And that was the point, wasn’t it? Rather than lie down and die for her, he was going to sacrifice every waking day of his life for her. She would never know how much he wanted this to be different – but it could not be. He had to do what was right for the Orrinshire name. As he spent his days married to a woman he did not love, Priscilla would, with luck, find another. He had to be man enough to let her go.
“One day,” he said quietly, “you will find another gentleman – meet someone who…”
“Do not speak another word,” Priscilla said curtly.
Charles was silenced, and not a moment too soon. The very idea of Priscilla falling in love with another gentleman, kissing him, allowing herself to…
It made him want to be sick, but he had to push his point home. He would not be the reason that Priscilla pined away.
“You will,” he said more firmly than he felt, “and you will love him just as much as me, if…if not more.”
Priscilla stared into his eyes. “Is that what you think will happen with Frances? Eventually, you will love her as you love me now? Maybe more?”
The thought, foolishly, had never occurred to him. His marriage to Miss Lloyd – a marriage that would occur in less than a week – would involve…well—making love.
He almost snorted at the very thought. Make love to Miss Lloyd? They would have children. The Orrinshire line must continue. But the idea that it would approach anything like the passion and pleasure he had shared with Priscilla…no, it was not possible.
A breeze rushed through the golden leaves of the conker tree, and a few fell to the ground.
Autumn. The end of summer. The end of joy.
“I will have to,” he said aloud. “I will have to learn to love Miss Lloyd, and you will learn to love another.”
A strange look passed over Priscilla’s face, like a shadow. “Well, I think you should know that Frances – Miss Lloyd, I mean – does not care for you much.”
She had evidently spoken the words to shock him, and it was true that a prickle of irritation crept around his heart.
“You cannot possibly know that,” he said dismissively.
Priscilla hesitated, and Charles’ curiosity grew. “Actually, I do.”
He instinctively reached out to grab her arm. “How can you say that? How can you possibly know how Miss Lloyd feels about me? You hardly know her!”
She pulled her arm away swiftly but did not meet his gaze. “You forget. The Donal wedding.”
Charles stared. Yes, she had mentioned they had spoken, but only briefly. This felt all wrong. The two worlds that he had worked so hard to keep separate were colliding, right in front of his eyes. Priscilla and Miss Lloyd, having a conversation?
“Remember, I told you that I spoke with her at the Donal wedding, those weeks ago,” Priscilla said, her gaze still not meeting his. “It was strange, actually, the way we met was…and we started talking about you, and we came to realize that…”
Her voice trailed away at this point.
“What?” Charles breathed. “What did you realize? You only mentioned having spoken to her. You did not say you had poured out your hearts to each other!”
“That I loved you, and she did not,” said Priscilla simply. “And it seemed, well, so obvious at the time. If she did not care for you and I did, then surely this marriage business was the wrong way around. And Miss Lloyd agreed and…well. My idea to rival her, that I mentioned to you. I arranged it with her. She does not want to marry you any more than you wish to marry her, and so I thought…”
Her voice trailed away from the instant she looked up and saw Charles’s face.
This could not be happening – but then, it made so much sense.
“It is not enough, then,” he managed to say in a low voice, “that I have betrayed Miss Lloyd by loving you – a woman, mark you, who has done me no real ill – but now I have to discover from you, the woman I actually love, that she has no feelings for me at all? Thinks so little of me, in fact, that she considers me a plaything for others? Thinks I am so foolish, so inconsequential, that she will happily authorize you to play with my heart?”
“I did not play with your heart!” she said. “You were the one who said you would marry me and break off your engagement and then changed your mind! You were the one who entered that bedchamber!”
But Charles was too furious to pay attention to her words. All this time, he had been berating himself for betraying Miss Lloyd, for treating her terribly, and she had probably been laughing at him this entire time!
“I was a fool to think you cared for me,” he spat. “This is – this is just a strange jest on your part!”
“What?” Now Priscilla was looking as though she did not know him. “You really think I would take a joke so far as to lose my innocence?”
Charles was too fired up with anger to hear her words. “I should never have touched you.”
A tear fell from Priscilla’s eye, but Charles hardened himself to it. He could not forget the truth: Priscilla knew Miss Lloyd did not care for him. She could have ruined everything, she could have ended the engagement that was going to save his family!
And his heart was broken. He could not tell her, could not admit to that weakness. But he loved her, and when he had loved her with every inch of his body, he had felt truly connected to her.
“And I should never have let you!” Priscilla hissed. “Not only because you lied to me and clearly had no intention of marrying me, but it has broken apart and destroyed our friendship, to boot!”
There they stood, both breathing a little heavily, staring at each other.
After a minute, Charles sighed. “Where did it all go wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Three weeks ago, we were friends. Now it feels as though you cannot stand to be in my presence.”
She shook her head. “Being…” Her voice broke. “Being around you hurts.”
Damn and blast, it was a disaster. Charles could never have predicted this, could never have known his passion for Priscilla would lead to this: lies, betrayal, teasing, and yet still after it all, he still had to marry Miss Lloyd.
