by Ingrid Hahn
“Precisely.” As he spoke, the words fell to a whisper. “You’ll be safe.”
Safe.
She looked back down to the paper. The sum was…well, staggering. The sort that made one’s head go soft.
The wrongness of it was enough to make her ill. Marriage wasn’t a transaction. If hers was to have been, she’d have accepted him after the storeroom and felt not a single qualm. Where was mutual affection in the transfer of funds? What basis would that be upon which to build a lifetime?
She held the sheet out to him. “I can’t accept this.”
He’d gone rigid, as if confronting a horror he couldn’t comprehend. “Why not?”
“It’s not right.”
“Hang what’s right, Grace. Take the money.” His words lacked conviction, as if he knew what he’d done, but couldn’t help but hold desperately to the safety of his original belief.
“It’s not right. It’s not the way things are done. You shouldn’t…you can’t…I won’t accept this.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do—anything at all?” His tone was bereft of hope.
She could only shake her head, numb to everything.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When the door shut behind her, her whole life rattled on its foundations. All the sunshine in her heart had been stolen away. She was shaken and hollow and still couldn’t quite believe what he’d tried to do. But she wasn’t going to change her mind. No man would buy her for a wife. Not even Corbeau.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Grace.”
Phoebe was coming up quickly from the other end of the corridor.
Grace clutched Corbeau’s offer in her hand. He’d insisted she take the promissory note with her and promised that should she have a change of heart, the proposal would stand.
The sooner she burned the wretched thing, the better.
Her sister linked her arm with Grace’s and began rushing them toward the stairway. Grace’s legs felt too heavy to carry her. She managed. But barely.
“What is going on?”
Phoebe’s expression was anything but neutral. She was stern and alert, aware enough of herself to slow to a proper pace when they passed Lady Rushworth, sending a gracious nod in the woman’s direction as they went. Their courtesy went unacknowledged.
Grace hadn’t the energy to feel anything for Lady Rushworth, not after what had happened in the library.
Once they were out of earshot, Phoebe sneered. “Hateful woman.”
She looked about to make sure the way was clear, and picked up pace. “We’re leaving. There’s not a moment to spare.”
“Leaving? Why? What’s happened?”
The earl couldn’t have asked them to leave. He wouldn’t have done such a thing. He wasn’t vindictive in the slightest, never mind that he hadn’t had time to relay a message.
They came to the room Phoebe had been sharing with Jane. Inside, their mother rose, clutching her bosom as if relieved. “There you are at last, my dear girl, I daresay I thought you’d gone with her.”
“Gone with whom?” Absently, Grace tucked away the folded paper. Best to consider all that had happened with the earl later.
“Jane, of course.”
Grace’s world came to a violent halt. The skin of her face prickled with lightness, as if blood had ceased roaming its course. “Jane’s gone?”
Eyes sharp, her mother studied her. “You knew nothing of this?” She held up an open sheet of paper, creased where it had been folded into a smaller rectangle.
Grace took the letter and began to skim through the light hand.
She sunk, taking the seat her mother had vacated. That night Jane had come to see her…the faraway looks…the talk of assuming a different name, of becoming somebody else. It all made perfect sense. “I assure you, I did not.”
Lady Bennington nodded, mouth depressed at the sides in bitter acceptance. “I thought as much. How I could have four such willful girls, I’ll never know.” She looked at Grace, brows raised, tone level. “Is there to be a marriage or not?”
Grace steadied herself. The sooner she told them of her decision, the better. “There is not.”
Her mother sighed and winced, rubbing her head as if it ached. She straightened and took Jane’s letter back from Grace with a shake of her head. “Most young ladies have the sense to run off to Scotland with a young man. I wouldn’t have faulted her, you know, even if they didn’t have two coppers to rub between them. One of my daughters is thrown together with an earl, but she won’t have him. And another”—she held up Jane’s letter—“runs away to become a governess.”
Jane stated in her letter that by leaving to take Grace’s place as governess, she left Grace free to break the engagement without worrying about what she would do to provide for the family.
The position paid thirty pounds a year, hardly enough to make any difference. When it had been Grace plotting to earn those thirty pounds, it’d seemed so much. In light of Jane’s flight, the amount had diminished to a pittance.
Hadn’t Jane seen how little it was?
Maybe. But perhaps there was another motivation for what she’d done. Jane had wanted to do this—for herself. Grace kept silent of her suspicion.
A servant appeared at the door to announce that a carriage had been made ready for their disposal. Lady Bennington thanked the boy and assured him they’d be right along, shutting the door to give Grace’s attire a looking-over as if realizing for the first time her daughter wasn’t ready to travel.
Grace shifted under the scrutiny, a rush of anxiety speeding up her heart that her mother might know what she’d refused. The earl’s promissory note might as well have been written over the fabric of her dress for all to read. She swallowed, guilt painting her with a cloying wash of shame. “We’re not leaving now, are we?”
“You can change in a trice.” Her mother waved a hand as if it were nothing. “Your traveling things are laid out on your bed, and a maid is being sent up to help. The trunks are packed. We’re at least going as far as the village inn tonight.”
