Loving the Wrong Lord

by Bethany M. Sefchick

  That was the problem. Josie didn’t have faith. Not really. She pretended to, but in the end, she secretly believed that those she trusted would inevitably let her down. That was simply the way of the world. Her world, anyway.

  “I don’t want to go to the ball.” Josie really didn’t.

  Tabby took her friend’s hand. “I know. But you need to be there. Trust me, Josie. I won’t let you down. I promise. Others might have in the past, but I will not.”

  So, against Josie’s better judgment, she allowed Tabby to lead her downstairs to Phin’s ballroom where Cilla’s birthday festivities were already well underway.

  The place was a veritable crush, with several other local families having been invited to attend, along with the house party guests. Josie also noted that some of Phin’s London friends were there as well, including Lord and Lady Ardenton, Lord and Lady Hallstone, and Lord and Lady Covington. Perhaps Tabby had been wrong about the Bloody Duke attending tonight’s ball.

  Or perhaps she wasn’t, for there, in the far corner, glowering at anyone who dared to approach him, was Lord Candlewood himself, his duchess beside him all smiles and in good humor. A more unlikely pair she would never see, Josie decided. Then she paused at the thought.

  Lord Nicholas Rosemont and Lady Eliza Deaver were an odd pair, more so than most Society marriages. They had also begun their relationship mired in scandal. As had most of Phin’s friends. Hadn’t Lady Covington’s father attempted to sell her into marriage to Lord Hallstone’s father at one point? Yes, Josie was certain she had read that somewhere. And there was something about firearms and kidnapping where Lord and Lady Ardenton were concerned, she believed.

  If there was a way to prove Lady Margaretta’s accusations untrue, could Phin and Josie have a future together? Possibly. It was a possibility she was now willing to consider, anyway. At least more willing than she had been only an hour ago.

  Maybe there was hope for the future, after all.

  Maybe these people, unlike her blood family, would not let her down and disappoint her.

  So, when Viscount Sutton asked Josie to stand up with him for a country dance, she accepted. When the Earl of Warwick requested they take a turn about the room, she indulged him. And when Lord Snowly suggested a waltz, Josie agreed.

  This night was the first time she had spent any degree of time with other people, even though she had been at this house party from the beginning. It also made Josie begin to see that, if for some reason, she had no future with Phin, she did still have a future. Everything was not lost. The rest of her life didn’t have to be this dull, loveless, bleak thing that she had imagined. It could be…more.

  Did she love Phin? Josie was coming to suspect that she did, but even if that were true? She also understood that she would be fine even if everything fell apart.

  For so many years, Josie’s life had been dependent upon the whims of a man. It still was, to a degree. After all, she was still Lord Radcliffe’s ward in a manner of speaking. However, Tabby was not much different – perhaps even worse because Lord Averill wasn’t about to allow his precious daughter out of his or his wife’s sight for very long – and yet she was free in a way that Josie was not. It wasn’t because Tabby was more sophisticated.

  No, it was because Lady Tabitha Maxwell had determined long ago to chart her own path in life as much as she was able. Yes, she was restricted, but she worked within those restrictions to still manage to have something for herself. She also didn’t care what anyone thought of her for doing so.

  She was among the bravest and boldest women that Josie had ever met, and yet, by all accounts, she was also the most cossetted. One was truth. The other was gossip. And neither seemed to bother Tabby in the slightest. She embraced who she was, and that was that.

  Josie had never taken those kinds of risks because she was too afraid. Afraid of gossip and afraid of being labeled. Afraid of being haunted by scandal. Afraid that, at heart, she really was her father’s daughter. She wasn’t, and it was time to stop worrying that she was.

  If, in the end, Josie could not secure Phin’s love – for during Tabby’s scolding, Josie had concluded that she did love Phin – then she would move on. She would find someone else to call her husband. He might not be the love of her life, but she would love him in her own way. She would settle for nothing less.

  And the gossips? Well, they could go hang.

