Always the Wallflower (Never the Bride Book 5)

by Emily E K Murdoch

  No, instead, he was selfish and stupid. When he returned home, a rather surprised Peters had obeyed him and taken a short letter to the Duke of Axwick’s residence. The response came within the hour.

  Within another hour, the two of them had fled the confines of town and were now enjoying the fresh air of Hyde Park. The grass was smooth, the park empty, and the wind rustled through their hair.

  Edward took in a deep breath and tried to hold it in as long as possible, relishing the tightness in his chest. Better a physical pain than an emotional one.

  Perhaps if he stayed here long enough, he would forget the troubles now haunting him.

  Axwick, riding ahead on a majestic dark brown horse, calmed his cantering steed to a gentle trot.

  Edward drew up alongside him. They had ridden in silence up until now. Axwick somehow understood it was important not to talk.

  Edward sighed. “I am almost certain you are guessing why I have asked you to join me on this ride so early.”

  His voice sounded stilted, as though his throat had been irrevocably damaged from the sobs forced down. His father had always spanked him when he had cried as a child. The habit was hard to break.

  “Not at all,” Axwick grinned. “No, it is perfectly normal for friends to send letters at six in the morning, demanding that I accompany them on a ride.”

  Edward knew he was joking, but he still felt a little uncomfortable. “Tad exaggeration, Axwick, surely? I do not believe there was a demand in a single line of that letter I sent you.”

  “There were but five lines or so of the entire letter,” Axwick countered. “And no, I suppose you cannot say precisely that the letter included a demand. But any letter hand-delivered before I have woken is demanding something, even if the writer does not know that himself.”

  There was too much truth in Axwick’s words for Edward to refute them. Instead, he shook his head. “It does not matter. Forget I said anything.”

  “Come now,” said Axwick quietly. “You are family, Wynn, and no matter how distant that connection, as an Axwick, I am required to support you. What’s more, as a St. Maur, I choose to, and as Richard, I want to. Something is eating you up. What is it?”

  Edward hesitated, before he spoke a single syllable. This was a secret that he had kept to himself successfully—well, except for Mariah.

  He had never imagined she could be so…well, so damned understanding. Perhaps after all these years, they could start to build something like a friendship. It would have made his mother—their mother, happy.

  But once he opened his mouth and told the story to Axwick, there was no going back.

  Edward sighed. “I know these words do not need to be said, but…Axwick, whatever is said on this ride will stay between the two of us, won’t it?”

  Axwick nodded. “You did not need to ask, but I have a feeling I know why you have. Come out with it, then. What is her name?”

  It was not a pleasant feeling, being so transparent—or having a reputation so despicably predictable.

  “You know Lady Letitia Cavendish, do you not?” Edward felt strange speaking her full name. “You were there when we were introduced. How well do you know her?”

  He glanced at his companion and saw a flicker of concern, followed by something that looked painfully like resignation.

  “You do not have to worry yourself,” Axwick said heavily. “My wife has given me all the details, or at least all she knows, so you need not concern yourself with bringing me up to speed.”

  Fury stabbed through Edward’s heart like a dagger, and before he could stop himself, he spat out, “Oh, I see—so the ties of family and blood are not enough to prevent gossip? Is my entire acquaintance with Lady Letitia just fodder for society’s gossips? I did not think I would ever have to include your wife in that group, Axwick!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Edward knew he had gone too far. To insult a woman, any woman, with such hot words…

  Axwick would be within his rights to call him out.

  Edward looked down, and when he could bring himself to look up again, Axwick was smiling kindly.

  “My dear friend,” Axwick said, shaking his head, “please take this advice from someone five years older than you and much more married than you. ’Tis impossible to halt that sort of talk, and I would thank you not to call the duchess a gossip. It was she whom Lady Letitia turned to in her hour of need, and my wife who called her the carriage that transported her home safely after your…disagreement.”

  Edward bit his lip. If he had been hoping for any sympathy from Axwick, he would be disappointed. He never intended to do harm, but his tongue was able to charm as easily as harm.

  “That…that is not what I meant.”

  The two of them continued riding. Edward could barely marshal his own thoughts, so many crowded for attention. He wanted to pour out all his frustration and confusion, the irritation he had with the world, and the disgust he felt for himself.

  Eventually, he burst out, “What was I thinking?”

  His words made Axwick laugh. “You know, I have no idea. You are a complete fool, and I do not even know the whole story. What in God’s name did you say to that poor woman while she was waiting for my carriage?”

  Edward swallowed. “I am not proud of it. I was base and cowardly, and…I reminded her that I had never told her I loved her. Or offered marriage.”

  Axwick gave a low whistle. “That is despicable, Wynn.”

  “I know,” Edward said wretchedly. “I was foolish, I—”

  “And completely untrue,” Axwick interrupted. “I mean, you have been mooning over her for weeks now. If it were anyone else, I would say that you should bed her and move on, but as it is Lady Letitia Cavendish…”

  His voice trailed away when he caught sight of Edward’s face.

  “Oh, God’s teeth, man, you did not.”

  Edward felt his hackles rise. “It is not like your own past is unblemished!”

