It does not seem so now, does it…
All her life, she had done everything right—excelled in school, had no missteps, no scandals, not even whispers, and whenGabriel had offered her marriage, she’d been elated—so why is she still waiting for her marriage two years in?
“Cecilia?”
“Hm?”
“Could there be a way for you to force him to pay attention to you?”
“Like what?” Cecilia asked dourly. “I doubt I’d get his attention if I suddenly rode into the dancefloor on an elephant’s back while juggling apples while balancing a teacup and saucer on my nose.”
“Oh! I know,” Emma practically bounced in her seat. “We can send a note to him, by a footman, to ask him to meet you in the library upstairs.”
Cecilia listened with half an ear.
“Now, he’s dancing with Ophelia Hawthorne,” Cecilia nodded. “This year’s diamond-of-the-first-water. I—I wish I could understand the male mind.”
“Good lord, not tonight,” Rosie muttered. “I wish the good lady would not invite such riff-raff to such genteel events.”
“What do you mean—” Following her friend’s line of sight, Cecilia muttered, “Oh.”
Instantly, her heart walloped in her chest, moments before ire sparked in her veins. There was one secret Cecilia held dear to her heart, one that would never leave her lips.
Two years and three months earlier, the very night of her debut, before she had met Gabriel, she ran—quite literally—into Cassian Fitzroy.
“Easy there,” he’d said, steadying her from toppling. “Where is the fire?”
He’d looked so lean and powerful in somber grey; mesmerized by the intensity of his slate grey eyes, she’d whispered, “Thank you… um, who are you?”
His slow, self-deprecating smile devastated her senses. “My manners aren’t usually this shoddy. Forgive me, Cassian Fitzroy, newly minted Duke of Tressingham, at your service.”
A silly little infatuation had birthed in her naïve chest that night, and even when she’d learned that he was one of the worst rakehells in London—it still happened.
Emma whispered, “His Graceis here.”
“You mean hisscapegrace,” Cecilia said sourly.
Reaching over, Rosie patted Cecilia’s free hand, “Dearest, it is about time you let that incident go.”
She dropped her bread on a platter and wiped her hands. “Let it go? The man humiliated me and then jabbed salt into the open wound.”
“Yes, dear, we know,” Rosie monotoned. “We were there.”
Pushing the horrible memory to the back of her mind, she tried to train her thoughts back to the issue with Gabriel. She did not know what to do as there was no way she could force Gabriel down the aisle, but even worse, this new dismissive attitude from Gabriel rubbed her wrong.
Is this my fault? Have I done something wrong?
“Duke Tressingham is handsome,” Rosie sighed, while flapping her fan. “It is such a shame he is a rakehell.”
While refreshing her cup, Cecilia had to—silently—agree. Despite his erroneous character, the lord wasNarcissusreincarnated.
With a lean face, the hollows of which highlighted his sculpted cheekbones and granite jaw, he always wore his inky black hair a bit long, brushing his shoulders instead of cropped like a true man of the ton wore theirs. His eyes, though… his eyes were spellbinding, like ethereal smoke caught in a glass.
Cassian Fitzroy was the god of wine personified, his hair wild and tousled, as if he had just rolled out of bed. Knowing his reputation, he quite possibly had. He was holding a comically large goblet in his hand while the wreath of grape leaves tilted on his head as he laughed.
Between a rakehell I cannot stand and my fiancé who seems to not want to stand with me… I don’t know what to do. I feel stifled.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need a breath of fresh air,” she said to her friends while she stood and brushed her skirts down. The bodice, constructed of white and silver satin, had a wide V-neck gown that almost left her shoulders bare.
