by Lavinia Kent
His voice turned cold. “Under the circumstances, I would not have thought it was a presumption.”
Her head was beginning to ache, and for the second time that night, her stomach was roiling. “You are doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Assuming that you know best.”
“I do not see that there is an alternative.” His voice was gentler and he turned to face her. “I understand that you were not persuaded by my proposal, but surely now you understand that you will be ruined if we do not marry.”
She rubbed her temple. “Yes, I do understand my fate if I do not become your wife. But it is my fate. It really does not concern you.”
“How can you say that? I am here too. Surely our fates are intertwined.” He was only a few inches from her. It did not bring the comfort it always had before.
“But you are a man. No matter what happens, the talk of you will only last a day or two at most—will, in fact, probably last longer if you do marry me than if you leave now and never speak to me again.”
“I can’t believe that is true.”
“It is. I have moved in society far more than you. If we marry, there will always be sly comments, wondering if you are enough to keep me happy, and every time I even look at another man, it will be commented upon. Men will take great pleasure in pointing out who I am rumored to have shared my favors with. This would have been true even before tonight. After this, what reputation I had will be in shreds.”
“Not if we marry.” He spoke firmly and placed a hand on each shoulder. “Marry me, Clara, and let us face this together. I will leave here and go use all my contacts to get a special license. I will have you as my wife before the week is out.”
There was temptation. Oh, there was temptation. Whatever emotion he had spoken with right after they were discovered had faded, and now he spoke with gentle persuasion. She wanted to lay her face against his chest and pretend that everything could be right.
She would say yes. She would tell him of the baby. He would take her in his arms and tell her he loved her. They would marry, and he would have the faith that she could make her own decisions and would not seek to control her. There would be long hot summers at his estates and the excitement of the season each spring. She would create the home she had always dreamed of—a homey, safe place to raise their child with love.
But that was a fairy story. He was already demonstrating that he did not trust her to decide on her own. He had spoken with persuasion, but also with command. He really did not see that she had any possible choice to make—and perhaps she did not. It was hard to see how she could go on from here.
There must be a way.
She stepped back from him and slipped around the desk. “We cannot stay here any longer. The talk will only grow by the second. Perhaps we were not recognized—the lighting is dismal—or perhaps those who found us will hold their tongues. I will not make any decision without knowing the truth.” She turned and walked toward the door.
He tried to step ahead of her. “I will go first. I can report back what I learn.”
He was doing it again, taking away her control. She stepped quickly, almost running, and placed her hand upon the cold metal of the handle. “No. I must do this.”
She twisted the handle and stepped out into the hall.
She had left him. She had really left him. He had not bargained on it coming to this.
He pushed back the pain of her refusal and examined only the most manageable of emotions.
He had been shocked to be discovered. Somehow, the possibility had never entered his mind. It should have. Having sex in the library at a party was certainly not discreet or proper.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a darkened window and moved closer to straighten his hair, smoothing the slick waves back into place. He was amazed that no other mark of the evening’s activities remained on him.
He still needed to face the crowds below.
She would marry him. There was no other choice. Surely she would see that.
He walked to the door with a confidence he did not feel. She had spoken correctly when she said that he did not know how to face scandal. Since his parents’ deaths he had managed his life in order to avoid it.
There had been some talk soon after their deaths—a mysterious shooting did not go unnoticed—but his feelings had been numb at the time and he had been too busy trying to manage the debts they had left to be overly concerned with gossip.
He ran his fingers through his hair. Damn. He had to stop doing that or he’d be spending the evening staring at himself in the window trying to put it to rights. He yanked it flat again.
Had she been truthful in saying that she was capable of facing scandal after the life she had led? This was different from her other indiscretions.
This would ruin her.
She must see that.
Bloody hell. It was his duty to protect her. Grabbing the door handle, he stalked out into the hallway. He would do what was needed.
What was she going to do now? Walking out on him had been the right thing. She had no doubt about that. But what now?
She paused for a second outside the door, her innards turned to jelly. Always before when she had braved scandal and indiscretion, she had known before time what she courted. This time she was unprepared.
Still, she pulled back her shoulders and tilted her chin up. Let them talk. She was capable of handling this. She would not be bowed.
It was easier to face what was below than what was behind her in the library.
She took the first step and pretended that her legs were not shaking. She closed her eyes and imagined Masters’s surety that she would marry him, his assumption that she had no other choice.
She would prove him wrong.
She let anger build within her. Anger could protect you from almost anything.
Two more steps.
Three more.
She reached the top of the steps and was about to descend when Anna Struthers came running up. “Don’t go down there.”
“What? Why?” She took a step backward.
“Rumors are flying. They think it was you, but nobody is sure. The room was dark, and they could only see Masters clearly. If you come down these stairs, there will be no question.”
