when his father’s voice had thundered in his ears, demanding perfection, demanding obedience, demanding that he become a man who could not bend, could not err and most importantly, could not love.
Perfection was a lie. Love, a trap. Lineage, a curse.
So he smiled and kept the mask in place. Better to be known as a charming rake than to reveal the vow that had shaped his very soul.
He leaned back, lifting his cup of tea as though it were fine brandy.
“Ah, yes… nothing refreshes a weary soul like polite conversation and ladies’ laughter,” he said with such solemn gravity that the ladies tittered all over again.
“Though I must confess, I fear I have delayed you from far weightier matters, such as gossiping about absent friends.”
“Oh, you dreadful man!” one of them laughed, swatting at him with her fan.
He grinned, setting down his cup. “Alas, my visit is but a brief one. Urgent matters await, though they are nowhere near as agreeable as this company.” He rose, bowing with exaggerated elegance that made his dimples flash.
“I beg your forgiveness for leaving too soon. I shall return to plague you another day.”
His mother rose as well, and he offered his arm to escort her from the room. She took it, and he noticed her expression to be fondly exasperated, as always. The ladies chorused their goodbyes, still smiling, as he led his stepmother into the quieter hall.
“You still love to perform for them,” she remarked as they strolled toward the door.
“And why not?” he replied with a shrug. “They laugh, I laugh, and the world seems lighter for it.”
At the entrance, her bejeweled hand tightened on his arm. “Jasper, darling,” she said gently, “you know I adore you. You are the son of my heart. But must you never think of settling? I should very much like to have grandbabies while I can still chase after them.”
He stopped, his smile fading into something softer, more fragile. “You, of all people, should know why there will be no babies for me, Mother.”
Her eyes grew sad. “I do know. I know too well what was done to you. But still… ” She hesitated, as if weighing the risk of pressing further. “Is there truly no lady you can see yourself with? No one you might endure a lifetime beside?”
For an instant, something sharp flickered in him.
A pair of silver-grey eyes flashed in memory.
They were cold, assessing, and sparking with irritation at every word he tossed her way.
He remembered the lift of her brow, the clipped wit she used as a shield, the way she never let him have the last word.
Always glaring at him, always bristling.
But he crushed the thought, and the image vanished as quickly as it came.
“No,” he said in a final tone of voice. “Not one.”
The Dowager Duchess sighed, but she did not argue. Instead, she cupped his cheek briefly, as she had when he was a boy nursing his first bruises.
He bent and kissed her cheek in return, his voice lighter again. “Take care of yourself, dearest. And do not let those ladies eat all the cookies before you have your share.”
She smiled faintly, watching him go. And Jasper strode away, all easy confidence once more, though the ghost of those silver-grey eyes lingered, unbidden, at the frayed edges of his thoughts.