  “Yes, but I married the woman I fell in love with,” Axwick said cuttingly. “Admittedly not without a few interesting tangles of our own. ’Tis a story and a half, and one day I will tell you, but right now, you have your own mess to untangle.”

  Edward sighed as the two horses stopped. “I was swept up in the moment.”

  Axwick frowned. “Too caught up in your own ego, you mean.”

  “I had forgotten how direct you were, Axwick.”

  His companion snorted. “That is because you have not come to town for two years. ’Tis easy to forget someone’s mannerisms when you never see them. Tell me, Wynn, why have you stayed away for so long?”

  It was easier to shrug than reply honestly. Edward focused on the neck of his horse, the way he shivered in the early morning air, still warming up after a freezing night.

  But Axwick’s question led to thoughts he had attempted to bury all Season. The memory of that huge house, rattling about in it, unable to think straight, unable to leave.

  His mother’s death had come quickly, his father’s more slowly. They had been trapped there together, and when they had finally died, Edward became trapped by the memories.

  He had never liked the man, and by all accounts, the feelings were mutual. But when he had died, all connection to his mother had gone, too. Mariah was no help; she had a better measure of the man than Edward ever did. She had left years before, and so it was he who was locked in the house that seemed to be his prison.

  Edward swallowed. He never wanted to go back to that dark time in his life again. Escaping into society, first Brighton, then Bath, now London, had been the tonic he thought he had been looking for.

  Charming women had made him feel alive. Now all he felt was pain. The old numbness would be better than this agony.

  “If I could change,” he said aloud.

  “You would do the same thing,” interrupted Axwick with no malice. “I know you.”

  Edward sighed. “I hardly know myself. I mean, I ask you, what did I think I
was doing with Miss Lymington? And I knew Letty—Letitia,” he felt his cheeks crimson, “was there. What was I attempting to prove? To whom?”

  Axwick shrugged and pulled at his reins, encouraging his horse into a trot back to the park gate. “Old habits die hard. You do not think that I immediately became the perfect husband to Tabitha, do you?”

  Glancing at him, Edward saw a hint of shame in his companion’s face, which he had not expected.

  “No, I had to learn, adapt, and change.”

  “I have done my changing for other people, Axwick.” Edward had not intended his voice to be so harsh, but he did not want the expectation of yet another compromise. He had done that time and time again as a child. He would not do it again. “My father demanded much from me and my sister, and—”

  “Sister?”

  Edward blinked. “Yes, sister.”

  Axwick looked genuinely astonished. “I did not know you had a sister.”

  Edward had to laugh. “You have met her, surely, she is in town most of the year because, she informs me, they have the best libraries. Miss Mariah Wynn, the well-known and, sadly, poorly respected bluestocking?”

  He laughed again at the look of surprise on Axwick’s face. “You are not the only one to be unaware. She…she left our family when only fifteen. There’s another long story and not my own.”

  He did not speak to purposefully intrigue, and he was grateful Axwick did not wish him to tell the tale.

  “When you become someone’s husband,” Axwick said with a grin, “you have to accept that they will require different things of you. Just as you would expect your wife to adapt for you.”

  The sun was up now, and people were starting to pass them. Edward frowned. All this talk from Axwick did not make any sense.

  “All this changing, adapting—why not find someone with whom you can be yourself?”

  Axwick sighed. “That is the great mystery about marriage. You are under no obligation to change but, because of the love you feel for that person, you find yourself changing unconsciously to make them happier. That is what makes you a husband.”

  The words made sense to Edward, and he shook himself hurriedly. “I am not her husband.”

  His gaze caught Axwick’s, who was looking stern. “No, you are not. But you should be.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “And that,” said Lord Cavendish with a dark sense of finality, “is that.”

  Letitia stared into his eyes, and all she could see was decision.

  She did not want to let him down, even though he was forcing her to do exactly the opposite of what she wanted.

  “I have no wish to go,” she began.

  “Your wishes are not what matters here,” Lord Cavendish snapped, pulling on his greatcoat and ignoring Bentliff’s attempts to help. “I am the head of this household, Letitia, and that means decisions rest with me, not you.”

  “If she truly does not want to go, perhaps it is for the best if she stays behind,” Lady Cavendish said while gazing into a looking glass, twirling ringlets around her finger.

  Lord Cavendish slammed the front door shut, and the snap echoed in the hallway.

  Letitia flinched. She was standing between her parents as the grandfather clock to the left of the door chimed nine o’clock. They were late. Her father hated being late.

  “Your pelisse, my lady,” the butler spoke quietly, but Letitia pushed away the garment.

  “I d-do not wish to go,” she said less firmly than she felt. When was the last time she had defied her parents, and before a servant, too?

  Lady Cavendish looked away from her own reflection and toward her daughter.

  The silence continued, and Letitia knew she would break it. Dread bubbled in her stomach; she was not a rebellious child and never had been. But she could not allow this to continue. She was not the pliant child she had once been.

  How could she explain this to her parents, who had done nothing but their duty their entire lives?

  “I am two and twenty,” she started in a quiet voice. “I am not a child, Papa, and I have always obeyed you on the things that truly mattered. But—”

  “Everything matters when you are a Cavendish.”