Word could not have spread that quickly. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Anna gave her the exasperated look one would give a difficult child. “You know exactly what I mean. I’ve been told by three different people in the last two minutes that Mr. Masters was caught at a most intimate moment in the upstairs library—although not all of them put it quite so delicately. Miss Thwaite informed me it was you. Someone else informed me it was Miss Thompson—although how the two of you could be mistaken, I am unsure. The third did not know who Masters was with.”
“Oh.” It was not much of an answer.
“So if you sneak down the servants’ stairs and enter through another door, it will seem less likely it was you,” Anna suggested. “I would claim you were with me, but I was dancing with Lord Wilcox, and you know what a gossip he is.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you for your help. I don’t know—”
“Nobody should be forced to choose marriage or disgrace.” With those few words, Mrs. Struthers turned and headed back down the stairs at a much more sedate pace than she ascended.
Clara headed back toward the far end of the hall. She was not exactly sure of the way to the servants’ stair, but it should not be hard to find.
She was slipping through the door when she heard the library door creak open and Masters walked out. He walked firmly toward the stairs and did not look back.
She was tempted to chase after him and inform him of her plan, but the risk of being seen with him was too great. She slipped forward and was gone.
The world froze as he descended the stairs. Masters had never seen anything like it before. The whole room full of people stopped and stared as he came into sight.
Only the orchestra played on.
It was all he could do to keep walking and not stop and stare back.
Then the whispers began. He could not hear a single distinct word, but instead, it was as if a swarm of bees had suddenly flown into the room. The buzz rose and filled the space, drowning out even the music from the orchestra.
Or perhaps it was only his head that was filled.
He forced his features to utter calm as he reached the main floor. He stepped forward and the crush parted before him. Nobody approached and nobody made eye contact.
He wondered if this was what Clara had lived with all these years. This knowledge that the whole room was speaking of you and not to you.
He paused and waited, seeing if anybody would approach.
No one did.
It was as if a magic circle had been drawn around him, one that nobody could cross and he could not leave.
He had heard of being alone in a crowd, but this was beyond the pale.
He walked toward Mr. Miles, a man he had known for years, and saw desperation flash in the man’s eyes. He stopped. It would be unfair to force the situation.
“Oh, there you are. Peter was just wondering what had become of you. He thought you’d come down right behind him.” Violet walked to him and smiled brightly.
At first he thought she did not know what had just happened, but then he caught her glance and saw full knowledge reflected there.
“I merely chose to linger over my brandy a few minutes. There is no crime in that.”
“Of course there is not.” Violet smiled and gave a gay little laugh for no reason that he could determine. “Come now, brother. Let me show you the portraits in the long gallery. They are really quite magnificent.”
Before he even knew what she was about, he found his arm taken, and he was leading her from the room. Or at least anybody watching them would have assumed he was leading; in truth Violet had her nails dug in deep and there was no choice but to move in the direction she chose.
He tried to stop. “I must find Clara. She—”
“Don’t even say her name, you fool,” Violet hissed.
“But—”
“I am rescuing you for the second time this night. Please behave.” She laughed again as if he had said something particularly witty, and then he found himself shoved through a door and dragged into an endless room filled with dour portraits.
Violet did not even pretend to look at them before beginning. “How could you? Have you no sense? No, of course you don’t. You are a man. Why do men never think of the consequences of their actions?”
“I do not know what you speak of. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must find Clara.”
Violet rolled her eyes at him. He remembered Clara looking at him with exactly that expression. Where had she gotten to? He had not seen her when he came down. How had she managed to escape into the crowd? Given his own reception, he would have thought it an impossibility.
“Do not be an idiot,” Violet said. “You know exactly what I am talking about. I am more shocked than I can ever explain that you would engage in such an activity. Mind you, I am not shocked by sex in the library, only that you would engage in it, my oh-so-proper brother.”
“I never said—”
“Believe me, you don’t need to, and at this point it would be impossible to deny. Lord Wainscott saw you, and was most clear in his identification. He is less sure of your companion, but gossip has already centered on the likely choices. Miss Thompson is leading at the moment—it is much more interesting to despoil the young and pure—but at some point soon it will be realized that she is most decidedly not a brunette, and then it will be too late. There are plenty who will be all too ready to believe this of Clara. I am probably the only one who cannot believe that she was foolish enough to become involved with you. Her other choices have been much more sensible. I’ve been afraid of this since I first saw you together, but I really did think she had much more sense.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t glare at me like that. You know exactly what I mean. You are hardly the choice for either a woman who likes fun or one who wishes a peaceful home. And I believe Clara desires both.”