“Must we?”
“I won’t have anyone knowing what your sister has done.”
“Surely we needn’t rush away like—”
“Grace, the earl has been extremely patient with us, as it is. Undoubtedly you can see it’s not right that we trespass upon him any longer. His generosity won’t be infinite, you know.”
Corbeau was the most generous person in the world, no exaggeration. She’d bet every last strand of hair on her head that he’d bear them no ill will.
Then again, it was incumbent upon her to ensure such an open heart as his wasn’t used to advantage.
At the center of Grace’s breast came a hard pang. What would happen when he found another woman to marry? Nobody could be worthy of him. Nobody.
“If your plan is only to go as far as the inn, why not wait until morning? We could depart first thing.”
Phoebe interjected. “Lord, Grace, are we to believe you don’t want to leave?”
Not daring to examine whatever answer to the question lingered inside of her, Grace gave her sister a look. “Do you want to leave?”
“I can’t wait to be rid of this place.”
Refusing to consider her awakened sensibilities any longer, Grace turned her attention back to her mother. “Rushing off in the middle of the day hardly seems—”
“Enough, Grace. Enough.” Lady Bennington held up her hands. “I daresay you’re clever enough to guess that I might be the one wanting to leave.”
Their mother gave an exasperated sigh. “When your father—that is, after he…” With a significant look in her eye and a pinched mouth, she gave a little nod. She inhaled deeply. “After his death we received some help. From a man. A married man.”
Grace went perfectly still, a tingling floating down her limbs at the enormity of what was being revealed. Her mother had taken a lover? And he’d been married?
Her hand went to
her mouth.
Lady Bennington looked askance at both of them. “What you’re now thinking is exactly what his wife thought—what she thinks, even now as his widow, and to this very day she holds it against me. Nothing her husband or I ever said dissuaded her from believing otherwise. She’ll die bitter about an invented falsehood, mark my words.”
The name rushed to Grace’s lips. “The late Lord Rushworth.”
Phoebe was nodding as if it all made perfect sense. “That’s why Lady Rushworth has always been so unpleasant to us.”
“Unpleasant. Yes. Well. Me, I’d put it in stronger terms, but I suppose that does enough justice to the heart of the matter as is required at present. There once was a time when I called her a friend.” Their mother gave a dismissive shrug, her tone going wistful. “I loved your father. I knew his faults. On the very day I married him, I thought to myself, ‘Lizzie, he’s going to break your heart one day.’ And he did. But still I loved him. There was never anybody else for me but him. And I never disgraced what he and I had together, not even after his death. That said, I don’t wish to give her any further fodder to spread ugliness about us. So we’re leaving.”
The words echoed in Grace’s mind—never anybody else for me but him. That wasn’t really possible, was it? That wasn’t how love worked. There was always the possibility of someone else. For her as well as—her gut twisted—as well as for the earl.
It was finished—completely finished between her and the earl. There was no reason to remain, none at all.
A chasm split her heart.
Phoebe offered a musing comment. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have married him.”
Lady Bennington’s eyes flashed. “If I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t have you. And never for a minute would I regret any of my daughters. Even if they do reject the hands of honorable earls or run away to become governesses.”
If Grace didn’t know better, she would have sworn her mother almost punctuated the end of her sentence by spitting.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It wasn’t going to end like this. It couldn’t.
Though his heart galloped, Corbeau’s mind was eerily clear. He stood hunched over a chair. To stop his hands from shaking, he gripped the elegantly rounded back, but held so tightly the knuckles could have split through the skin. He kept careful control over each inhalation and exhalation. He knew what he’d have to do. He knew.
He had to face them. All of them. All those whose power extended too far, whose censure and animosity began with Grace’s father’s misdoings and remained strong to this day, extending over the entire family.
But he couldn’t make himself move.
He’d told Grace he was quite beyond whatever dynamic his father had inflicted upon him—whatever games there had been, whatever had happened between parent and child that had made him feel so ashamed, so inferior.
“My lord?”
He jumped and blinked, trying to make sense of the shape at the door. Why did this happen? Why when he was at his worst did everything, even his vision, fail him?
With Herculean effort, he forced his eyes to do as they ought. The housekeeper stood in the door, her angular face hard, her arms stiff at her sides, and her manner brusquer than was her habit.
“Yes, Mrs. Havers, what is it?” Corbeau winced at the harshness in his tone. He took a breath and tried again, softer this time. He peeled his hands off the chair back and straightened. “Forgive me, I’m not myself.”
“I thought you might like to know that Lady Bennington and her daughters are leaving, my lord.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “In that case, I beg your pardon. I’ll just go and see that their things have been all brought down and properly—”
“Brought down?” The interior of his chest constricted. “They’re leaving…now?”
She gave a crisp nod, the sort that bespoke her character—nothing in excess, not even movement. “Indeed, my lord. In mere minutes.”
Corbeau rushed past her and ran through the house, dashing past a surprised Hetty, and nearly colliding with a footman who deftly dodged his master. Bursting out the front, Corbeau found a servant opening the door to the laden coach, Lady Bennington poised to allow herself to be handed inside.