  Letitia looked into his eyes and forced herself to continue. “But I do not believe I should be forced to attend a ball if I do not wish to go.”

  It was the most determined statement she had ever made to either of her parents, and she felt reckless, but it had to be said. If she did not say something now, she would still be trotted out as the Cavendish daughter when she was two and forty!

  Lord Cavendish did not agree. “Am I to be disrespected in this way, in my own home, by my own child? ’Tis not to be borne!”

  His glare was fierce, but Letitia forced her own voice to remain calm. “It is not disrespect, Papa. You know I think most highly of you and Mama.”

  She risked a glance at her mother, who was watching with concern.

  Letitia swallowed. If she wished to be treated as an adult by her parents, this was the best place to start.

  “No disrespect is intended at all, Papa, it is merely personal preference,” she said quietly. “I attend many balls, card parties, luncheons, and dinners. I am not refusing to attend them all, but I do not see why I should have to attend this one when I most particularly would like to go to bed early this evening.”

  And cry into my pillow, Letitia thought desperately. And wonder how it all went so wrong between myself and Edward, when all I wanted to do was love him and be loved by him.

  Viscount Wynn had not visited. He had sent no letter, no message through Mariah or anyone else. If he had wanted to repair the bond between them, he would have done so. And that meant…

  “I do not know where this streak of mutiny has come from,” Lord Cavendish said. “This is not how we raised you, Letitia, and I thought Lady Harriet—”

  “The Duchess of Devonshire,” interjected Lady Cavendish quietly.

  Lord Cavendish frowned at his wife, but she was not Letitia. Her daughter saw the glare returned, and eventually, her father looked away.

  “The Duchess of Devonshire, as she now is,” snapped Lord Cavendish, “would be the most destructive influence on you, but no. Perhaps it is that Mariah girl—what’s her name, Wine?”

  “Wynn,” breathed Letitia. It was painful to hear her father utter the surname of the man she loved—or thought she loved. The name she had thought, for a few days, may one day become hers.

  Letitia, Viscountess Wynn.

  Letitia blinked and forced down the tears. This was not the time to collapse into tears.

  “Mama, what do you think?” Letitia turned to her mother for support.

  Lady Cavendish shook her head without saying a word. Her gaze returned to her husband.

  Letitia swallowed and tried not to feel betrayed. Her mother had always followed her father’s lead, but it had never concerned her before. Letitia knew her father always wanted the best for her—the best gowns, the best education, the best possible friendships. It was why they had purchased a home in Cavendish Square all those years ago, to be close to other noble members of the peerage.

  And she had been grateful when a child, but she was a child no longer. She did not want her father to organize her diary or choose which balls to attend and which to snub.

  “And when you are at Lady Howard’s ball,” her father continued relentlessly, his voice calm but firm, “you will enjoy yourself, Letitia. There will be plenty of young folk your age about the place, you should not want for partners—and I insist you dance every dance.”

  “Now, Thomas,” Lady Cavendish said quickly. Letitia glanced at her mother. “You cannot expect that of any young lady, no matter who they are. Dance every dance in public! I will not have it. No daughter of mine is going to be considered a slattern for standing up with five or six gentlemen in one evening.”

  Letitia laughed, and it sounded harsh in the echoing hallway. “Do not worry about that, Mama. Dance every dan
ce? I will be fortunate if a single gentleman asks for my hand!”

  “They should offer for your hand,” snapped Lord Cavendish, pulling his top hat from his butler’s hands and jamming it on his own head. “You are a Cavendish, and the nobility of that name should be sufficient for any gentleman, if he had any sense. You may not have an elegant title, but…”

  His voice trailed away, and this was such an unusual occurrence that Letitia looked more closely at her father.

  Frustration, fear, and concern were all intertwined with genuine love. Letitia almost gasped to see the intensity of how much he loved her and feared for her future.

  “I will not be around forever,” her father said quietly. “I want to know a good man will take care of you. Perhaps—perhaps if I had been the elder son, you would have more suitors.”

  Stepping forward and pushing aside the butler, who was brushing dust from her father’s greatcoat, she wrapped her arms around her papa and embraced him.

  She could not remember the last time she had hugged him.

  Lord Cavendish seemed to understand as he clumsily returned her embrace.

  “Papa, I will go tonight,” Letitia whispered in his ear, “and I will do my best to uphold the family honor—our family honor. B-But I cannot promise to dance every dance.”

  When she pulled away, her father’s eyes were glistening.

  “That is all I ask,” he said gruffly.

  Then he did something he had not done for years and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Come on, or we shall be late,” said Lady Cavendish. Letitia saw her eyes were brighter than normal. “Is the carriage ready, Bentliff?”

  “It is, indeed, my lady.” The butler bowed as he opened the front door.

  “Excellent.” Lady Cavendish swept past the servant and looked over her shoulder with a smile at her daughter. “Think, Letitia, how many eligible bachelors will be there! I hear that Lady Howard…”

  Letitia rolled her eyes behind her mother’s back as she followed her into the carriage. After moping around the house for the last few days, she had expected her mother to notice that there was something wrong.