Chapter Twenty-One
“I’ll marry him, of course,” his fiancée said. “I know my duty.”
Drake Halston, Earl of Greythorne, paused in the act of adjusting his already immaculate cravat.
He stood just beyond the velvet curtain that partially concealed a small alcove off the main ballroom, where Lady Eleanor’s voice carried with unexpected clarity despite the surrounding noise of the Countess of Westwick’s ball.
He had been searching for his betrothed, having fulfilled his obligatory dances with the appropriate matrons and young ladies of suitable rank. Society demanded he now devote his attention to Lady Eleanor, a responsibility he had approached with dutiful resignation rather than enthusiasm.
But now, hearing her speaking to someone unseen, Drake found himself frozen in place, arrested by her tone as much as her words.
“But you must feel something for him,” another young woman’s voice protested—Miss Catherine Pembrooke, if Drake wasn’t mistaken. “He’s quite handsome, and an earl besides.”
Lady Eleanor’s light laugh held no genuine amusement.
“Handsome enough, I suppose, though rather severe in his manner. But his looks are hardly the point. Father made it perfectly clear that the connection was too advantageous to decline. The Greythorne estates are extensive, even if they require considerable investment to restore them properly.”
Drake’s hand fell from his cravat, a cold sensation spreading through his chest.
That his fiancée might not harbour tender feelings for him was hardly surprising—their courtship had been brief and formal, the engagement arranged with an efficiency that precluded genuine attachment. But hearing her discuss their union with such emotional detachment was unexpectedly painful.
“So, your father arranged it all?” Miss Pembrooke asked, her voice dropping to a scandalized whisper. “But I thought—that is, it was announced so suddenly...”
“Father had been considering the match for some time,” Lady Eleanor explained.
“When he heard Lord Greythorne had returned from visiting that widow he’s been spending time with, Father saw his opportunity.
He wrote to his lordship immediately with the proposal—quite a bold move, but Father has always been direct about such matters. ”
Drake stiffened.
The widow she referred to could only be Katherine. And yes, when Lord Fairfield’s letter had arrived at Greythorne proposing the advantageous match, Drake had been in precisely the emotional state to make such a rash decision—wounded, desperate, and convinced Katherine had chosen another.
He had agreed to the arrangement without much thought, desperate for any distraction from the hollow ache in his chest.
Lord Fairfield’s suggestion that Lady Eleanor might prove a suitable match had seemed like the solution to all his problems. Young, well-connected, properly raised, and apparently agreeable to the match—what more could he ask for in his circumstances?
“But aren’t you concerned about...” Miss Pembrooke hesitated, then continued in a hushed tone, “well, the rumours about him and Lady Katherine? They say he was quite taken with her, despite her being his predecessor’s widow.”
Lady Eleanor’s sigh was audible even from Drake’s position.
“Oh, that business. Father says it was nothing more than estate matters. She apparently managed Greythorne during her marriage, as the late earl was frequently in London. The new Lord Greythorne naturally required her assistance during the transition.”
“But they were seen together often,” Miss Pembrooke persisted. “And Lady Swansea claims they argued most passionately in the village market, like—”
She broke off, apparently reconsidering her words.
“Like lovers?” Lady Eleanor supplied, her tone somewhere between amusement and disdain.
“I doubt it. Lady Katherine is rather old, don’t you think?
And Father says she declared repeatedly that she had no intention of remarrying.
Besides, the announcement of our engagement clearly settled the matter. ”
Drake’s jaw tightened at this dismissal of Katherine—of her vitality, her intelligence, her passionate dedication to Greythorne and its people. To hear her reduced to “rather old” by this debutante, and therefore presumably undesirable, stirred a protective anger he had no right to feel.
“Still,” Miss Pembrooke murmured, “it seems rather sudden. You barely know each other.”
“That’s how these arrangements work,” Lady Eleanor replied matter-of-factly.
“One needn’t know a gentleman well to understand that he requires a countess and an heir.
I need make no particular effort beyond maintaining a pleasant household and eventually producing children.
It’s a fair exchange—his title and fortune for my family connections and my. ..biological capabilities.”