They turned to look at him, unspeaking and expectant.
The air was biting cold, and the sky was white with the promise of more snow.
His heart had been pounding before, but now, under the weight of so many gazes, the beating assumed a leaden dread. His mouth went dry. The world around him spun.
Why? Why did he have to be like this? Why did people have to be so difficult for him? If they’d all metamorphose into horses, all of them except…
“Lady Grace.”
She stood apart from one of her sisters, the younger one—the other sister not in evidence. Grace wore that traveling costume again, the one she’d been wearing the day they’d arrived when those tiny flakes had softly fallen upon the earth.
Everything had changed. At the same time, everything was the same. They were no closer to being married—further, in point of fact—for the engagement was no more. But he’d known her. Been inside of her. Loved her. And none of it had been enough to keep her.
His gaze met hers. They were wide and lovely, her eyes—and oh so beautiful. She was the most exquisite creature he’d ever beheld. Each day only made her more so.
“My lord?” Her expression was guarded.
“I can’t let you leave without—” He could do this. He had to. It wouldn’t be but a few minutes, and a few minutes were nothing against a lifetime of regret. “I need to say something.”
“Perhaps we ought to go inside.”
“No.”
“I think it would be best if you and I spoke privately.” She gave him a loaded look and nodded to signify something behind him.
Corbeau turned. There at the front of the house, the guests had gathered. Not a few of them. All of them. And a few unabashed servants stood in huddled groupings along the periphery, looking on with eager interest.
An audience. This was the stuff of his darkest fears. It was like being nailed into a coffin and buried, unable to move, unable to pound the lid, unable to scream for help.
No. No longer.
Mentally, he wrenched himself free, as if breaking rusty chains that had kept him prisoner for innumerable years. It wasn’t going to hold him back any longer. This was too important. She was too important.
He had nothing left to lose. All his hopes had turned to ash and blown away.
He drew himself up. He was steady and strong. Gone was the tightness in his lungs, the blurred vision, the sense that he might cast up his accounts. Gone were the damp palms, the trembling insides, the unsteady legs.
“Good. I’m glad you’ve all come out.” His voice boomed loud, crisp and clear and constant, without a hint of tremor. Never had he been in more control—effortless control, as if he’d been born to stand before the masses and speak his mind.
He held every last person’s undivided attention.
“I want you all to know that Lady Grace and I are no longer engaged. We should never have become engaged, and but for the fault of having been discovered accidentally locked together in a storeroom, we never would have become engaged. It’s because of you all that we took such a drastic measure. We were afraid of what you would think. What you would say. What would become of Lady Grace’s reputation.
“People talk. I know they do. And I’m going to offer you something to talk about for the year to come.”
Corbeau caught his sister’s stunned expression. When she realized he was looking at her, her face softened. She sent him an encouraging nod, her eyes bright and full of love. Lady Eliza stood next to her smiling, as if sending him her unyielding support. Then there was her mother. Lady Rushworth appeared stern, mouth pinched in rank disapproval, her face all the more stark while in such close proximity to the warmth and lovely openness of her beautiful d
aughter. On the far side, Max wore an approving grin.
The rest of them…no. That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? It was about the fact that what they said, what they thought didn’t matter.
“You’ve been watching us for days. Some of you came for no other reason than you’d caught an earful about the hasty engagement, and the reasons behind it, and you wanted to see everything for yourself. Many of you knew my parents, and held them in high esteem. Particularly my mother. Think about what would be different today were she still with us. I daresay a good many things would be quite altered—what you said amongst yourselves not least among them. Out of deference to her, I think you’d spend much more time holding your tongues.”
He caught himself before he traversed too far down the road to an outright lecture.
Corbeau drew a breath and went on, his inner calm not rattled in the least. If anything, he was growing stronger. His mind was so clear, his thoughts so fixed on the one thing he had to do. Speak. After a lifetime of suffocation, he was finally drawing in lungsful of sweet air.
“I wanted to make this woman my wife; I’ve never wanted anything more in the entirety of my life.” He turned to Lady Grace. The connection between them flashed, as strong and as potent as ever.
He looked back to the gathered crowd. “But she wouldn’t have me. She’s spent too many long years suffering for the sins of her father—beaten down. Disgraced. And why? Because of something entirely out of her control. She might have had me, might have consented to the engagement. She resisted. And do you know why? Because of you. Because after having been the relentless object of scorn, of having lived with the consequences of scandal, having been made an outcast, she couldn’t tolerate any risk of her family’s history blemishing me.
“Don’t misunderstand me. She can’t be blamed for this any more than you’re at fault for what played out between us, or the choices we’ve made, or the ultimate decisions to which we’ve come. You are, however, deeply at fault for a notable lack of compassion and understanding. Of favoring gossip over friendship, fashion over principle. I pray you all cast yourselves in a different light. Remember how fragile reputation really is. Don’t think yourself immune. Life can change in an instant. I hope if you’re ever the subject of scorn and scandal that you don’t endure what you’ve put Lady Grace, her mother, and her sisters through.”