Alexandra Benedict - [Too 02]

by Too Scandalous to Wed

  Dearly.

  But how?

  A scrap of paper caught the besotted Emerson’s eye. The same scrap of paper Ravenswood had been reading before he’d stomped after him like an ogre. The viscount must have lost the letter in the fury of the chase. It was now wedged under a chair leg, fluttering in the cold catacomb breeze.

  Too busy drinking and heckling, the friars didn’t pay much mind to Emerson as he crawled discreetly back into the banquet hall and snatched the letter from its precarious spot.

  Quickly Emerson skulked back into the tunnel, away from the bacchanal, and read the letter.

  The words danced on the page. He was foxed. He had to concentrate hard to get the inscription to stay still and make some sort of sense.

  After a few deep breaths and a hard stare, he deciphered the content.

  A love note!

  He scrolled further down the missive.

  From a man!

  Emerson had never suspected Ravenswood to be the type to consort with a man. Henry, was it? What a fabulous piece of on-dit! It would surely ruin the knave once word leaked out.

  Emerson cast his wavering gaze over the crowd of inebriated friars. He tried to remember their names. Was there a Henry among the rowdy lot?

  But wait…Ravenswood had chased after a chit earlier in the night. The very chit Emerson had wanted to strap to the banquet table. And hadn’t Ravenswood called her…Henry?

  Could Henry be a woman?

  But who the devil would name a woman Henry?

  Blast it! Emerson rubbed his throbbing temples. He’d had too much drink. He couldn’t think straight.

  But soon the name dawned on him. Henry…as in Henrietta Ashby, the eccentric daughter of Baron Ashby. Society talk about the flamboyant family was abundant. Could she be the woman in the letter?

  Emerson was going to find out. And then he would have his revenge. The daft chit was in love with the viscount—and Ravenswood wanted nothing to do with her. What a perfect form of punishment for the viscount, that he should be made to marry the very woman he loathed. Cleary the viscount was angry with the wench. Clearly he’d hate to be leg-shackled to her for the rest of his days. But what choice would he have once the scandal broke? She was the daughter of a baron; Ravenswood would have to save her reputation. And spend the rest of his life in misery.

  Perfect.

  Chapter 17

  Wretched tears! Henrietta stumbled on the first step, her vision fuzzy. It was almost dawn. She had dismissed her maid to bed. Henrietta didn’t want to bother with a bedtime ritual: brushing her hair, washing her face, divesting her clothes. She just wanted to get to her own room and bury herself under the bedcovers. She wanted to forget all about Sebastian; to lose herself to dream and stifle the smarting pain in her breast.

  She gathered her skirts and mounted the stairs again.

  “Henry!”

  Henrietta ignored her brother-in-law. She was too distraught to chitchat now—especially with him. He had tried to help her woo Sebastian, knowing who his brother really was: a scoundrel.

  “Leave me alone, Peter.”

  Peter bounded up the steps after her and grabbed her by the arm, curtailing her retreat. “Henry, I’ve been waiting for you to come home. You went after Seb, didn’t you? Please tell me what happened. Did Seb hurt you?”

  A sardonic chortle. “He only devastated my very belief in goodness.”

  Peter looked devastated himself. “Henry, I’m so sorry.”

  She jerked her arm away. “Why didn’t you tell me, Peter?”

  “Henry, I warned you not to go after him.”

  “No, I mean why didn’t you tell me he was a fiend?”

  He raked a hand through his dark curls and sighed. “I thought you could save him, Henry.”

  Tears blurred her vision. “He’s a monster, Peter. And you didn’t even warn me. You wanted me to marry him!”

  “He’s not all bad, Henry. Really, he’s not. He just needs someone to care for; someone to care about him.”

  She pointed to her chest. “Well, it’s not going to be me.”

  Henrietta scurried to the top of the stairs. She bumped into her eldest sister. Having heard the commotion, Penelope must have come out to investigate.

  “What’s going on?” Penelope glanced from her husband to Henrietta. “Henry, where have you been?”

