“Do not make me repeat myself.”
“You said that I needed to find a wife, Your Grace. You did not say that I needed to entertain every woman that you push in my direction. I am perfectly capable of making my own choices,” Richard said through gritted teeth.
“That has yet to be true. Lady Elmsworth is a good, strategic match. Her land and income will expand our power significantly.”
“Then you marry her.”
“Watch your tongue, boy.”
Somewhere in the distant ballroom, music started to play that signaled the arrival of guests.
“Lady Elmsworth is the very last person that I would ever be convinced to marry. While you wish to dispose of me, I am your only heir. You know the rumors pertaining to the demise of her late husband just as well as I do. She is conniving and ruthless. As such, I will not entertain her.” Richard seethed.
Never mind the fact that Lady Elmsworth had been attempting to catch his eye for as long as he could remember. Well before she had married her late husband she had attempted to capture his special attention. Back then, he had not understood why it was that she made his skin crawl every time he was near to her. Like a spider, she was beautiful and yet wholly deadly.
Though he had not thought that it would be such a literal description of her. It was not as if she had ever faced charges for the demise of her husband. Nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors based around the fact that she had been in such an unhappy marriage…but he was not eager to meet that same fate.
Poison was a terrible way to go.
“You will do as you are commanded, and that is final.”
The duke would not be pushing as hard for this possible match if there was not something greater in the bargain for his personal benefit. Richard was no longer going to allow himself to be a pawn in those games. Whatever it was that he hoped to gain from Lady Isabella, he was going to have to find it some other way.
“And if I do not?” Richard challenged. He would not bow before his father any longer. The ordeal with the Thompsons had broken something—it was the final straw for him and his hopes that somehow, in some way, his father might be redeemable. “Besides, I have made arrangements for this evening already.”
“Is that right?” The duke looked his son over as if sizing him up. “And whom have you chosen? No doubt the least appealing woman as some pitiful act of rebellion against my orders.”
“I suppose you shall just have to wait and see.” Richard shouldered past his father as he left his personal study. The room was practically empty as he could not stand to do any sort of business in a place where his father would just constantly stand over his shoulder and criticize his work at every turn. Though, he did like having the space available when he needed it. If only his father did not also have a key to every room in the damned place.
He just had to hope against hope that Lady Catherine had changed her mind and that she would be waiting to join him when he reached the foot of the stairs.
Chapter 7
Wallingham Place
In less than a week, Catherine had decided that high-society life was not something that she was ever going to experience again. She had allowed that life to slip through her fingers and told herself that so long as she shifted her thinking into her new lifestyle, everything was going to be okay. Yet, a single invitation later and she was going to be thrust back into this world that had turned their back on her.
Mother was beside herself with excitement. She did not seem to hold a single shred of worry or apprehension as she practically bounced up and down on her side of the carriage. She looked younger. Her face finally had more color to it, and she had taken great pride in getting the pair of them ready for their evening tonight.
Yet Catherine could not help but to think that they were making a terrible mistake. She had tried and tried to explain to her mother that the only thing that attending this ball was going to accomplish was further public ridicule.
She felt as if they were walking into a lion’s den dressed willingly as sheep. She personally thought that it would be so much simpler to simply pretend that none of them had ever existed. Yet, she could not deny her mother the creature comforts of the world that she had so adored.
Lord Richard had likely thought nothing at all of offering her mother a new dress and his line of credit at the modiste. Yet, to her mother, it was a chance at being her old self once again.
It was her social life and perhaps the last new dress that she could attain for herself for a good long while. While it might seem a frivolous pursuit to some, it had given Arabella a reason to get out of bed in the morning and actually chose to venture into town on her own with her chin held high.
Catherine dawdled for a moment as their carriage came to a stop in front of Wallingham Place. Even as her mother daintily slipped her hand into the footman’s and allowed herself to be escorted from the carriage, Catherine could hear them.
While Arabella delicately fanned herself with the blue lace-design fan that she’d had specifically made to pair with the deep indigo of her gown, people whispered. They spoke to one another in ‘hushed’ voices and spoke behind their cupped hands.
The rumors were already circulating viciously as to how they could dare show their faces in public again after what had happened. A blend of pitying glances and outright accusation shone in every pair of eyes that Catherine dared to meet as she slowly moved behind her mother toward the house, so that they might be announced.
Never before had Catherine felt such an intense desire to make herself smaller somehow. These people were once those that she called her friends, and now, none of them would so much as come to greet her or ask how she and her mother had been faring. No member of thetonwas unaware of what would happen to someone should the court of public opinion turn against them…but she had never thought that it would have been her.
Her stomach twisted. Something sour and heavy settled in her gut that made each of her steps feel leaden as she moved toward the front door of the house of her enemies. Walking straight into the belly of the beast. Perhaps it was not yet too late to run. Perhaps it was not too much to simply turn heel and cower away inside of the carriage until she could collect herself.
But then Lord Richard would win.
