“Will he disown you?” the Marquess asked, and there was something in his voice—unarticulated hurt, the kind of deep pain that punctured through to the marrow.
“I–I don’t think so.” Hopefully. She wasn’t entirely sure what her father would do if she was ruined. Certainly, it would mean she was unlikely to ever marry, which would displease him, but would he care enough to take action?
Theo, at least, would protect her. But at what cost? A woman with a ruined reputation could not mingle in Society, and her family would be tainted by association. Yes, she would finally see her dream to remain unmarried, but she had wanted that decision to be her own, not forced on her by the actions of others.
“Can you not tell everyone that we were never in the garden?” she asked desperately. “Or perhaps something else to avoid scandal?”
He gave a short, hard laugh that dispelled the last of her hope. “Do I strike you as the sort of man who avoids scandal, little bird?”
“Please.”
“Please what? Marry you?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not the marrying sort.”
“There has to be some way to convince everyone nothing happened.”
“I’m all ears.”
She desperately cast around for a way out of this mess. Lord Helmsley had been the one to spread the rumour, and if it was known that she had slighted him, perhaps some people would believe he had done it out of spite, but the engagement notice only confirmed the situation.
“I would have thought you were an expert on avoiding marriage.”
“Oh I am,” he said, the glitter turning to a gleam. “But I achieve that by not involving myself with unmarried ladies. You were a mistake.”
The words punched the air from her lungs. “Then you have nothing? No solution?”
“Scandal doesn’t last forever. Ride it out, and once it’s over, people will have forgotten.”
“Hardly reassuring given the way they will treat me in the meantime,” she said, hating the way her voice broke. “And what about my family?”
“So long as they will not turn you out, that is all that matters.”
“That isnotall that matters!” She touched a hand to her tangled hair. Everyone was going to see her and make an assumption about what she had been doing. The moment she stepped back into the light, she would be even more ruined. They would assume the worst because that was what people loved to do—they loved to make the worst of every given situation.
They would stare at her. Whisper. Already, the prospective weight of their attention made her want to sink into the ground. And they would assume, again, that she had been with the Marquess of Sunderland, who was well known for having a different woman for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Her lip quivered. And the Marquess, damn him, was just staring at her, his face impassive, nothing moving but those eyes as they travelled across her face.
She sniffed, valiantly holding in her tears. When she was home and it was all over, then she would cry.
“You look dishevelled,” he said as she turned, steeling herself to enter the fray once more.
“No, I—” Her protest cut off as he took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face the hedge. He gathered the hair that had fallen loose across her shoulders and repinned it with fingers that had no right being so nimble. “My lord,” she said, her voice uncertain. “What are you doing?”
“Rendering you slightlylessdishevelled, my lady,” he said. “Fear not—I have some experience in this area.”
“Dishevelment?”
“And the aftermath.” His fingers trailed along her neck and she had to bite back the urge to shiver. It made no sense how Lord Helmsley’s touch made her want to gag, and the Marquess’s made her skin prickle with sensitivity.
“I wasn’t aware debauchery had this sort of aftermath,” she said.
“Of course you weren’t.” He stepped back and when she turned, he offered her his arm. “Allow me to assist you in finding your party.”
She gaped at him, and he tucked her hand in his arm, flashing her a brilliant smile.
“I don’t understand,” she said weakly.
“I’m escorting you.”
