Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“Idid not have the luxury of choice.” Her eyes flashed.
He guided her through the turn with more force than necessary, pulling her closer than propriety allowed. “Tell me, how does it feel knowing that your friend is blissfully happy with the rake you traveled across the country to save her from?”
Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “It feels rather like discovering I was worried over nothing. Which is preferable, I should think, to discovering I was worried with cause.”
“You’re admitting you were wrong, then?”
“I’m admitting Harriet is happy. There’s a difference.” She matched his steps flawlessly, as though they’d danced together a hundred times. “Though I notice you’re very quick to claim vindication, when it was sheer luck, not wisdom, that made the match successful.”
“Luck?” His hand tightened on her waist. “I know my friend’s character—”
“You know he was a notorious rake who drank himself insensible and required physical removal from gaming hells.” Her voice remained pleasant despite the cutting words.
“Hardly the foundation for marital bliss, yet here we are. Perhaps the credit belongs to Harriet rather than your matchmaking genius.”
They moved together in perfect rhythm, the waltz bringing them close enough that he could smell lavender, could feel the tension she refused to betray.
“Tell me something,” he said, his voice low so only she could hear him. “How did this engagement come about?”
“I told you,” Cressida said evenly. “It was arranged.”
“I know.”
Confusion flickered across her expression. “Then why ask?”
“Because I want you to say it.”
Her gaze sharpened. “There is nothing more to say.”
The music carried them forward, turn after turn, as if it refused to acknowledge the shift between them.
“You must be relieved that I won’t trouble you again,” she mumbled.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
“It would be the sensible conclusion,” she said.
“There is nothing sensible about this, My Lady,” he whispered, his eyes landing on her lips.
The final notes of the waltz began to fade.
“Thank you for the dance, Your Grace.” She pulled away with visible effort, curtsying with mechanical precision. “Please give my regards to Lady Seymore.”
Then she was gone, disappearing into the crowd, leaving him standing alone on the dance floor with unfinished arguments burning in his chest and the memory of her warmth still imprinted on his palm.
“Cressida.” Harriet caught her arm the moment Theodore released her, drawing her away from the crush of dancers with surprising strength. “Why were you dancing with the Duke of Ashmere?”
The question carried layers of concern, curiosity, and something else Cressida couldn’t quite identify. She managed what she hoped passed for a careless smile.
“It’s a very long story,” she said, refraining from clearing her throat.
“You seem to have accumulated quite a few of those recently.” Harriet’s grip gentled, but her gaze remained searching. “Cressida, what’s happened? You look—”
The whispers started like a breeze through wheat, a rustling murmur that spread across the ballroom with gathering force.
Heads turned, fans snapped open to shield gossiping mouths, and the collective gaze of London society fixed itself upon Cressida with the focused intensity of a hunting pack scenting blood.
She felt the shift in the air, that peculiar charge that preceded a scandal’s explosion. Across the room, Miss Oakley stood beside a cluster of young ladies, her expression arranged in a mask of shocked sympathy that couldn’t quite disguise the triumphant glint in her eyes.
“Oh no,” Harriet breathed.
“Cressida!” Lady Bardwell’s voice cut through the growing tumult, shrill with barely suppressed hysteria. She materialized from the crowd like an avenging fury, her husband close behind, their faces mottled with rage and mortification. “Cressida, come with us. Now.”
Strong hands gripped Cressida’s elbow—her father’s, ungentlemanly in their force—and she found herself being propelled toward the corridor with the kind of speed that suggested imminent catastrophe.
“Mama, what—”
“Quiet!” Her mother’s whisper was vicious as she dragged her around the corner, away from prying eyes.
The moment they achieved relative privacy, Lady Bardwell’s carefully maintained composure shattered. Tears streaked through powder and rouge as she clutched at Cressida’s shoulders.
“What have you done? What in God’s name have you done?”
Cressida’s heart hammered against her ribs. “I don’t understand—”
“Don’t lie to us!” Her father’s voice remained low but carried a fury she rarely witnessed. “Not now. Not after you’ve destroyed everything we worked to salvage.”
“I haven’t destroyed anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t you?” The third voice made her spin around.
Emerton stood in the corridor entrance, his handsome face transformed by rage into something ugly and hard. Gone was the preening peacock who’d led her through the earlier dance; this man looked at her with contempt usually reserved for something found on one’s boot.
“My Lord.” Lady Bardwell’s tone turned pleading. “There’s been a misunderstanding, surely. My daughter would never—”
“Would never what?” Emerton’s laugh was sharp enough to cut. “Would never run away from her aunt’s house unchaperoned? Would never spend two nights alone with the Duke of Ashmere? Would never allow herself to be ruined and then attempt to trap me into marriage regardless?”
The words hit like physical blows.
Cressida’s vision narrowed, her breath coming in short gasps. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t insult what little intelligence I possess by playing innocent.” Emerton reached into his coat and withdrew a crumpled scandal sheet, thrusting it toward her with enough force that she had to catch it or let it fall. “It’s all here, Lady Cressida. Your sordid little adventure.”
Her hands trembled as she smoothed the paper, her eyes scanning words that seemed to blur and sharpen in sickening waves:
Lady C W, daughter of the Earl of B, lately returned from rustication in the countryside, has provided society with the most delicious scandal.