  Henrietta brushed past her sister and rushed into her room. She flopped onto the bed and cuddled her pillow. But the heady musk of Ravenswood filled her nostrils, triggering a memory.

  Last night she had snuggled with Sebastian in this very bed. She could still feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, feel the soft touch of his lips, see the smoldering look in his eyes. He had been so tender, yet passionate. So much like the hero she had dreamed about for eight long years.

  Henrietta tossed the pillow across the room. For eight years she had loved an illusion. For eight years she had worshipped a devil. The ache in her belly infested her lungs, making it hard to breathe. What a miserable waste of time, of devotion. So much effort squandered on seducing a scoundrel!

  She grabbed the bedcovers, buried her face in the fabric, and bumped her head against Madam Jacqueline’s naughty book of pictures. In a fit of pique, she tossed that, too—under the bed. There it wouldn’t cause anymore trouble.

  Henrietta nestled against the bedspread again. But still the smell of Sebastian haunted her.

  She let out a sob, tears burning her eyes. She was such a fool!

  “Henry?”

  Penelope stood in the doorway. In her wrapper, she looked drowsy, but there was still worry in her eyes—and sympathy.

  Henrietta’s bottom lip started to tremble. “You were right, Penelope. Ravenswood is nothing but a wicked rogue.”

  Penelope quickly crossed the threshold and clambered up onto the bed. “Come here, sweet.”

  Henrietta surrendered to her grief and slumped against her sister. Slender arms went around her in a tight hold, and Henrietta wailed into Penelope’s breast until her throat ached. She didn’t even notice the other hands that stroked her hair and caressed her back. Or the dip in the bed as three more sisters gathered around her for support. All Henrietta could feel was the throbbing ache in her chest: an ache she feared would never go away.

  Henrietta stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She looked different. Older? She certainly felt different. Even the world around her had changed. Less bright. Less hopeful.

  “Leave my hair down today, Jenny.”

  The chambermaid nodded. “Yes, Miss Ashby.”

  Jenny picked up the hairbrush and started to comb it through her mistress’s hair. She tugged at the locks to unravel the knots.

  Henrietta tried to unravel some knots, too. Knots in her heart. All sorts of distressing thoughts came to mind, consumed her concentration.

  Thoughts of Sebastian.

  He haunted her dreams, disturbed her waking hours. She was determined to be rid of him; her heart was still clinging to him.

  Foolish heart! When would it learn? The world wasn’t filled with heroes and knights. It was peppered with villains and an assortment of worthy men. Henrietta had to sift through the lot of scoundrels to find one such worthy man. But whoever he might be, he was not Ravenswood.

  Henrietta remembered the viscount in the catacombs—with a nun. A doxy, really, but still, the horror of it all filled her head, the painful recollection a smarting spasm on her heart.

  She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to quell the tears threatening to surge again. She wasn’t going to waste a minute more pining over the villainous viscount. She had already lost her youth to the man. She would not lose a moment more of her future. She was going to find herself a more respectable husband, one worthy of her affection. She was not going to be lonely and cheerless for the rest of her days because of the ruthless Ravenswood. She was adamant about that!

  The bedroom door opened.

  Henrietta looked over her shoulder. “Good
morning, Mama. I’ll be ready for breakfast in just a minute.”

  Henrietta was late—as usual. But it was unlike the baroness to be so impatient about her tardiness. In fact, it was family tradition to start the meal without her. So why had Mama come to fetch her?

  “Jenny, I would like to speak with my daughter—alone.”

  Jenny bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, my lady.”

  The maid set the hairbrush aside and quickly skirted from the room.

  Henrietta watched the girl go, then returned her attention to her curious mother. “What’s the matter, Mama? Why did you shoo Jenny from the room?”

  The baroness entered the boudoir and closed the door softly behind her. “Because there are some things a servant should not hear.”

  Henrietta lifted a brow. “Such as?”

  “Private things, Henry.” The older woman moved deeper into the room. “Now, what sort of fabric would you like your wedding dress to be made from?”

  Henrietta paled. “Wedding dress?”

