Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“First it was Emma, your eldest sister...” Howard swung the door to Dorothy’s room open with a force that rattled the hinges.
“…whispers of her in the garden with the Duke, being carried into a ball like some fairytale heroine with an eye on his title. Then Cecilia caught, for Heaven’s sake, half-undressed in a Duke’s bedchamber and later branded a thief of her cousin’s betrothed once she had the good fortune to marry him.
Now you, Dorothy? Must I spend my declining years watching each of my daughters parade themselves through scandal sheets as if it were a family tradition? ”
Dorothy put down the book she was reading and sat up. “Good morning to you, too, Papa.”
He strode further into the room, tossing the latest edition of The Morning Gazette onto the table between them. Dorothy’s name was sprawled in bold ink across a particularly vicious headline.
“I have endured years of this nonsense, years! Do you know what it is like to have one’s family become the amusement of every drawing room in London? What is it with my daughters and rumors? Why, pray tell, are you all determined to plant yourselves in the center of them?”
Dorothy drew a slow breath, willing herself not to flinch beneath his glare. “Papa, please calm down. If you are referring to the nonsense printed this morning, I assure you—”
He held up the sheet, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl.
“Do not play innocent with me. The entire city is whispering about you and the Duke of Walford having an illicit relationship. That he ruined you, Dorothy. Ruined you! I do not understand this. Are you trying to ruin me, Dorothy Lockhart?”
“Papa, it’s a rumor. You know how society is. This isn’t the first time we have been at the center of one. It’ll pass, Papa.”
“A rumor, Dorothy? Do you think I have lived all these years in society to shrug them off as nothing? This is not idle tattle about a misplaced dance card or a frayed hem. This...” He jabbed a finger towards the floor where the paper was as though the offending words were written there.
“... is a scandal that could have ruined your entire life. Do you understand that? Entire. Life.”
“Papa—”
“You are merely saying what every blind optimist says when they do not comprehend the damage of whispered poison!” He strode to the hearth, turned sharply, and faced her again.
“I would not have believed it of you, Dorothy. You are the quiet one. The bookish one. The one who never dances, never schemes, never so much as draws a gentleman’s glance.
I do not accompany you to balls because you hardly attend any!
Yet, somehow, your name is now entangled with the Duke of Walford’s. .. of all men! What madness is this?”
Dorothy’s brows lifted in mild reproach. “Surely the matter cannot be as dire—”
“As dire?” His laugh was mirthless. “Emma’s name survived when she was seen in the garden with the Duke of Montclaire.
People muttered she sought to charm him for his title because her family was poor.
Cecilia’s name survived when people whispered she had stolen her cousin’s betrothed.
Both found good matches in the end. Dukes!
At least those storms passed, and they are happy now.
But you, Dorothy?” He raked a hand through his hair, frustration pulling at every line of his face.
“This is far worse. This could have rendered you unmarriageable entirely.”
He paused, his voice lowering but losing none of its force.
“I was grateful that Emma and Cecilia, difficult as they were, settled with honor. I did not expect my quiet, compliant Dorothy to be the one to topple the peace of this house. I raised three beautiful daughters who took after their mother’s grace…
and somehow every one of them finds herself at the center of ruinous talk. ”
Dorothy blinked, titling her head to the side.
“Wait, you said… this could have rendered me unmarriageable entirely?” she repeated slowly.
“Could have, Papa? It still may. You speak as though the matter is over when the rumors are yet alive and thriving. Should we not be thinking of a remedy or at the very least drafting an apology to Lord Hensley, making clear we would understand should he withdraw entirely?”
Howard scoffed. “An apology? I did not stumble on the news myself, Dorothy,” he said, in that unhurried, matter-of-fact way that always left her scrambling to keep up.
“It was not from the papers that I heard of it at all. The letter came from the Hensley informing us that he would expedite the wedding owing to the rumors in circulation. Only then did I trouble myself to see for certain what was being said.”
Cecilia blinked at him. The words landed in her mind like scattered cards, their order refusing to align. He had not read it? Not until after Lord Hensley had written? The notion seemed absurd.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Dorothy said with squinted eyes. “Lord Hensley... has heard the rumor?”
