“You know why he banished me,” she said quietly, though it pained her to speak of the reason.
And most especially of the man who had caused it.
A man she had believed—quite foolishly—loved her.
But as it turned out, she had been wrong. Indeed, she had been wrong about a great many things. She could only hope agreeing to wed the Earl of Rayne would not prove one of them. Lord knew her history in trusting men spoke for itself.
“Do not remind me of that insufferable reprobate, Shrewsbury.” Hattie’s glower made her opinion of the marquess quite apparent. “Montrose ought to have met him on the field of honor and put a bullet in his black heart. I know Montrose is your brother, Catriona, and you love him, but I find nothing redeeming in him whatsoever. There is a rumor he has three mistresses. Three!”
Knowing Monty, he probably did.
“Hattie, I begged Monty not to do it,” she defended her brother, suppressing a shudder as she recalled the row which had ultimately ended in her being sent away to Scotland. “You know that.”
“And the coward took you at your word, sending you away instead of making Shrewsbury pay for what he had done,” Hattie said, settling her teacup in its saucer with more force than necessary. “How can you forgive him for it, my dear? Your heart is far purer than mine, I will own. When someone betrays me, I cannot rest until the injustice is somehow accounted for.”
Monty was not a coward, Catriona well knew. He had been determined to meet Shrewsbury at Battersea Fields to satisfy Catriona’s honor. But she had fallen upon her knees before her brother, begging him not to challenge the marquess to a duel, for the marquess was a notoriously excellent shot, and Monty was a notoriously in-his-cups ne’er-do-well. Her brother would not have survived, and Catriona could not have borne his blood on her hands.
Far better to live with her own shame.
“He did what I asked him to, Hattie,” she told her friend, grateful for her unending allegiance, but reluctant to relive her own ignominy. “I did not want Shrewsbury to kill him.”
“You saved his life, and in return, he banished you to Scotland.” Hattie harrumphed. “Fine brother he is. Bad enough he forced you to leave Town as if you were responsible for that cad Shrewsbury’s actions. But now, he is making you marry the Earl of Rayne.”
Hattie shuddered for effect.
Inwardly, Catriona was shuddering as well, but it was for different reasons than her beloved friend. It was because the Earl of Rayne affected her in a way no man ever had. In a way not even Shrewsbury had.
And she could not like it, nor trust it, any more than she could like or trust the Earl of Rayne himself.
She took a calming sip of her tea, realizing belatedly she had scarcely touched it and that it was growing cold. “Hattie, dearest, I have already told you, Monty is not forcing me to marry Rayne. I made the decision myself.”
“That is nonsense, and I refuse to believe it. Montrose brought you back to London expressly to see you betrothed to the earl. He told Torrington as much, and Torrington told me. You know how the two of them are when they are drinking together at their club. Worse than a pair of dowagers at a ball.”
Hattie’s brother, Viscount Torrington, was one of Monty’s oldest and closest friends. For all that he was an incorrigible scoundrel and rakehell, Torrington’s love for Hattie was boundless. It was the only redeeming quality he possessed. Monty and Torrington together were nothing but trouble.
All London knew it.
Just as they knew she, Lady Catriona Hamilton, had been caught kissing the Marquess of Shrewsbury at the Mansfield ball.
“You are right that Monty brought me back to London because of the earl,” Catriona said. “But he did not issue a demand. He told me he had found a means of restoring my reputation, and he urged me to accept Rayne’s suit.”
What she did not say was that she had only returned to London because Mama had been adamant that she must. And that she had instead launched her own campaign of avoidance, hoping Rayne would cry off.
Only, he had not.
He had returned on three occasions.
She shivered as she recalled her first sight of him in the library. Because he spent so little time in England, she had never before had occasion to meet him. She had imagined him to be older. And uglier.
But he was near enough in age to her, only in his mid-thirties, she would judge. And he was the furthest one could reasonably get from being unattractive.
He was the most glorious man she had ever beheld.
“They say he is mad,” Hattie said.
It was entirely possible, for only a mad man would have pursued Catriona into the library as he had. Only a mad man would want to marry a woman and then never see her again after she bore him an heir.
“He did not seem mad,” she said rather unconvincingly.