  “And lilies are your favorite bloom, are they not? I shall put in an order for a hundred lilies at the hot house. No, two hundred.”

  Henrietta started to feel dizzy. “Lilies?”

  “Now let’s talk about the wedding menu.”

  Alarmed, Henrietta grabbed her belly. “What wedding, Mama!”

  With a very innocent air, the baroness quipped, “Why yours, Henry. Now don’t dawdle. We have a lot to do before Twelfth Night.”

  “Twelfth Night!” Henrietta sailed out of her chair, her mind a whirl. “But the marriage license?”

  “Being fetched as we speak.”

  The room was spinning. “Who am I marrying?”

  “Your betrothed, of course…Viscount Ravenswood.”

  Henrietta grabbed the back of the chair for support. She had a very profound desire to sink to the floor and cry. “Mama, what’s happening?”

  “It’s very simple, my dear. You’ve disgraced yourself and now you must pay the consequences.”

  Those blasted tears Henrietta was fighting to keep down bubbled to the tips of her lashes.

  “Now don’t blubber, Henry.” The baroness sashayed over to the vanity and picked up a lacy kerchief. She shoved it under her daughter’s nose. “We have to get back to the matter at hand. Shall we serve goose or duck at the wedding luncheon?”

  “Mama, I…”

  “Goose it is. Now how about the soup? Pheasant, perhaps?”

  Henrietta twisted the kerchief around her finger. “I don’t want to marry Ravenswood.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Henry.”

  “But I—”

  The baroness touched Henrietta’s lips, silencing her. “Perhaps you did not hear me, Henry. You’ve made a spectacle of yourself. The whole Town is in a tizzy about the shameful letter you wrote to Ravenswood. You are ruined. Your father is ruined. I am ruined. Your sisters and their husbands and their children are ruined. And you are going to marry Ravenswood and make it right. Is that understood?”

  A great welter of shame stormed Henrietta’s breast. The letter! “You know about the letter?”

  “Everybody knows about the letter.”

  Grief and rage swirled together in Henrietta’s belly. That bastard, Ravenswood! He couldn’t just devastate her foolish girlhood fancy, he had to devastate her very respectability, too, by showing the letter all over Town?

  Bile filled her throat, constricted her airway. Henrietta rushed over to the window and pushed back the curtains.

  Air! She needed air!

  “Get ahold of yourself, Henry,” the baroness chided. “We have to fix this blunder.”

  Henrietta pushed and pushed against the frozen pane of glass. She didn’t care if she shattered the icy sheet. She needed air.

  At last the casement parted. Cold winter air whooshed inside the room.

  “Henry.” The baroness hugged herself to ward off the chill. “Close that window at once!”

  But Henrietta did no such thing. She stuck her head out the opening and inhaled the biting wind, wishing the cold could numb her heart and the fury in her belly.

  “Henry, you’ll catch your death!”

  Henrietta didn’t care. In truth, marriage to Sebastian would be a death of a sort. To be leg-shackled to that villain for the rest of her days? She would be forever miserable.

  “Enough of the dramatics, Henry.” The baroness marched over to the window, yanked her daughter back inside the room, and closed the glass. “You didn’t think Ravenswood such a terrible match when you wrote him that letter.”

  “Mama, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Henry. Oh, this is all your father’s fault!” The baroness lifted her hands heavenward, as though in prayer, before she scooped up the side of her dress and flounced over to the hearth. “He reared you like a boy. But you are not a boy, Henry. You cannot act like one!”

  “I know, Mama,” she said quietly.

  Lady Ashby made a noise of distress, rubbing her hands together before the snapping flames in the hearth. “Then what possessed you to write such an outrageous letter?”

  “I thought…” Henrietta slowly dragged her feet over to the bed. She wrapped her arms around the bedpost and hugged the wood with all her might. “I thought he loved me, Mama. We had a fight. I thought if I wrote him the letter…”

  “All would be well again?” The baroness huffed. “Well, you got your wish, Henry. You’re going to be the next Viscountess Ravenswood.”

