Chapter 3
It is the Scandal of all Scandals.
It is fair to say that every guest of Dowager Countess Montrose’s ball was aghast with horror to see Lady Cecilia locking lips with London’s most notorious rakehell, Duke Tressingham, Cassian Fitzroy—while her poor husband-to-be watched on in utter shock.
“You could see the pain in his eyes”—remarked Lady M. “Who would have thought she would do something as scandalous as that?”
“I always thought she had a defective streak in her”—Added Miss O. “I knew her from the schoolroom you know, and she always had that look in her eye. Always so proper, but it was a facade, you know. She was never a decent sort.”
“The lady was heartbroken and drunk”—said Lord J. “It’s the loudest secret in the ton. Whitmore has the attention of a gnat. He had no intention of marrying the poor girl.”
No one knows what to make of these sudden turn of events yet. Some are optimistic that the good lady can change the lord’s mind, others not so much...
That was as far as Cecilia got with that morning's version of the London Gazette. Huddled into her room, with the shades down and a fort of pillows around her, she did not know what she wanted to do first. Scream or cry.
Possibly both.
She was ruined—the carefully crafted reputation she had forged over the years was now in tatters. She doubted she would ever show her face in Town again.
“Cecilia, dear,” her mother, Margaret, swept into the room, her face a mask of disappointment and censure. “Come on, you must get up and stop this wallowing.”
She sat up and considered her words. “Mother, what would you do if you were in my position? My reputation is in shreds, the whole town is mocking me, some are happy that I have fallen from grace, and now, I must marry the worst rake in London. Possibly, the continent!”
Margaret stopped at the end of her bed, her lips pursed. “I would find a way to make the best of it.”
A long silence rested between them. “I never intended this, Mother. You must believe me.”
Her mother’s rich golden hair shimmered in the small light from the fluttering curtains. “I believe you. But that still did not give you a reason to drink to excess. Ladies do not get drunk, Cecilia, it is—”
“Uncouth,” she said hollowly, “I know. Did you know Gabriel had no intention of marrying me? That once the attention of being the glorified Diamond of the First Water was off me, so was my appeal to him.”
Margaret’s thin brows met in the middle, “And how do you know that?”
“I learned it from Tressingham,” she whispered. “Apparently, all the lords have their own sort of conclave separate from that of the ton. They all knew he was only dangling me on, and that made it even worse.”
She let out a puff of disgust. “And to think no one would have told me the truth. A lot of seditious scoundrels they are.”
“You cannot blame yourself, Cecilia,” her mother warned her.
“No, no,” she shook her head, “I should have seen this coming. As I sit here, I try to think of what I saw in him—” that cowardly fop “—and all I can think is what I presumed to be excellence.
“He was handsome, titled, successful with nary a streak to his name,” she said. “Even father approved of him, and you know father is not one to be placated easily.”
“I do,” her mother nodded. Her slim shoulders slumped. “Cecilia, the best thing for you now is to stay out of the spotlight and keep your head down. Like every other scandal that has wreaked havoc in Town, this too shall pass.”
Cecilia wanted to believe her, but she did not see how it was possible that any of this would ever go away. Even ten years from then, she could see the snide looks and polite sneers. She would never live this down, much less stomach the prospect of living in a loveless marriage.
“Do you really believe so, mother?” she asked absently.
Margaret did not look so comforted herself.
“It is the best we can hope for now.” She strode over to the window and swept the curtains open, flooding the room with light.
“Your friends are coming by in under an hour, and you are going to meet them.” Turning away from the window, she added, “I’ll have your bathwater sent up. ”
When her mother closed the door behind her, she sat up and rubbed her face.
Horror and shame collided inside her. There was no doubt that she had made a bungle of things, given the whole of Town another scandal to eat. She did not know how she could explain her scandalous behavior.
She was never a person to let herself drink to excess or follow her impulses—but she had allowed both four nights ago, and now she had to pay for her choices.
And now I will be forced to marry Tressingham.
Shifting from her bed, she donned her robe and went to splash water over her face. “Can anything good come out of this? How will I ever live this down…” She almost set herself to tears once more.
“My lady,” a maid interjected from the doorway. “We will be filling the tub now.”
