Chapter 28
It was her wedding day. Again.
Except this time, it was with a man she wanted with every fiber of her being.
She should be excited. After all, she had crossed several hurdles with him to get to this point, but she could not muster that eagerness now.
When she had pictured marrying Ruaridh, she had hoped to marry the version of him that she had fallen in love with. The one who cared and wanted her and had slowly seduced and cajoled her, remaining patient even when she dragged her feet about the decision to marry him.
Unfortunately, that version was now gone.
He was angry with her; she was sure of it. He might have said that she was not responsible for what happened, but she did feel responsible. She had watched him last night while he tried to sweep it under the carpet.
She knew the truth. He was disappointed in her father.
He had opened his arms wide to him in welcome because he was her family, and he did not want her to worry about her father navigating treacherous roads in the night.
But now his goodness had stabbed him in the back, and he was hurt and had lost trust in her and her family.
Perhaps he secretly suspected that she might not be as loyal as she looked. It did not matter that she would never dream of betraying the relationships she had nurtured here. His suspicions were valid, even though they hurt.
It was just awful that the subject of her father’s betrayal was now an elephant that stood between them, making it difficult for her to reach him and the version of him that cared about her.
“Perhaps ye might want to add some heather in yer hair,” Ona suggested with a bright smile, holding tightly to some petals of the sweet-smelling flower.
The maid was more excited about the wedding than she was.
“Yes,” Violet said. “Work your magic.”
Ona did indeed work wonders, because in the next few minutes, when Violet looked in the mirror, she liked what she saw. The maid had twisted her hair into braids and adorned them with heather.
Violet looked simple but exotic, and while she looked simpler than she had at her first wedding, she was more at peace.
“Ye look verra beautiful!” Keira gushed, walking in. “Ye look like a princess.”
Well, Violet did feel like a princess. In fact, she had always felt like a princess since she had arrived here, with the way everyone attended to her.
In recent years, she had gotten used to being neglected, treated like she was a commodity that was not selling well. She had never felt closer to being sold to slavery than when she was Lord Westall.
It had all begun that fateful evening, when she had made her debut.
Other young ladies had carte blanche to make their dresses in the hope of improving their looks and competing favorably on the marriage mart.
It was supposed to be a summation of all the comportment lessons and the finishing schools they had attended.
Violet had none of that, not because of an aversion to the version of elegance that the ton demanded, but because while she was a daughter of a baronet, the said baronet was penniless, no thanks to his predilection for pleasure.
By the time she was ten years old, he had already lost the lands belonging to the baronetcy apart from what was entitled, plunging them into poverty like no other.
They had to let go of all their servants, except for Betsy, who had been her mother’s maid and her nanny when she was little.
Betsy had offered to stay, uncomfortable leaving her alone with her papa, considering the strong tone he had used with her mother.
While Violet had encouraged her to leave because of their inability to pay her, she was secretly glad when the maid had offered to stay back.
The next few years were tough, with barely any return coming from the investments her father had made in the past. He had to take money from her dowry to keep them fed.
While she and Betsy did their best to keep the household in order, he flitted from one club to another in the hope that his many acquaintances would help. They did help many times, in fact, but somehow in a way that fast became ridiculous. He always squandered the money.
By all accounts, her father was not a cruel man, even though his recklessness had caused them to suffer. She still held on to the memory of the kind of man he had been before her mother died.
He had been an intelligent man who had managed to expand the wealth he had inherited from his father by making well-thought-out investments that yielded profit, while at the same time being a benevolent landlord to the people who lived on his land, making sure their leaking roofs were mended, providing seedlings, and helping make sure their land yielded a fruitful harvest.
Even with his very busy schedule, he had still found the time to dote on her. Her earliest memories were of him bouncing her on his knee and singing her to sleep.
He believed in education and did his best to give her the best of everything. She was a princess who never lacked for anything. She was happy. Their family was happy.
But then she realized that happiness could be fleeting. Grief, she realized, was not linear. He had tried to carry the weight of caring for her alone. By all accounts, he had done his best to care for her, playing the role of both father and mother to her, but at some point, he broke.
She suspected there was another external factor that had led to his relapse. Rumors were circulating that he had fallen in love with a widow who had eventually rejected his marriage proposal because she had no wish to be a stepmother.
Now thinking about it, if it was indeed true, Violet could not blame the woman.
Motherhood, even one that did not include childbirth, was difficult.
Even though a part of her longed for the comfort of a mother who would take over the running of the household and nurture her like the other young ladies of the ton.
She had never asked him if such a lady existed, primarily because he was usually unavailable.
Either he was away to the many clubs he had become a notorious member of, or he was home, lying drunkenly, muttering about one fairytale investment or the other that would help them recover their fortune.
She had learned very early not to keep her hopes up because the inevitable heartbreak that followed was usually devastating.
It would have been easy to resent her papa, but she could not shake the image of the kind of father he had been to her as a child.
In time, she and Betsy got comfortable sourcing ways to maintain the house and feed themselves, as well as her papa.
She took on part-time work with the publisher down the street and earned a substantial wage.
In no time, Betsy fell in love with the footman next door, who, after some months of sneaking around, had summoned up the courage to approach the Baronet to ask permission to marry her.
The news was bittersweet for Violet. While she was happy that the woman who had become a second mother to her was able to find love and happiness, she wept knowing that she was going to miss her.
Interestingly, Betsy found a way to convince her husband to come live with them, and to her greatest surprise, he agreed. Eventually, he went on to serve as a footman and a butler for the house happily.
Together, the couple became a makeshift family for her.
She had already accepted that this was to be her reality, and she was happy with it, until her father returned one day in high spirits, telling her that the Countess of Warwick, who had been a dear friend of her late mother, had offered to sponsor her Season and present her to the ton.
Her joy had known no bounds. She had always envied the other young ladies as they prepared for their Seasons. She often saw them through the windows of the modiste’s shop, being measured for new dresses and having lush, beautifully colored fabrics draped on them.
She had always dreamed of how it would feel to attend a ball, but whenever she found herself getting lost in her imagination, she reminded herself of how impossible it was for her to attend one, considering her family situation. In light of this, the Countess’s offer was a dream come true.
In no time, it began. She was invited to the modiste in London and was fitted for several dresses. The process was tiring, standing and enduring the pinning and the poking, but she was happy to endure it in the hope of getting beautiful gowns.
The weeks that followed were filled with lessons—dancing lessons, comportment lessons, all aimed to prepare her to put her best foot forward in the battle with the other debutantes who had had years to learn and practice.
Eventually, when the day came, she did surprisingly well, smiling and dancing even while her brain was doing its best to keep count. In the end, her first outing was a success, and the Countess had been satisfied and confident that she would make a good match before the Season’s end.
Well, she did make a match, but not necessarily a good one.
It was there that she had caught Lord Westall’s eye. He had tried to woo her, calling on her with flowers, offering to take her on walks.
On paper, he was a good suitor. He had a title, was wealthy, and had graduated from the great Edinburgh College.
While he was nowhere close to the prestige ascribed to dukes and earls, for the daughter of a baronet, he was a good suitor.
But somehow she could not bring herself to accept him as a suitor, her aversion to him rooted in his confidence that everything would go his way.
He boasted about his family wealth, and that pride she foresaw as what could bring his downfall. Eventually, she had expressed her disinterest in marrying him.