Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“You had me worried witless!” Frances cried, crushing Deborah to her chest.
Struggling to breathe from the tightness of her mother’s embrace, Deborah had no choice but to push out of her mother’s arms.
“I am so sorry, Mama,” she gasped, then drew in a deep breath. When she caught it, she gave Frances an apologetic look and took her hands into her own.
“I never meant to worry you,” she earnestly replied.
Francis shook her head, her green eyes still shining with worry.
“You have no idea what it was like to find you missing from bed this morning,” her mother scolded. “After Hester disappeared the way she did, I had feared that you had gone next.”
Deborah bit her bottom lip, fearing that she was about to upset her mother even more.
“About that, Mama,” she said hesitantly. She had thought about what she was going to say to her on the ride in and had decided that she would share only the smallest of details.
“I have something to tell you.”
Frances' eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms. Their mother had once been a kind, patient woman, but their troubles had hardened her. Especially when it came to her children.
“Pray, what is it?” Frances asked warily.
Deborah drew in another deep breath, praying for strength.
“I am engaged,” she announced, “I am to marry the Duke of Calder by mid-next week.”
Frances’ milky complexion paled so quickly that Deborah feared she was going to faint.
“Mama?” Deborah asked, taking a step toward her.
Frances shook her head, pedaling backward from Deborah’s outstretched arms.
“You were with a man last night?” She hissed. “After what happened with your sister? After how she was destroyed? Have you learned nothing, you insolent girl!”
Deborah’s worry shifted to anger almost at once. It had been three years since Hester left, and today her name had been spoken more in the last few minutes than during the entirety of her absence.
“Do not speak to me about Hester, Mama,” Deborah shot back, “When she went through her scandal all you did was lock yourself in your room and feel sorry for yourself! You never even tried to help her!”
“I tried to stop her from that auction!” Frances shouted, “I told your uncle to find something else!”
“There was nothing else!” Deborah shouted back, “You made sure of that when you allowed Uncle Archibald to use our dowry funds for his investments! If you had not done that perhaps Hester would have done better on the marriage mart!”
“He needed those funds to save the family!” Frances countered.
“But he did not! He failed at his investments. Again! Just as I feared. Just as you knew who he would because you know how poorly he handled his own money before he inherited father’s!”
“Deborah, please,” Frances said, already sounding exhausted despite the early hour of the day, “You know your uncle has only tried to help this family.”
Deborah rubbed at her temples, grateful that Cedric had simply dropped her off at her family’s house instead of insisting upon coming inside.
She had assumed that the conversation was not going to be a pleasant one, but after three years of silence, she had not expected her mother to bring up Hester, and that had unleashed the deep well of fury she’d strained to keep hidden.
“I know,” she relented, “And I know that he only presented the option of the auction. You tried to insist against it. It was Hester who made her choice. But Mama, you must see that you and he are partly responsible! If you would have allowed Hester to debut on time, before Uncle started losing our money. If you would have laid aside the dowries-”
“Enough!” Frances boomed, stomping her foot as she clenched her fists, “We are not discussing this anymore! I cannot change the past, and I cannot allow this marriage! Who knows who saw you galivanting with him last night?! Who knows that you spent the night with him last night?! For all we know, the rumor mill could already be churning!”
“He is not like the Earl, Mama. The Duke of Calder is going to marry me,” Deborah insisted.
He, in fact, practically blackmailed me, but I will keep that to myself.
“What were you doing with him last night?” Frances demanded, taking a step toward Deborah, “Where did you meet him? What did you do for him that has him wanting to marry you so quickly?”
Multiple answers appeared in Deborah’s mind, but with how upset her mother was, she already knew she would not listen to them all. So she decided to tell her the truth that would leave her speechless. Perhaps then, their argument might finally stop.
“I went to the auction,” she stated, tilting her chin up as she met her mother’s eyes. They widened with shock just as she had suspected.
“The auction?” Frances whispered, “The same one that-”
“Yes,” Deborah confessed, “And it was the Duke of Calder that purchased me. His circumstances are quite different, and he has his reasons for an expeditious marriage that are frankly not my business to share.”
Frances gaped at her in silent shock.
“He has gone to acquire a special license,” Deborah went on, hating how the morning was going thus far. “When he returns, he will ask you for my hand. If you say yes, you will be paid for it.”
Frances’ eyes narrowed.
“Paid for it? How do you mean?”