The clinical assessment of their future marriage made Drake’s stomach turn. He had proposed to Lady Eleanor believing their arrangement would be precisely that—practical, unemotional, fulfilling the entail’s requirements without the complications of genuine attachment.
Yet hearing her describe it in such stark terms suddenly rendered the entire proposition distasteful.
“You make it sound so cold,” Miss Pembrooke observed, echoing Drake’s thoughts with uncanny accuracy.
“It’s practical,” Lady Eleanor corrected.
“My mother prepared me well for this. One’s duty to family must supersede personal inclinations.
Lord Greythorne requires a wife of suitable breeding to provide an heir and manage his household.
I require the security and status his title provides. Sentiment is irrelevant.”
She was describing exactly what he and her father had arranged—a practical alliance that served both their needs.
Drake had known this when he accepted the match, had even appreciated its clarity.
But hearing it stated so bluntly now made him realize how completely he had betrayed his mother’s wisdom.
Drake stepped back from the curtain, unable to bear another word. The echo of his own pragmatic justifications for the match rang hollowly in his mind, stripped of all dignity by Lady Eleanor’s cool assessment.
This was what he had chosen—a marriage as empty as his parents’, as devoid of genuine connection as Edmund’s union with Katherine must have been.
He was preparing to bind himself to a woman who viewed him not as a person but as a convenient means to elevated status, a necessary step in fulfilling her family obligations.
Just as he had once resented Katherine for what he perceived as her grasping claim to Greythorne’s assets, he was now himself being treated as a means to an end. The irony was not lost on him.
He moved away from the alcove, retreating to the relative privacy of the terrace that opened off the ballroom. The cool night air was a welcome respite from the overheated interior, but it did little to ease the constriction in his chest.
What had he done?
In his wounded pride after seeing Katherine with Lord Clifton, he had rushed headlong into an engagement with a woman who felt nothing for him beyond appreciation for his title and fortune.
A woman who would raise their future children with the same cold practicality she brought to their marriage, teaching them that duty and advantage must always supersede genuine feeling.
Drake braced his hands against the stone balustrade, staring unseeing at the darkened garden below.
He had convinced himself that Lady Eleanor’s youth and malleability would make her a suitable countess—one who would not challenge or complicate his management of Greythorne.
He had told himself that his mother’s romantic ideals were a luxury he couldn’t afford with the entail’s deadline looming, that a practical arrangement was better than losing Greythorne entirely to Captain Halston.
Now he realized that those same qualities would make her precisely the wrong partner for the life he envisioned.
He thought of Katherine—her fierce intelligence, her unwavering advocacy for Greythorne’s people, her refusal to accept convenient solutions when better ones could be found through effort and innovation. How different she was from the docile, pragmatic young woman he had chosen in her stead.
Then he thought of Lady Eleanor herself—how she spoke of their future with such cold detachment, as though she were discussing a business arrangement rather than a life partnership.
What had he done?
Drake felt a sudden, sharp understanding. Lady Eleanor had accepted his proposal out of duty to her family, but her heart clearly lay elsewhere. He was not rescuing her from spinsterhood—he was preventing her from marrying the man she actually loved.
“Lord Greythorne? Are you unwell?”
The voice startled him from his dark contemplation. Drake turned to find Lady Beauford regarding him with shrewd eyes, her expression suggesting she had observed more than he might wish.
“Lady Beauford,” he acknowledged with a bow. “Merely seeking a moment’s respite from the heat inside.”
“Indeed.” She studied him with the penetrating gaze that had made her a formidable presence in London Society for decades. “Though one might wonder why a newly engaged gentleman would seek solitude rather than his betrothed’s company.”
Drake stiffened slightly. “Lady Eleanor is engaged with her friends at present. I saw no reason to interrupt.”
“How considerate,” Lady Beauford observed, her tone making it clear she suspected his true reasons. “Though I confess, I find your engagement rather puzzling. Lady Eleanor seems an unlikely choice for a man of your... independent thinking.”
“The match has many advantages,” Drake replied automatically, the justification sounding hollow even to his own ears.