Chapter Two #3
Ava’s throat closed in panic. She could feel the net tightening around her.
This would be her third season. Rob had been very patient, but he was clearly wanting her to make a decision.
He and Mama had discussed whether to defer their younger sister Heather’s debut for one more year and decided to put it off until the little season later in the year.
This must be the reason. They must be expecting her to make a match of it with Haldane this season. And on paper, he was the perfect match.
If she hadn’t already given her heart to the handsomest man in London . . .
Her ideal, her Galahad. She had tried in cycles since her come out to either get over him or provoke a reaction and neither had worked until that devastating kiss at Lady Bellingham’s ball.
And it wasn’t as if she had even tried to make that happen.
Both she and Lannister had been feeling a bit blue over their respective sources of heartache and had simply gone to that room to share a hug, which they obviously couldn’t do in public.
Jerome was so wrong about Lannister, as Rob was, but neither of them could see it.
But that kiss had tipped her whole world sideways.
And then he’d fled the room like all the devils of hell were after him.
And if he had treated her with cool distance before that had happened, it had been six times worse afterward.
He now seemed incapable of staying in the same room with her.
He refused to look at her, let alone speak to her, unless he was forced to for the sake of politeness, and his pursuit of the wretched Countess of Esberry seemed to gain momentum.
He had said, “When will you grow up?” And kissed her like she was his heart’s desire and then ruined it by telling her that was what she invited from unscrupulous men.
Had he really only kissed her like that to teach her a lesson?
She couldn’t believe that, yet his behavior ever since did everything to convince her it was true—in particular, his pursuit of the countess.
She had lived in dread of hearing their engagement announced, but the little season had ended with no such announcement.
Which gave her hope. But those had been dashed all over again when he had not come to The Castle at Christmas this past year as he used to do every year.
She heard that he had again gone instead to those friends in Wales.
She recalled his emphatic denial that he would ever marry and sighed. Her vow, made six long years ago, that she would marry him when she was grown up, seemed further away than ever. Yet she couldn’t let go of her impossible dream.
If distance and time were going to dislodge him from her heart, they would have done so by now.
They had not. No matter how many eligible men paid court to her, they couldn’t compare to Jerome.
Her heart squeezed in anguish and she blinked against the sting of tears.
What could she do to make him see her differently?
She had thought that kiss had done the trick, but instead it had driven him further from her.
She wanted to corner him and shake him. Kiss him senseless. Test whether that lapse meant anything beyond a desire to punish her for what he saw as her willful immaturity. But he never gave her the opportunity, and now at the beginning of her third season, she feared that he never would.
I have to find a way . . . I cannot give up on my dream . . .
“Give the poor fellow a chance. For me?” Robert interrupted her thoughts and brought her back to Haldane. The man Rob wanted her to marry.
“Very well, I shall consider him,” she said with a mechanical smile. Anything to keep Rob off the scent of her true desires.
But his words made her more determined than ever to find a way to change Jerome’s way of looking at her before Rob started to really pressure her into a match with Haldane.
But then there was the issue of getting Rob’s agreement to her heart’s desire.
Jerome might be one of his best friends, but Rob had made no secret of the fact that he didn’t consider him a suitable match for his sisters, any more than he considered Lannister a good match.
It had something to do with his disreputable past, and while she had heard rumors, she didn’t know the details of what he was supposed to have done that was so reprehensible.
But time was running out. Haldane was undoubtedly the most eligible of all her suitors yet.
She would have to marry someone eventually or dwindle into an old maid—and she couldn’t bear the thought of that.
She wanted her own family, children and a loving husband.
In her mind that role had always been played by Jerome.
How could she see anyone else in that light?
But, whispered the persistent voice in her head, there is the Countess of Esberry . . .
Ava pushed away thoughts of the countess.
She was one of Jerome’s flirts, yes, but surely not a serious contender for marriage, for indeed nothing had come of it last year.
And Jerome had told her categorically the year before that he would not marry anyone.
Was that just to put me off? Or did he really mean it?
She didn’t know, but she was determined to find out.
She was not going to lose him to the Countess of Esberry!
If anything the presence of a rival put her further on her mettle.
But then the vision of the countess’s perfection rose in her mind’s eye.
So tall and elegant, a dark, luscious beauty and, perhaps most damning of all, a mature woman.
She was the antithesis of Ava in every regard.
Would Jerome truly consider marriage to such a woman?
If she could take what he said about not wanting to marry at face value, then no.
But then when she asked him if he had met the right woman yet .
. . A cold feeling settled in her stomach.
What if he thought the countess was the right woman?
No, thought Ava, he is going to marry me! I refuse to give up.