Chapter 23
The moment Gwen crossed the threshold of Fenwick House, she knew she had made a colossal mistake.
The door had barely clicked shut before Howard appeared in the entrance hall like a storm descending a mountainside. His hair was disheveled. His cravat hung askew. His eyes were blazing.
“There she is,” he roared. “The disgrace returns.”
Cordelia hurried out of the drawing room, pale and trembling. “Howard, please, do not shout. The servants will hear.”
“Let them hear,” he snarled. “Let the entire street hear. Your daughter has spent the night God knows where, doing God knows what, and you expect me to whisper?”
Gwen stood frozen, her breathing heavy, every excuse she had rehearsed evaporating into thin air. She had foolishly thought that the morning air would clear her mind. That she would find the words on the carriage ride home. That something, anything, would come to her.
Nothing ever did.
And she cursed Victor for it. For leaving her at the front steps. For watching her disappear into this inferno without a word of support. For pretending that she meant nothing after holding her in his arms all night.
If he loved her, if any part of him cared, would he not be here now? At her side. Holding her hand. Defending her.
The thought was like acid in her throat.
Howard strode toward her, each step a threat. “Where have you been, Gwendoline? Where?”
Gwen lifted her chin. “I went for a ride.”
“All night?” Howard spat. “You expect me to believe that? You stagger in here with no chaperone and no shame!”
“I had a companion,” she lied.
“Oh,” he drawled. “Do you mean the man whose scent is all over your cloak?”
Her heart lurched.
How does he know? Impossible. He is blustering. Guessing. It is pure chance that he touched the truth.
Still, her silence betrayed her.
Howard advanced until he stood inches away. “Who is he?”
Gwen swallowed. “No one you know.”
“Aha!” His mouth twisted. “You admit it.”
“I admit nothing,” Gwen snapped, her voice trembling with fury and humiliation. “Nothing at all.”
His face darkened. “You dare lie to me, after vanishing for an entire night without an escort. A lady does not wander about alone unless she is seeking the bed of a man.”
Cordelia gasped. “Howard, please.”
But Gwen’s temper had flared. “Perhaps a lady wanders because she cannot breathe beneath her own roof.”
Howard faltered, caught off guard.
Gwen pressed on, anger burning through every fear she had learned to swallow. “Perhaps a lady wishes for freedom. For dignity. For air not fouled by judgment. You claim to be a guardian, yet you behave as a jailer!”
“Be silent, you trollop,” Howard growled.
“I will not,” Gwen hissed. “I am finished being silent.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened in terror. “Gwen, please. Stop talking. He is furious.”
“I know he is furious,” Gwen said, her voice cracking. “He is always furious. At me. At you. At the entire world. And we tiptoe around him as if he were a glass about to shatter.”
Howard’s eyes narrowed to murderous slits.
“You think I have not noticed?” Gwen balled her hands into tight fists. “That every breath we take must be measured so as not to provoke you? We live beneath your moods. We flinch at your footsteps. We brace for your temper as if it were a blow.”
“Enough,” Howard barked.
But Gwen could not stop. She had kept these words caged behind her teeth for years, and now they poured out of her like water from a breached dam.
“You are cruel,” she spat. “Cruel to my mother. Cruel to me. I am tired of your disdain. I am tired of your insults. I am tired of pretending you have ever once behaved as a father. You have not. You are a bully in a borrowed title.”
Cordelia sank onto the settee, burying her face in her hands. “Gwen, stop. You do not know what you are doing.”
But Gwen did know.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
She was telling the truth.
Howard stood completely still. Stillness was more terrifying than rage. His expression did not change. He did not interrupt. He simply watched her as she emptied years of hurt, fury, and grief at his feet.
“Furthermore,” she added, her chest heaving, “I refuse to shrink myself because you cannot control your temper. I refuse to live with a man who treats us like burdens. If my father saw how you—”
The slap came so swiftly that she did not see his hand until after it struck her.