Cecilia scrubbed at her red eyes, “Go ahead.”
An hour later, seated in the blue drawing room, and paging through a book she was barely reading, Emma and Rosie swept in, worry painted on both faces.
“Oh god, Cecilia,” Rosie shook her head. “I cannot tell you how worried I am. How worried we are.”
At Emma’s emphatic nod, Cecilia closed her book, “How bad is it out there?”
“You’d rather not know,” Rosie told her, her face falling in sorrow.
Shaking her head brokenly, Cecilia murmured, “I already know. Half of the ton ladies are celebrating my fall from grace, and the others are using me as a teaching moment to their girls. I am now a proverb.”
“That is… the gist of it,” Emma said as a footman came in with a tea tray. “They are crowing over your ruination. Before this, I never realized how cruel some of the ton women can be.”
“I would not expect any less of them,” Cecilia sighed. “People love to see others fall. Somehow it soothes their empty souls.”
“Have you spoken with or seen Duke Tressingham since that night?” Rosie asked. “At all? Anything?”
“No,” Cecilia murmured. “But I suppose he will contact me soon. He promised Papa to get the Special License, and it takes a few days, even for a Duke.”
While fixing her tea, Emma said, “Do you suppose something good can come from this? His Grace is a rakehell. Maybe matrimony can help him see not only the error of his ways, but perhaps even change him to an honorable man.”
Cecilia let out a short laugh. “That is a fairytale. A leopard never changes its spots, and neither does a rake.” She set her tea down and wrapped her shawl tighter around her.
“Tressingham…” she sighed. “—well, he is my betrothed, so I suppose it’s best to call him Cassian, or Fitzroy…” her nose scrunched, “None of those seem right.”
“You can still call him your eternal enemy,” Rosie suggested.
“Or the thorn in your side,” Emma added.
She pursed her lip, “I suppose I’ll just call him His Grace. It is not anything too personal, nor does it make me get closer to him. His Grace told me that Gabriel was worse than a rake. With rakes, you know what you’re getting. No commitment, no pledges of love.
“Gabriel, on the other hand, held onto me like a fish on the line, feeding me crumbs of his affection while keeping the loaf for others. He said Whitmore would never marry me, and I am thinking he was right.”
She huffed. “I cannot believe I was so blinded by his good looks and impeccable reputation that I’d fooled myself into thinking he was a good man. When he’d asked me to marry him, I’d thought it would be a month or two before we’d walk down the aisle.
“The month or two turned into nearly two years with me still not only wearing the wool over my eyes but voluntarily pulling it further down,” Cecilia ranted on. “I do not know what I saw in that fob!”
“Maybe you should tell that to his face,” Emma nodded archly. “If he is only with you for the attention you bring to him, he is shallower than a dry pond in summer.”
Her eyes shifted between both Emma and Rosie. “Do you think that is a good thing to do?”
Tucking her feet to the side, Rosie said, “You are not a wallflower, Cecilia. Do you remember what the headmistress at Madame Rosenberry said about you?”
“That I am spirited, opinionated, and held a cutting wit sharper than a double-edged sword,” Cecilia smiled deprecatingly. “All the synonyms for a hoyden. Frankly, it would have been more straightforward if she had just said it.”
“You’ve muffled yourself for years, Cecilia,” Rosie put in. “For the sake of being a duke’s daughter and under the many propriety lessons you were forced to abide by. I think it’s time you shrug that blanket off and be the person you know you are.”
“And you’re being married off to Tressingham,” Emma encouraged. “A married woman has more freedom than a debutante.”
“So does a widow,” Cecilia muttered instantly. Her eyes clenched tightly in dismay. “I see what you mean.”
Chuckling softly, Emma said, “I think it's best that you do go and see Whitmore. Ask him, to his face, if he truly had no intention of marrying you, and I trust you have enough intuition to see through his lies.”
Sitting up, Cecilia thought the suggestion over. It would give her closure to know the truth coming from the source itself.
“What time is it?” She asked.
“One in the afternoon,” Emma replied.
“It’s time I sought out Gabriel once and for all,” Cecilia said hotly, getting up. “Help me find a dress.”
Cutting through the heated liquid of his bathhouse, Cassian reveled in the fiery temperature of the swimming water. The exercise calmed him, focused his erratic thoughts into a sensible line.