  They no longer mattered to her. Just as they didn’t matter to these people. She had simply been too sheltered to realize that gossip was merely words. It couldn’t hurt her. At least not if she didn’t allow it to.

  Josie was about to seek out Phin and tell him about her new-found revelations when a high, screeching voice filled the ballroom. Suddenly, Josie’s newly discovered confidence wavered just a bit.

  “My love! There you are, my darling, darling duke! It is so lovely that we can finally be open with our affections!” And with that, the music that had filled the air also died.

  Just like everyone else present, Josie looked up in time to see Lady Margaretta mincing into the ballroom like a queen, her mother trailing behind. The young woman was clad in a scandalous gold and silver dress that reminded Josie more of fabric remnants than an actual gown. She wore a large cluster of diamonds in her hair and a slightly smaller strand at her throat. She’d also done it up rather brown and seemed to have a bit of whore’s rouge on her cheeks.

  In short, she looked like a whore. She also apparently didn’t care.

  Across the ballroom, Cilla, who had been dancing with Lord Snowly, reached for a small Egyptian statue she had been given as a gift earlier in the evening. From the expression on Cilla’s face, it looked as if she was ready to bash Lady Margaretta’s skull in. Only a staying hand from Snowly seemed to stop her but only barely.

  The conniving woman reached for Phin as if to take his arm, but he jerked away from her touch, making Margaretta pout.

  “Come now, my darling. We discussed this. You have ruined me with your uncontrollable lust.” Josie wanted to gag at that comment because really, what sort of person spouted such tripe? This was no gothic novel! “We must admit to our wrong-doing and go blissfully to the altar as propriety demands. We must show the world our love and admit to our passions!”

  “Or you could admit, madame, that it is not so much the duke’s body that you admire but rather his bank accounts and title.”

  From the corner where he had been glowering, Lord Candlewood rose like an avenging, angry god. His wife, Eliza, stood beside him with a sweetly serene look on her face. Yet Josie had the impression that if crossed, Lady Candlewood could be just as deadly as her husband. If not more so.

  “You had best close your mouth, dear,” the duchess offered, “for you are beginning to resemble a fish, and one really doesn’t want that while in mixed company, does one? Especially not in front of your future husband.” When Margaretta winced, Eliza Rosemont smiled, her barb hitting its mark.

  There was a rustling from behind, and Lady Temins pushed her way through the crowd. “I’ll not have you speak to my daughter that way!” she roared like a lioness ready to do battle. “Lord Trew defiled my daughter, and I will see them wed to satisfy honor! If you don’t believe me, just pick up any paper! It’s all there!”

  “I did nothing of the sort!” Josie had wondered how long Phin would remain quiet when it was his life being decided. “I have never touched Lady Margaretta! And, God willing, I never will.”

  The Bloody Duke turned and glared a Phin. “Will you leave this to me? Please? I have so little fun these days.” Then he turned back to Lady Temins. “Or perhaps your daughter is a liar.”

  Josie, along with everyone else, gasped. Candlewood was pushing the limits of propriety, even for him.

  “How dare you?” Lady Temins hissed. “I shall see you ruined. I don’t give a damn who you are.”

  Josie wanted to run. She wanted to be anywhere than here where she would be forced to watch Phin agree to wed Lady Margaretta. Whi
le she was stronger than she had been only a few days ago, she was not that strong. However, before she could flee, Eli Queensbury appeared at her side.

  “Not so fast, my lady,” he said with a smile, as if he knew precisely what she was planning to do. “You are staying right here. And don’t even think of running. All of the exits are covered.”

  He was right, of course. As she looked around the room, Josie could see Phin’s friends positioned at all possible points of escape, even the hidden hallway that led to the supposedly-inescapable parlor. Which, as it turned out, wasn’t an inescapable as Phin believed.

  “Why?” Josie hissed at him under her breath. “Why must you torture me like this? I thought you liked me well enough.”

  Queensbury smiled. “Because I do not think this incident will end the way you believe.” He grasped Josie’s shoulders and turned her back to the scene before them. “Just watch.”