“I cannot change the past,” he began.
“But you can change the future,” Priscilla interrupted. “The power rests with you to change the future, and you are choosing not to!”
Charles tried to regain control of the conversation. “My family depends on me to marry Miss Lloyd, and I –”
“No, your mother is depending on you to wed twenty thousand pounds!”
He looked away, frustration pouring from every pore. “You must not speak about my mother like that.”
There was no response from Priscilla, and when he turned around, he saw that she had finally succumbed to tears.
“Everything is broken, and I wish I had never agreed to walk with you.”
She grabbed her basket and moved away, but Charles held her arm.
“Have you noticed,” he said, trying to ignore the heat of her arm and the way it twisted his stomach, “that every time we meet, you storm off?”
“And whose fault is that?” Priscilla snapped. She pulled her arm away and strode down the street without looking back.
Charles leaned against the trunk of the conker tree and let out a long breath. He was alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Priscilla carefully placed the teacup on its saucer, gently balanced in her lap, and sighed. A month ago, she would have liked nothing more than tea with her friends and acquaintances, and this was a delicious tea blend.
“And then I said, surely not! And he said…”
And it was not as though her friends were not witty, clever, and knew how to laugh.
“No! He could not have done – it simply is not done! Did he…” Miss Worsley’s eyes were wide as she shared some gossip with Miss Lymington.
Priscilla smiled as she attempted to follow the conversation, a scandalous tale – it appeared – about a gentleman who simply refused t
o wipe his boots as he entered Almack’s.
“ – and a footman had to follow him around the room to clean up the mess he left behind!” Miss Worsley laughed as Miss Lymington’s eyes bulged.
“I cannot believe that they let him in at all,” said Miss Darby, a shyer girl whose acquaintance Priscilla had made most recently of the three. “I mean, I have not attended Almack’s, but really!”
“I swear, ’tis exactly how I described it,” Miss Worsley said impressively. “I heard it from the Duchess of Axwick herself, and you know Tabitha rarely exaggerates.”
Priscilla smiled but said nothing. It had been an excellent idea of her mother’s to accept Miss Worsley’s invitation to tea. Getting out of the house, that was the thing. Anything to be out of her own mind, and not think about Charles…
Her smile faltered. How long had she managed to go without thinking about him? A quick glance at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room told her it had only been eight minutes.
Eight minutes. Was that truly all she could manage?
“I did not know you were acquainted with the Duchess of Axwick,” said Miss Darby.
Miss Worsley sniffed. “Well, I knew her before she was the duchess, of course. I knew her as Miss Tabitha Chesworth, though I do not see her often now. And do not look so impressed, Miss Darby, are you not well-acquainted with her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Mercia?”
All these damned duchesses, Priscilla thought bitterly. If things had been different, would she herself be about to become a duchess? How would her friends be treating her, as a future noblewoman of the realm?
She glanced at Miss Lymington, leaning forward to help herself to more tea. Olivia Lymington, more money than she knew what to do with. They had first met at school, years ago now, when she had been little Livvy Lymington. Her father’s wealth had occurred years later.
“There do seem to be more duchesses than anything else in London these days,” Miss Worsley said dismissively. “You won’t see me throwing myself at a duke.”
“I might,” Miss Lymington said pensively. “I mean, with my fortune, I could try for a duke. Or an earl, perhaps.”
Priscilla tried to hide a smile. Miss Lymington had little acquaintance in the nobility, unlike herself, and seemed to consider them something one could just order.
Miss Worsley seemed to have the same thought. “One simply cannot summon them up like a footman!”
The three collapsed into giggles, and Priscilla laughed with them. Miss Sophia Worsley. They were distant relations, and she was not entirely sure how. She had grown far more rebellious in the last few years after that betrothal was called off. What had happened? She had never been told the full story.
“I think most duchesses and dukes are just normal people,” Miss Darby chimed in, a little nervously. “Aren’t they? I mean, other than the riches and the privilege, and perhaps the connections and the relations to royalty and all that –I suppose that comes with property, land, that sort of thing…”
Priscilla smiled at the newest member of their group. Was it at the Montacute ball or Almack’s – no, it could not be Almack’s, Miss Darby had never attended.
Well, one ball or another, that was where they had met. She was a lovely girl, really, and she had become part of the loose group of friends and acquaintances that Priscilla saw throughout the Season.
Miss Worsley was offering to refresh their cups, and Priscilla leaned forward with the others to receive more of the delicious sweet tea.
She should be more grateful, really. There were plenty of people who had no one, no friends or acquaintances to confide in. Priscilla was fortunate to have three, at the very least, who would always be a pleasant distraction.
But without Charles, her closest friend…
Priscilla looked at the clock. Six minutes without thinking about Charles. She was getting worse at this, not better.
“ – and of course, now they are engaged to be married!” Miss Darby finished her monologue with a bright smile. “Another society wedding!”
Priscilla tried not to sigh as she leaned back with her now full teacup.
“I heard the gown Miss Isabella is to wear for her own wedding is most splendid,” Miss Worsley said, looking at Miss Lymington, who snorted.