He drew himself up stiffly, setting each vertebra of his spine in perfect alignment with the one below. He did not need this after the evening he’d had, but he could tell Violet was not about to desist. “I might be pressed to argue with the first, but the second? I can assure you that I intend to maintain a home of utmost tranquillity.”
“As long as she does exactly what you say. And if she doesn’t? How quiet will your home be then?”
“I can assure you that we will manage with great agreeability.”
“Gads, you sound pompous. I take it from your reply that you have asked her.”
“Yes.” Not that this was any of her business.
“Ah.” Violet suddenly lost her waspish tone. “She refused you. That is why you did not come down together. I thought at first that you would feel above marrying a woman of her reputation, despite the circumstances.”
He turned and walked away from her to stare up at one of the grim-faced paintings. Why did people never choose to look happy when posing for immortality? The man in question stared back out of the canvas with steely eyes and a decided downturn to his lips. Although perhaps it was only the weight of his jowls that kept his mouth at such an angle.
Masters grimaced; he was sure that his own expression was not far different at the moment. “I had actually asked her before events turned—difficult. Foolish man that I am, I let her turn me down twice—and I argued with her, trying to persuade her of my wisdom.”
Violet came up and laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder. “That must have been unbearable for you. And you say you argued. I can’t imagine that you didn’t just tell her what was to be.”
“I tried that, but the bloody woman refuses to see sense. She always wants to debate everything. I am constantly forced to defend my view.”
Violet laughed then, a whisper-light but genuine laugh. “And I bet you don’t always win. That is what really has your goat. This is not the first argument you have lost. I did wonder to see a woman—or a man, for that matter—who could stand up to your bluster.”
“Oh, she more than stands up to it. She pushes back just as hard, and I cannot always persuade her. I fear this may be just such a case.”
“Poor you.” The comment was sincere. He could hear it in the melody of her voice.
“Why can’t she understand that there is no choice? We must wed now.”
“Give her time. This has been as much a shock to her as to you.”
“I am not sure that eternity is enough time to make her see reason, and we certainly cannot wait that long. Every minute we delay only makes matters worse.”
Violet answered, her voice turned serious. “I know that it feels that way to you, but society is more forgiving than I ever imagined, as long as one pretends to play by their rules. Once you are wed, it will only be months before invitations start to reappear. And then another scandal will replace this one. It becomes ever so boring to discuss the same matter again and again.”
He wanted to grumble at her lightheartedness. This was his life. He needed control of it. His sister’s smiling face stared back at him, and for a moment he was tempted to ask if this was what it had been like when she first wed Dratton. Had she felt so little power?
Was this what Clara felt, what she complained of?
He pulled away from Violet’s touch, wanting to stand alone. He was a man who always knew the answers. Why now did they desert him?
He turned back to Violet, wishing he had the confidence in a happy outcome that her smile conveyed. “What do I do now? How do I persuade her?”
“Perhaps you don’t.” Her voice was calm.
“But I must—”
“I merely mean that perhaps you let her persuade herself. Clara is not a fool. Give her time, perhaps only a few hours, and she will see
the necessity of marriage. But let it be her decision.”
“Her decision.” He tried to understand the full import of those words.
“Yes, her decision—and not just because you think it is the best way to get her to come round, but because you truly think she deserves to—no, more than deserves, is entitled to—make her own decision. Do you think you can do that? If you cannot, I would advise that you run from this place and never think of her again.”
“I can hardly run off, leaving her to face this alone.” What sort of man did his sister think he was?
Violet strode back to him, her previous mirth forgotten. She caught his face between her hands and forced him to look at her. “I know you don’t think you can, but I promise you would both be happier living in scandal than being forced together in unhappiness. Clara needs a man who can let her be herself. Can you be that man?”
Violet dropped her hands and did not wait for him to form an answer. “Just think on it. I don’t think there is anything else you can do this night besides stand tall. Peter and I will stand with you, and I am sure Wimberley and Marguerite also.” Violet stepped away then, and for a moment dropped her face from his view. Her voice became quiet, and it was almost as if someone else spoke. “And, brother, know that I do this as much for Clara as for you. I must admit there is some part of me that feels you deserve this and more.” Then she raised her head again, and it was as if the words had never been said. Instead, she continued in her earlier tone, “Now the best defense is to pretend that it was nothing. I must go and find my fiancé. He will surely have more to tell me.”
Violet swept out of the room, her skirts swirling majestically about her. He stared after her blankly. Her words had left him more confused than ever.
Combing his fingers through his hair, he caught himself and scowled. The blasted woman was driving him to all sorts of unseemly habits. His life had been far more manageable without her.
So why did being without her seem so impossible?
Clara paused at the edge of the ballroom. She had a choice to make. Oh, she had many choices to make, but this one was simple. Did she enter or did she flee?