  “You can try to destroy me, wench, but it won’t work. Though I do admire your dedication to the effort.” The Bloody Duke yawned as if he was bored, though Josie had the feeling he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was toying with Lady Temins as a cat would toy with a mouse – and enjoying it just as much. “Just as your plan to trap Lord Fullbridge into marriage with your shrew of a daughter won’t work. Besides, everyone with a tiny fraction of a functioning brain knows that he is in love with Lady Josephine. Unless, of course, you are as dense as your daughter and unable to tell one gentleman from the next before running to the gossips in order to force a marriage.”

  “He defiled her!” Lady Temins shrieked again, though she no longer sounded quite as certain as she had a moment ago. “And I did no such thing! Lord Fullbridge might be panting after the Marshwood chit, but he took my daughter’s innocence, and she may be with child!”

  “He did not lay a hand on your daughter!” Candlewood roared, obviously tiring of the game. “But Lord Harlow did, and if your daughter is pregnant with some man’s bastard, I have it on excellent authority that it is his!” Slowly, the Bloody Duke turned to where Lord Harlow stood in front of the terrace windows. “You bedded the chit. Didn’t you, Harlow? And after I specifically told you to trot on home and be a good boy after that incident with Lady Penelope.” He made a tisking sound. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  The man looked at if he wanted to run, but both Lord Ardenton and Lord Hallstone blocked his path. Josie knew little about Ardenton, but Hallstone was Grier’s brother. He was large and burly and just then looked very, very formidable.

  “I…ah…” The man was squirming. “We are in love,” the man finally offered. “We could not help ourselves. And, well, I need a wife. You know that I do.”

  Lady Temins let out an ear-splitting screech and launched herself at Harlow. “You bastard! First the duke’s money and then my daughter! What part of that plan did you not understand! I spelled it out for you in small words so that you would understand!”

  Harlow reared back and went crashing into a side table holding a vase of flowers. That vase toppled into another and then another until the entire row fell like a child’s set of dominos set upon their edges. Not to be outdone, Lady Temins continued advancing on the poor man, trodding upon hems and ripping gowns as she went, causing quite an uproar with the other women present.

  “Enough!” Candlewood roared, and all at once, as quickly as the chaos had begun, it all stopped. “Gentlemen.” He looked at each of his friends in turn. “I think it is time to clear the ballroom so that Lady Priscilla can continue with her birthday party.” Then he bowed low over Cilla’s hand. “My deepest apologies, my lady, for creating such a spectacle on your special night. Allow my wife and me to make it up to you with a week at our summer home in Bath.”

  Cilla’s lips twitched. “No apologies necessary, your grace, so long as you remove those three from my ballroom.” She paused, as if considering the offer. “Though I will take the week in Bath if you were serious about the offer.”

  “I was,” the Bloody Duke assured her. “Eliza and I will make it happen. Our secretary will be in contact next week some time.”

  Then, with more grumbling, a little more screeching from Lady Temins and some rather false wailing from Lady Margaretta, the instigators were cleared from the ballroom, servants set everything back to rights, and slowly, ever so slowly, the party began to return to normal.

  Even Lord Queensbury vanished, apparently satisfied his job was done.

  It was a scandal perfectly made for a gossip rag, and yet, for once, Josie felt no desire to flee. However, from the expression on Phin’s face as he approached her, it was evident he did not feel the same.

  “Josie. I am sorry. You cannot know how much.” She had never seen such a defeated look on his face.

  “It was not your fault, Phin,” she assured him. “It was Lady Temins and Lady Margaretta. Lord Harlow and possibly a few others. But it was not yours. You did nothing wrong.”

  Phin shrugged. “Except that I did. Had I simply admitted what was in my heart from the first? Lady Margaretta and her mother would not have had a chance to gain any sort of hold for their plan to trap me into marriage.”

  “In your heart? I do not understand.” Josie felt as if the floor was shifting beneath her – and not in a good way.