Her head snapped to the side. Her vision blurred. A ringing filled both ears, high and sharp like a kettle screaming. Pain exploded across her cheek and radiated down her neck. She stumbled, barely catching herself on the newel post.
Her mother screamed. “Howard, no! No, please.”
Gwen tasted blood.
For a moment, she simply stared at Howard, shock paralyzing her. She had always imagined what it might feel like. She had always feared it. But nothing prepared her for the sting, the heat, the humiliation of being struck like a child, like a nobody, like something beneath the heel.
Howard lowered his hand slowly, as if the blow had cost him nothing. His face was terrifyingly calm.
“Have you finished?” he asked.
Gwen could not speak. The ringing in her ears drowned every thought.
Cordelia rushed forward, but Howard extended one hand, palm outward, and she halted immediately, trembling.
“Do not touch her,” he commanded. “She must learn.”
Through the throbbing pain, Gwen felt a flicker of something unrecognizable. Not fear, but hate.
The ringing in her ears faded slowly, replaced by the thunder of her own pulse.
Howard stood before her like a judge pronouncing a sentence. “Now,” he said calmly, “we will speak like rational creatures.”
Rational?
The word nearly made her laugh.
Howard clasped his hands behind his back, assuming a pose of dignified authority. “I have discovered something, Gwendoline,” he began. “Something quite enlightening. Would you like to know what it is?”
Gwen pressed one hand to her cheek. It burned fiercely. Her vision swam, yet she lifted her chin.
Howard chuckled humorlessly. “You see, I know what you did.”
Gwen’s stomach tightened. He could not possibly know. He could not. Not about Victor. Not about the lodge. Or last night.
“You,” he said, pointing at her, “were the one who spread those rumors about yourself last Season.”
Gwen’s blood ran cold.
Cordelia gasped. “Howard, no! That cannot be.”
Howard ignored her, his eyes fixed on Gwen. “Do not deny it. A gentleman at the club mentioned overhearing your little friends bragging about it. They said you were the mastermind.”
Gwen’s breath stuck painfully in her chest.
Of all the secrets she feared being revealed, this was the one she had never expected to surface first.
Howard stepped closer. “Imagine my surprise. For months, I believed the worst of you. I thought the rumors were true. I thought you had behaved indecently and deserved the consequences.”
He smiled. It was not kind.
“But it seems I was mistaken. You are not immoral. Only just profoundly stupid.”
Gwen’s knees weakened.
Howard leaned forward. “Do you understand what you have done to this family? People laughed at me. At your mother. Whispered about us. Mocked us. I have fought tooth and nail to restore my standing at the club, all while defending a fool who orchestrated her own ruin.”
Cordelia’s voice cracked. “Howard, she was frightened. She was—”
“She was incompetent,” he said sharply. “If she wished to destroy herself, she ought to have done it without dragging my name down with hers.”
Gwen swallowed, her throat tight. “I am sorry, Mama,” she whispered.
Howard seized her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Sorry does not improve our standing. Sorry does not erase gossip. But I know what will.”
Her pulse fluttered wildly. “What do you mean?”
“A husband,” he said. “A respectable one. A man of rank. Perhaps even a title if you are fortunate. A marriage will wipe the slate clean. Your value has diminished, but it’s not beyond salvage.”
Gwen felt physically ill. “I am not ready to marry.”
“I do not care what you are ready for,” Howard snapped. “I have made inquiries. Some gentlemen might be persuaded. Some who will overlook your history if the match benefits them.”
Cordelia clutched her shawl. “Howard, please. She is still young.”
“She’s far too old already,” he snarled. “And too troublesome to leave unwed. She will be married. Soon. And unless she behaves, I will choose the man myself.”
Gwen’s heart thudded against her ribs. Images flashed through her mind. Men she had never met. A household she did not choose. A loveless bed. A cage she could not escape.
“No,” she whispered.
Howard straightened. “Yes. And until I secure the match, you will not leave this house. Not for air. Not for company. Not for a ball. Not for church. Not even to walk through the gardens.”
Her breath came too fast. “You cannot imprison me.”
“Watch me.” He seized her wrist in a vice-like grip.