“He has.” Howard nodded once.
“Yet, he wrote asking to... expedite the wedding?”
“He did,” he revealed. “Apparently, he is either too proud to be troubled by gossip or too smitten with you to care.”
Dorothy’s eyes widened a fraction, her fingers tightening on the fold of her skirt. “Smitten?” she repeated, as though the word were an unfamiliar object she was obliged to turn over and inspect from every angle.
Howard’s mouth twitched. “It is the most charitable explanation I can offer. Perhaps in his mind he simply refuses to lose you to any other man, scandal or no.”
Dorothy’s lips parted, but no immediate reply emerged. She found herself completely flabbergasted by the absurdity of the notion.
“Regardless of this mess... your wedding will hold in a few days,” Howard announced. “But I am very disappointed by this, Dorothy. I will be informing your sisters about this.”
Dorothy’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Too smitten?” she repeated, unable to get past it.
“Does Lord Hensley even know what this rumor means? Does he know what it means for a lady to be ruined? Does he...” She broke off, waving her hands in the air, before resuming, “... does he understand the gravity of the thing?”
Howard regarded her as though she had grown another head. “Why do you seem agitated? Did you want the rumor to be true?”
“What? Of course not!”
“Then perhaps be grateful,” he said dryly. “You can finally get married, Dorothy. I can finally marry my last daughter off and have some peace of mind that I have done the right thing.”
She began pacing across the carpet, her skirts swishing as she turned sharply at each end.
“But... does he know what he’s getting into?
I am dreadfully dull. I only know books, really, I have nothing in common with those lively society women he must be accustomed to.
I cannot dance without looking like I am avoiding a duel. I—”
Howard’s lips twitched. “You sound as though you are campaigning against your own marriage.”
“Perhaps I am!” she said, throwing up her hands. “If he knew, truly knew, how tedious I am, he would rescind the offer this instant.”
“Then pray he never discovers it,” Howard replied.
All this while, Dorothy had been careful, painfully careful not to wound her father’s pride or make him believe she did not trust his judgment.
When he first told her she was to marry Lord Hensley, she had swallowed her protest, smiled, and said nothing.
Instead, she had gone to Lucy, and together, they had contrived the plan that was supposed to solve the problem without ever forcing her to speak the words aloud.
But now, with the plan unraveling and Lord Hensley apparently unfazed by the rumors, she felt the careful thread she had been holding snap in her hands. The thought of obeying her father in this, of binding herself to a man she could not bear, rose in her throat like something she might choke on.
She loved Howard dearly. She did not want to disappoint him, did not want to look into his tired eyes and be the cause of fresh worry. Yet the prospect of going through with the wedding seemed suddenly impossible, suffocating.
“Papa,” she blurted, “I do not want to marry Lord Hensley.”
Howard’s head jerked back, the weight of her words settling over him like a heavy fog. “What do you mean?”
“I mean precisely what I have said,” Dorothy replied, the sudden rush of courage bringing color to her cheeks. “He is…old, Papa. He is your friend; surely that ought to give one pause.”
“We may be friends, but I am years older than Hensley.”
“It matters not. He is still old. Also, is it not a warning in itself that he has never married? Why should a viscount remain unattached for so long, unless there is some cause for concern? Moreover, he is cold in manner, and he looks... oh, he looks as though he but awaits the proper moment to make my life intolerable. I do not wish to marry him. I will not be bound to him... to any man so advanced in years.”
Howard stared at her, disbelief narrowing his eyes. “Dorothy… don’t tell me you— Are you saying—” His voice stopped short, but his gaze sharpened. “You are the one who started this ridiculous rumor?”
The room seemed to tilt. She swallowed, knowing she could either lie and prolong this or come clean and face the storm. “Yes,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “It was me. All of it. I only did it because I did not wish to marry Lord Hensley.”
Howard’s face darkened as he stared at her in utter disbelief. “Do you have any notion of the gravity of what you have done? You have played with reputations as though they were toys. Do you think the world will simply forget?”
Dorothy bristled. “I have not treated it as a toy. I have only—”