  Henrietta shivered at the title: a title she did not want anymore. She remembered the promise Ravenswood had made to her the other night: the promise to stay away from her—forever. Hopeful, she said, “He won’t marry me, Mama.”

  “He most certainly will,” the baroness proclaimed in a very pompous voice, “or there’s going to be a duel.”

  Henrietta gasped. The very thought of Ravenswood and Papa in an empty field in the wee hours of the morning had her heart fluttering in distress. “But Papa’s a terrible shot!”

  Lady Ashby pointed to her chest. “I would shoot him, Henry.”

  Henrietta supposed even a blackguard like Ravenswood would not duel with a woman, so there was no other way to settle the matter—she had to get married.

  She sighed. “But Ravenswood doesn’t care for me, Mama.”

  And Henrietta didn’t care for him. He was a devil, through and through. Oh God, what had she done! She should never have written that letter. She should never have visited with Madam Jacqueline. She had made such a terrible mess of her life. And now she was going to pay for her foolery.

  Rightly so, she supposed. Who else should suffer but her? It was all her doing, all her wretched fault. And now her family was tainted by the scandal, too. What choice did she have but to marry Ravenswood? She had to save the family name, the honor of her parents and sisters. And she could not marry another, more respectable gentleman. Who would want her now, after such a disgrace? She had to marry. And she had to marry Ravenswood.

  “Whether Ravenswood cares for you or not is inconsequential. The deed is done, Henry. You’d best prepare yourself for the wedding.”

  Henrietta rested her brow against the bedpost, the horror of her dismal fate sinking into her brain. “Yes, Mama.”

  She was going to be Ravenswood’s wife. A few days ago she would have been thrilled by the news, but today she was anything but. Just the thought of being the next Viscountess Ravenswood, sharing a home with the lecherous scoundrel, made her heart hurt. The rogue was going to spend his marital days at his fiendish club. He was not going to give up his wicked ways for her, she was sure.

  And she would have to endure the humiliation of it all, the disgrace. Didn’t the ton already whisper about his immoral pursuits? Her sisters had heard the ghastly rumors, so the gossip must be widespread. She was going to have to bear the snickers and the pity. And she was going to have to endure a daily reminder of her foolery. Each time she was with her husband, she would remember her childhood fancy: the nob
le hero she had invented in her head. And each time she would feel the shame of her silly girlhood dream.

  The smarting pain in her chest made it hard to breathe. She had hoped to forget all about Ravenswood, to banish the villain from her heart and soul. She had hoped to find a better, more respectable husband. But both hopes were now dashed to bits.

  “I can’t believe I’m getting married,” said Henrietta.

  “Yes, it was rather a shock to us all. Your poor father almost had an apoplexy when he heard the news.”

  “Oh no, Papa!” Henrietta dismissed her woe at once and rushed to the door, panic knocking on her breast. “Is he all right?”

  “Hold it right there, Henry!”

  Henrietta froze with her hand on the doorknob.

  “Your father is napping and I don’t want you to disturb him. It took me all morning to calm him down.”

  A wave of horrendous guilt washed over her. “Papa must loathe me.”

  “Loathe you?” The baroness snorted. “He adores you, Henry. He always will. He doesn’t give a fig about the scandal.”

  Henrietta turned around to face her mother again. “Then why is he so upset?”

  “Because you’re getting married! Your papa believed you’d live the life of a spinster forever—with him. He’s upset because he’s losing you.”

  Henrietta simpered. “Then he doesn’t hate me?”

  “No, Henry. He doesn’t hate you.”

  Relief filled Henrietta’s heart. She had already lost Ravenswood, the hero she had dreamed up in her heart. And if she had lost her papa’s love, too, it would have been a blow she could not have withstood.

  “Do you hate me, Mama?”

  The baroness was quiet for a moment, then said, “No, Henry. I don’t hate you. But I’m very angry with you.”

  Henrietta bowed her head in shame. “I understand, Mama.”

  Lady Ashby sighed and opened her arms. “Come here, child.”

  Henrietta rushed into her mother’s embrace and sobbed.