Cordelia surged forward. “Howard, please. Gwendoline.”
But Howard dragged Gwen toward the stairs, unmoved by the tears streaming down her mother’s face.
Gwen stumbled up each step, her cheek throbbing, her wrist aching, terror and fury warring beneath her skin.
“You will stay in your room,” Howard ordered. “And you will think long and hard about obedience. And the hand that feeds you.”
They reached the landing, her heart hammering still. He shoved her through the doorway of her bedchamber.
“Howard, please!” Cordelia cried from the hall. “Do not do this. I beg you.”
“Silence, Cordelia,” Howard snapped. “I am handling it.”
He turned to Gwen. She stood in the center of her room, her breathing ragged, her hair disheveled, her cheek blazing red. He looked at her as one might look at a horse that needed breaking.
“You will be married,” he said. “Until then, you belong to this house.”
Then he stepped out, pulled the key from the outside lock, and shut the door.
A metallic click echoed through the room.
Then another.
Then silence.
For several breaths, Gwen did not move.
The bolt clicked, and the sound went straight through her, too loud, too final. For a heartbeat, she simply stood there, staring at the closed door like it might rattle open again.
It did not.
She bolted across the room and seized the handle. The metal bit into her palms. She yanked once, then again, harder. The door stubbornly refused to give so much as a shiver.
A small, helpless laugh escaped her. “Of course. Why would it ever be easy?”
Her wrist throbbed where Howard had gripped her. She wrapped her fingers around it gingerly, feeling the heat beneath her skin, the deep ache that promised a bruise by dawn.
For one wild instant, she pictured Victor on the other side of the door, shoving it open, dragging her out.
Ridiculous. He was nowhere near her. Why would he be?
The room felt wrong. Too dim. Too still. The shadows from the dying fire stretched long across the carpet, and the quiet prickled at her nerves until she rubbed at her arms, trying to shake it off.
Do not be weak. Weakness helps no one. Least of all Mama.
Gwen crossed to the window and shoved aside the curtain, letting in a strip of moonlight.
The street below lay empty save for a single lamplighter making his way down the row.
No carriage. No guards. No movement from Fenwick House at all.
The world continued as though she were not imprisoned behind a locked door like a troublesome child.
Her throat tightened.
She paced, hands clasped behind her back, the way she did when she tried to reason her way through something difficult.
Howard would not leave her here forever. He would return for her in the morning. He would announce her betrothal, perhaps even drag some unsuspecting gentleman into the drawing room to examine her like a broodmare. She would be married within the month.
“No.” Her voice sounded foreign in the hush. “I will not allow it.”
Her gaze fell to her writing desk. Slowly, she went to it.
Her fingers hovered over the small stack of stationery. For a long moment, she simply stared, her mind blank. Then emotion surged up, hot and wild, and she seized a quill.
The first letter she wrote ended up crumpled on the floor. So did the second. The third, she forced herself to write slowly.
Your Grace,
Forgive me. I know I have no right to leave you words you never asked to receive…
Her hand shook. She set the quill down before she blotted the ink with tears.
She did not finish the letter. She folded the half-written sheet with trembling fingers and tucked it into her bodice. She did not know what she intended to do with it. She only knew that the words inside her were too heavy to hold alone.
Voices murmured faintly in the corridor. A footman’s step. The whisper of fabric. Then nothing.
She sank down onto the seat by the window, drawing her knees close, the moonlight silvering her loosened hair. She pressed her forehead to the glass.
“I am not afraid,” she whispered.
Images of her mother flashed before her.
Sweet, gentle Mama with her soft hands and softer heart. How will she survive alone in this house without someone to stand between her and Howard’s temper?
Tears burned, but she blinked them back fiercely.
She would escape. For her mother’s sake. For her own. But she needed a plan, one Howard could not predict.
Her pulse steadied. Her breathing slowed. Somewhere within the dark tangle of her despair, resolve began knitting itself together, small but stubborn.
Howard may have locked her in. But he had not broken her.
Not tonight.
Not ever.