He’d already petitioned the Archbishop for the Special License, but that was as far as he’d gotten.
The bathhouse he’d had remodeled like an ancient Roman bath, decorated with replicas of Roman columns at each corner of the large rectangular pool.
His engineers were miracle workers too, making sure to fashion the pool with grates where heated coal could be placed under the furnishing to warm it. There was ingenious plumbing that took fresh water in and a valve that let the used water out into the pond beyond the house.
He got to one end of the pool and, with a quick flip, swam off to the other end. In the fleeting moment when he resurfaced for air, he heard the bathhouse door open and feet padding to him. Only when he got to the end of the pool did he hold onto the edge and shake the water from his head.
“What can I do for you, Somerton?” he asked.
Benjamin’s patent leather boots shone in the dim light. “Nothing much,” he grunted. “I just thought you’d like a friend to talk with.”
Hauling himself out of the pool, Cassian reached for the towel he had sat nearby. After drying off, he pulled on his robe. “The weather’s been lovely, hasn’t it?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “That is not what I am talking about.”
“Why not?” Cassian said blithely. “We could go to the countryside and have a hunting party?”
“With your new bride in tow?” Ben asked dryly. “I have heard a lot of stories about Lady Cecilia of late, but I am sure her being a sharpshooter is not one of them. Surely you know that everyone is talking about you and the good lady.”
“I’d be disappointed if they were not,” Cassian shrugged. “Bunch of civilized savages. Half of them are most likely spinning lies about us having an affair behind Whitmore’s back and that the kiss was the outcome of our liaisons.”
“I have not heard that one yet, but I will keep an ear out for it,” Ben replied. “Look, I know you were heading away from London for a while—”
“England,” Cassian corrected. “And not for a while. I had everything lined up to leave forever, and now all this…” he gazed at the plaster molding around the room. “Now I have a wife.”
“Scared?”
“Not exactly,” Cassian murmured while cocking his head to the left. “What I feel is… an unfathomable, sickening sense of dread that has carved a crater of inevitable doom and despair inside my gut.”
“And here I thought you were not the poetic sort,” Ben teased, “That almost rhymed.”
“Har, har.” Cassian mocked. Moving to a chair near the other side of the room, he sat.
Leaning on the wall near him, Ben asked, “It can’t be all that bad, can it? You are about to marry one of the most sought-after ladies in the ton. Surely you cannot despise that.”
“It is not who I am marrying that is the issue,” Cassian rolled his neck. “'Tis the fact that I am marrying at all that unsettles me. I am sure you know that a lot of gents have been bitten by the matrimonial infection, but I am impervious to the poisonous fangs.”
“Putting the marriage part to the side,” Ben pressed. “I know you and Lady Cecilia have a connection—”
“She despises the very air I breathe,” Cassian snorted. “That will make the best of marriages.”
“The only reason she hates you is because you gave her a reason to,” Ben added sagely. “You were like a mischievous boy tugging her pigtails, only magnified by ten. I can bet you she took so deeply it stayed with her for all these years.”
“And I’ll have a lifetime of apologizing and she’ll never forgive me,” Cassian said, his lips twisting, “For the taunt that night and for trapping her in a marriage she does not want. Which proper lady wants to be leg-shackled to a rakehell until she goes gray?”
“That’s the very thing,” Ben pressed on. “The church allows you to be married and have the marriage annulled in sixty days after the ink is dried. As long as it is not—”
“—Consummated,” Cassian finished, giving him a fleeting look. “I know the law as well as you do. I am a man of voracious appetites, Ben. Two months of celibacy will kill me before the damned period ends.”
“Eh, I don’t know about that…” Ben gave a sidelong glance. “What happened when you took that trip to Italy? You were gone for five months.”
“I had… friends in Italy,” Cassian said.
“Friends…” Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Or a paramour.”
Cassian’s shoulders slumped as he stood. “What difference does it make? I won’t be going that way again.”
“…She asked for a commitment,” Ben threw at his back. “Didn’t she? And you told her you could not give her one.”
“I told you,” Cassian looked over his shoulder. “We rakes have a natural immunity to such things. Now, will you join me for a coffee while we straighten out this marriage agreement?