“Yes, my sister’s wedding plans are of the most extravagant kind,” she said, not bothering to take the derision from her tones. “Issy always wanted the best, and now she has bagged a duke of her own, there is no stopping her!”
“I did not know your sister was marrying a duke!” Miss Darby leaned forward, evidently desperate for more details. “When did they become engaged?”
Priscilla did not need to look up to imagine the look on Miss Lymington’s face. Her younger twin sister engaged before her, and to a duke no less. It was no wonder Miss Lymington grew bored with the topic.
“Oh, they were introduced at some gathering or another,” she said airily. “The wedding is to be a very fine affair if my sister has anything to do with it.”
“The gown, I heard, is to be truly splendid,” said Miss Worsley with a mischievous smile on her face.
Priscilla matched her smile. How like Miss Worsley to poke fun at Miss Lymington.
“If it is anything like her hopes, it will be worth its weight in gold,” Miss Lymington said drily.
Miss Darby breathed out slowly. “That is incredible. Tell me, how exactly…”
Priscilla allowed her mind to wander, having no personal interest in either teasing Miss Lymginton or finding out every detail of her sister’s wedding.
Weddings. Weddings and engagements, those were the only topics her friends talked about, and all four of them unattached, although Miss Lymington’s thirty thousand pounds had certainly created much interest.
There was Miss Darby, no name or fortune, and that unfortunate habit of talking on so long and so fast that no gentleman was likely to be able to get a word in edgeways. There had been a little gossip about the Marquis of Gloucester, but nothing had happened.
Miss Worsley. That broken engaged had hung over her like a cloud, and her rebellious nature meant she was unlikely to permit a gentleman to attempt to court her.
Miss Lymington. Priscilla smiled into her teacup as she drained it. She had become so infatuated with the idea of marrying royalty, and if nobility could not be found, well, her thirty thousand pounds had given her airs she had not been bred to. It was unlikely she would find a gentleman worthy enough for her.
And then there was herself. All four of them, now Priscilla came to think about it, were unlikely to be brides any time soon.
Perhaps the only way they would experience a wedding was vicariously – through their conversation of others.
Her armchair was comfortable, and her tea sweet as she allowed the conversation to wash over her.
She would never marry. She had wanted Charles, and now she could not have him. She could not comprehend the idea of marrying another.
The very idea she could stand at the altar with another gentleman, take vows, lie in bed with him…
It was an utterly ridiculous thought.
“Miss Seton, are you quite well?”
Priscilla blinked and saw Miss Lymginton looked concerned.
“Quite well, I thank you,” Priscilla said as calmly as she could manage. “I was just wondering whether I could have another slice of your excellent cake.”
Miss Worsley shrugged. “Help yourself, you know you can. Cake has little interest for me.”
Priscilla reached for another slice and placed her teacup on the table. It would never do to accidentally destroy one of the guest set.
“Have…have any of you heard the latest rumors about Miss Emma Tilbury?” Miss Darby spoke quietly, for once, and with a nervous look around her. It was not seemly to discuss Miss Tilbury in public, but they were in private.
Still, thought Priscilla. It was a daring move for the newest to their party.
“What is the latest you have heard?” aske
d Miss Worsley, throwing her legs over her armchair to get more comfortable.
Miss Darby looked startled at the movement, but then, it was Miss Worsley’s home. She could do what she liked and always did.
“I heard she was very low on funds and struggling to pay for her rooms,” said Miss Darby, almost in a whisper.
There were murmurs around the room, all on a general theme of how sad it was for a woman to be brought so low.
Priscilla swallowed a mouthful of cake. It was a bit of a mystery to her; she had not heard any rumors about Miss Tilbury, but then she had moved about in society so little over the past few weeks.
The last time she had seen Miss Tilbury…why, it must have been at Almack’s, almost three months ago. Beautiful and charming, she seemed a little tired, but that was to be expected as the mistress to the Earl of Marnmouth…
“One would think that a woman like that,” Priscilla said quietly, surprised at her own words, “would be able to make her own way in life.”
“Well, I heard the Earl of Marnmouth has thrown her aside and is looking for a new mistress,” Miss Worsley said triumphantly.
There were shocked gasps from the ladies.
“A new one?” Miss Darby looked astounded. “But I thought – he and Miss Tilbury have had an understanding for years!”
Miss Worsley nodded with a knowing smile. “And that is rather the problem, is it not? I mean, none of us keep our charms forever, and Miss Tilbury has been with the earl – what is it, five years?”
Priscilla sighed heavily. “What a terrible place the world is, that five years is enough to get one’s pleasure from a woman and then, with no compunction, throw her aside.” Her cheeks heated as all three friends stared. “Well, I think it is a crying shame,” she said, a little more strongly. “What would the world come to if husbands could do such a thing?”
“Ah, but they cannot,” said Miss Lymington with a certain amount of satisfaction. “No, husbands are forced to care for their wives, especially if they bring a little fortune with them –”
“Or a big fortune, like yours!” teased Miss Worsley.
Always the Rival (Never the Bride Book 7) Page 16