The lady, it seems, took it upon herself to travel unaccompanied to witness her dear friend’s nuptials, only to find herself caught in the recent storms. Where did our intrepid lady take shelter?
Why, at the estate of none other than the Duke of A, that most notorious recluse.
Two nights, dear readers. Two nights unchaperoned in the company of a bachelor duke. One can only imagine…
The paper fell from her nerveless fingers.
“It—it’s not—it wasn’t like that.” But the protest sounded hollow even to her own ears.
“It doesn’t matter what it was like.” Emerton’s voice had gone cold, detached. “What matters is what everyone believes. And I will not marry a woman whose virtue has been so thoroughly compromised, regardless of her father’s fortune.”
“Emerton, please.” Lord Bardwell’s desperation was palpable. “We can explain—”
“There’s nothing to explain. The engagement is over.” Emerton turned on his heel, pausing only to deliver a final cut. “I suggest you seek the Duke for a solution, since he’s the one who ruined her.”
Silence crashed down in his wake.
Then her mother began to keen, a high, terrible sound that spoke of social death and irredeemable shame. “Ruined. Oh God, we’re all ruined. How could you do this to us? How could you be so selfish? You should have just stayed with your aunt! You weren’t any trouble there!”
“I didn’t… The scandal sheet is lying. Nothing happened!”
“Nothing?” Her father’s voice shook. “You disappear for three days, return in clothes that aren’t yours, refuse to explain yourself, and now this? Don’t insult us further with your lies!”
Theodore’s hand tightened on his aunt’s arm. “What’s happening?”
The whispers had reached his ears in fragments, puzzle pieces that assembled themselves into a picture he refused to accept.
Cressida’s name, repeated again and again. His own title. Scandal. Ruin.
“Theodore—” Lady Seymore began, her expression grave.
But he’d already moved away, scanning the ballroom for auburn hair and green eyes.
John appeared at his elbow, Harriet close behind, both their faces etched with concern.
“Where is she?” Theodore demanded.
“Her parents took her away.” Harriet’s voice trembled. “Just moments ago. They looked… Oh, Your Grace, what’s happened? What are people saying?”
He didn’t answer.
He was already moving toward the exit when Emerton blocked his path. The Earl’s face was flushed with wine and righteous indignation.
“Well, well. The Duke of Ashmere.” Emerton’s attempt at intimidation would have been laughable under different circumstances. “I hope you’re satisfied with your conquest, Your Grace. Though I must say, she wasn’t worth the trouble—”
Theodore stepped forward. It was a single step, but the promise in it—a violence barely leashed—made Emerton stumble backward, his false bravado crumbling like wet paper.
“Move,” he said quietly.
Emerton moved.
“—ungrateful, foolish girl! After everything we’ve sacrificed—”
Cressida heard her mother’s voice before she’d even removed her pelisse, the shrill accusations echoing through Bardwell House with enough force to make the servants scatter.
“Mama, please—” Mary’s young voice, trying to intervene.
“Go to your room, Mary!”
“But Cressida didn’t—”
“Now!”
Cressida stepped into the drawing room to find her parents in full fury, their faces mottled with rage and shame. Peter stood near the fireplace, his expression troubled.
“This has gone too far,” her brother ventured. “Surely we can discuss this rationally.”
“Rationally?” Their father rounded on him. “Your sister has destroyed this family’s reputation, and you want rationality?”
“I haven’t destroyed anything!” Cressida’s control finally snapped. “Miss Oakley did this. She must have overheard my conversation with Grandmama. She wanted Emerton for herself, so she—”
“You still speak of that Oakley girl?” Her mother’s laugh bordered on hysterical. “Always someone else’s fault, never yours! You ran away, you compromised yourself, you—!”
The front door crashed open.
Everyone froze as Theodore strode into the drawing room with the focused intensity of an approaching storm. His dark eyes swept over the scene, landing on Cressida with an emotion she couldn’t read, before fixing on her parents with something akin to disgust.
“Your Grace,” Lord Bardwell began, his tone shifting to obsequious panic.
Theodore did not give anyone time to process his presence before he announced, “We will be married in two days.”
Stunned silence ensued.
Cressida’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I beg your pardon?”
Theodore didn’t look at her. His attention remained fixed on her parents with unnerving intensity. “I assume that’s acceptable?”
“Acceptable?” Lord Bardwell had gone from crimson to ashen. “Your Grace, of course, but surely the arrangements… the settlement… the dowry. I mean—”
“I don’t want your money.” Theodore’s voice cut like a blade. “I’ll handle all arrangements. The ceremony will be private, at Ashmere. Two days.”
“But Your Grace…” Lady Bardwell struggled to her feet, torn between relief and the desire to negotiate better terms.
“Two days,” Theodore repeated. He finally glanced at Cressida, something complicated flickering behind his eyes. “Unless you have objections, Lady Cressida?”
Cressida opened her mouth, a thousand protests rising to her lips, but none of them bloomed on her tongue. Tongue-tied. She was positively tongue-tied.
He was gone before she could regain her senses enough to voice a single one.
Her mother collapsed onto the sofa with theatrical precision, one hand pressed to her forehead. “Thank God. Oh, thank God. A duchess. My daughter, a duchess.”
But Cressida couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond the impossible reality that had just reshaped her entire future in the span of thirty seconds.
She was going to marry the Duke of Ashmere.
In two days.