  Phin reached for her hand. “I love you, Josie. I have since that first night. Except that, like you, I was too afraid of gossip and scandal to court you as I should have. I said that I wasn’t afraid, but in truth? I was. I did not wish to put Philip through the agony of having to one day read about yet another disgrace in his father’s love life and that is only one of many reasons for my actions. Had I done as I wished, and come after you a month ago? We would not be where we are now.”

  “But I was afraid as well,” Josie reminded Phin. “It was only tonight that I realized that I loved you enough to weather the gossip and the scandal – truly weather it – and not care. Because I do love you, Phin. I love you enough to give you up to another if that would have made you happy. I came to that realization as well. But now there is no reason we cannot be together.”

  Phin sighed, and it sounded as if the weight of the word was crushing him. “Except that there is a reason. I love you, Josie. I love you with all of my heart. Which is why I cannot put you through this,” he gestured to the ballroom where servants were still sweeping up bits of glass vases, “not again. Your father nearly destroyed your life, and those rumors, though they may quiet, will never fully fade away. The same is true for me, as well. Between Faith’s passing and what happened here tonight? I refuse to be the man who sends you back to Cumbria in disgrace.”

  “You won’t,” Josie assured him, though that was mostly because she wouldn’t be going back to Cumbria. “I can deal with the scandal and the gossip, no matter how wretched it might be. I am stronger than I ever imagined.”

  “But you see,” Phin sighed, “I find that I cannot.” Leaning down, he kissed Josie on the forehead. “I love you, Josephine Marshwood, and you deserve better in life than the scandal I will bring you. So, go. Find another gentleman to wed, and I pray that eventually, he can give you what I cannot.”

  Then, with one final look of regret, Phin turned and left, leaving Josie standing in the middle of the ballroom, both shocked and heartbroken.

  And for the first time since she had come to London with her father, a man who had very nearly destroyed her life, Josie broke down into silent tears. Her father, a man she had not loved, at least not in the end, had not managed to break her, but Phin, a man she loved with all of her heart, had.

  And he had done so in under five minutes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Town Tattler

  (Late Afternoon Edition)

  I wish I could say that things have changed as our latest London season draws to a close, dear readers, but not much has. The parties and balls and musicales continue to wind down as some of our more prominent families have already fled to the country. Some never even returned to London a
fter Lord Fullbridge’s latest disaster of a house party.

  I am told, exclusively, that the man has yet to emerge from his town home here in London, though I cannot confirm that to be the case. I do know for certain that he has not enjoyed any entertainments since he has returned to Town. Is he heartbroken over the loss of Lady Josephine? I dare say that he is, but I would also add that it is his own foolish fault. Men! They can be so pig-headed at times! Everyone is gossiped about, dear readers! Everyone – including me! You simply grow accustomed to it and move on. You do not allow mere words to ruin your life.

  Why, look at Lady Josephine! I am hearing whispers that she will either spend the summer with Lord and Lady Averill (and their daughter, Tabitha) or with Lord and Lady Radcliffe. In either case, I am certain she will not lack for suitors once this dust-up with Lord Fullbridge is finally settled.

  -Lady A

  “I shall frog-march him to the altar at sword point if I must! Do not think I won’t! I know my way around a saber.” Pacing in front of the hearth, Tabby glared defiantly at Josie, clearly wishing to emphasize her point.

  Placing her teacup back in its saucer, Josie sighed. “I am certain you have the best of intentions, Tabby, but it won’t do any good. Phin has made up his mind and, whether I like it or not? I am afraid that I must live with his decision.”

  She didn’t want to live with it. If given a choice or if she would have thought it would accomplish something, Josie would have helped Tabby launch her assault on Phin’s London town home at this very moment. Even if they undertook such a radical plan, however, nothing would change. Phin Trew, she was discovering, was as stubborn as they came.

  It had been two weeks since that house party had come to a crashing end. After the Bloody Duke had finished off whatever might have remained of Lady Temins’ plan to force her daughter and Phin to marry, most of the guests had milled about for a bit before heading back to their rooms to begin packing. Very few were in a festive mood at that point, Josie among them.