Deborah did not answer. She knew what Cedric had promised, but she wasn’t going to give her family false hope.
“You will see,” Deborah said, done with the conversation, “Now if you will excuse me, I am going to find Gracie and spend some time with her before I have to leave.”
Deborah left the front hall without another word, leaving her mother to stand there in shocked silence. She would feel guilty about this later, she knew. For now, though, all she felt was rage.
“Fif…” Frances gasped.
Deborah looked from her mother to her Uncle Archibald, then to Cedric. While Frances and Uncle Archibald looked as if they could be knocked over by a feather, Cedric appeared as bored as ever as he waited for their response.
“Fifty thousand pounds,” Uncle Archibald rasped, finishing the words Frances had failed to say.
“Correct,” Cedric agreed, shrugging his shoulders.
He pulled a hand out of his pocket and tapped the desk he was leaning on.
“I have a banker’s note for such an amount here, as well as the special license required for Miss Hunt and me to expedite our wedding.
Today is Sunday. We will be married on Wednesday.
It will be held at nine a.m. at my London estate.
I suppose we may take time to enjoy a wedding breakfast, but then Miss Hunt and I will be heading back to my house in Calder post haste. ”
“But…but that is so little time to prepare,” Frances said, still obviously shocked.
Again, Cedric gave a bored shrug.
“I enjoy watching dramas, Lady Hunt, but I do not prefer to participate in them. Thus, our wedding will be anything but a spectacle. Friends and family only. No bridal showers or stag parties. Just a wedding.”
Frances turned to Deborah, who had been watching the meeting unfold by the door.
“Is…are you sure this is what you want?” Frances asked her.
Deborah pressed her lips together, torn for a moment between truth and necessity.
“Yes,” she said softly, ignoring the way her heart quivered as she spoke.
“So,” Cedric huffed, pushing himself away from the desk. “She says yes, I say yes. All you two have to do is say yes, and we are done with this whole ordeal. What say you? Shall you allow your daughter to become the Duchess of Calder or not?”
A ripple of shock moved through Deborah.
She had known, obviously, that Cedric was a Duke, but it was only then that she realized that she would be his Duchess.
The title would give her access to so much social power.
Power, perhaps, she could use to ruin Sylvester.
Suddenly, she was much more interested in the marriage than before.
“Say yes, Mama,” Deborah encouraged, walking toward them. “This is what you wanted for me, did you not? A marriage to a high-ranking noble in good financial standing? A noble who does not care about our past troubles? Well, here he is.”
“A noble that is also willing to contribute an easement to your troubles,” Cedric added, then picked up the banker’s note and waved it around.
“This house is…lovely,” Cedric mused, his brow raised as he inspected the small room, “But I know it is not what you are used to. You can stop renting your estate in the center of Mayfair to those French nobles now. You can move out of the outskirts and back into the center of it all with your heads held high. Would that not be pleasant for all of you? For young Grace? Her time on the marriage mart is coming soon, I believe. Would you not want her to have better chances?”
“Enough,” Deborah snapped. All gazes shot to her, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She should not have been surprised that Cedric knew those things, but to use such facts to drive his point home seemed most cruel.
“I mean, forgive me, Your Grace,” she willed herself to say as she gave him a stiff curtsey, “However, I am sure my mother and uncle are well aware of what good could come from this match.”
She raised her eyes and found him giving her a wry look as his lips curved into a smirk. Slowly, he turned his head toward Frances and Uncle Archibald.
“My potential betrothed is right,” he said with a dramatic sigh, “I was overzealous with my words. Do forgive me, I implore you, and allow me to marry this young lady who is able to keep me so in check.”
His smirk turned into a rather convincing grin, prompting Deborah to raise an amused brow.
“So lovely,” he sighed dramatically, and Deborah narrowly avoided rolling her eyes. For a man who claimed not to want to be part of the drama, he was very good at playing in it.
“So, what say you, Lady Hunt and Viscount Fernfield? Give everyone in this house a bright future, including yourselves? Or wallow in your…present situation?” Cedric asked, turning his attention to them.
Deborah studied her mother’s face. Studied her uncle’s as well. Neither looked convinced.
“For me,” she said softly, her nails biting into her arms as she mustered the last word. “Please.”
Frances’ eyes shone with tears as she looked to her daughter, then let out a shuddering breath.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice trembling with residual doubt, “You may marry my daughter.”