Furthermore, in the perverse way of theton, despite outwardly flaunting his infidelity, Flavion continued to be well-received and even revered. For he was one of them. Our poor, dear Lord Kensington, stuck with a lowborn wife! They’d understood his action to be perfectly acceptable. Their precious earl was a martyr, a hero, a victim! What did Lady Kensington expect?
She’d gotten her title, after all. Good lord, Miss Cecily Findlay had been elevated to the title of countess. Amazing, what money could buy these days!
“You are clenching your jaw again, Cece.” Her friend Emily’s voice broke into Cecily’s bitter thoughts. “You’ll grind up all of your teeth if you keep doing that. Here, I’ve brought you another glass of champagne.” And then, turning to follow the direction of Cecily’s gaze, Emily sighed. “I know. I saw them leave, too. He ought to have two horns and a tail instead of well… looking like such an angel, rather.”
Cecily dragged her eyes away from the terrace doors toward her friend and attempted a smile. The image of Flavion with horns protruding from his head and a tail shooting out behind him nearly caused her to laugh out loud. But she did not. For if she were to begin laughing, she very well might become hysterical.
The alcohol made her more than a little fuzzy. Since her wedding night, she’d acted with reckless disregard for her reputation. But did it matter? She’d followed the rules of etiquette diligently when she’d first been introduced to Society, and look where that had gotten her. Now, ironically, as a countess, she received the cut direct nearly everywhere she went. No one but her dearest friends ever met her eyes anymore.Shewas not one of them. She never would be. She wished her father had not set his sights so high for her.
But, in all fairness she could not lay all the blame for this catastrophe at her father’s door. For she herself had been swept up in the intoxication of Flavion’s romantic declarations.
When she’d said,“I do,”returning his loving gaze, she’d thought she had finally found her happily ever after — her fairy tale prince. But, nay, that had been a fantasy.
She had become a countess, but she’d also become an object for ridicule.
Thank God for Emily, Sophia, and Rhoda, (short for Rhododendron). The three of them had been marginalized to the periphery of the ballroom by diminutive dowries; Cecily by low birth. The bonds of mutual rejection were apparently stronger than one would have thought.
In spite of their respective parents’ disapproval, the small group of friends had stood by her through it all. They’d rejoiced with her when they thought she was making a glorious love match with Flavion, they’d cried with her when she left her wedding breakfast, and then they’d cried with her again when she broke the news to them that it had all been a charade. He only needed her money.
Since then, daily and with unabridged enthusiasm, her three friends now concocted elaborate plots for her to escape her despicable marriage. Alas, all they had been able to come up with to date were methods for murdering him. The law did not allow a woman to divorce her husband. This being the case, their suggestions encompassed poisonous herbs, carriage accidents, and outright shooting the louse through the heart.
And eventually, they’d succeeded in making her smile again.
Fixing her gaze on a distant candle, Cecily wished for the thousandth time that her father was still in London. He would hopefully receive her letter soon. And then, return to England on the next ship. The last time he’d crossed, it had taken thirty-two days to do so. He would likely be unable to return to London for another month — or longer. But even then, could he do anything to help her? His wealth had gotten her into this marriage; surely it could buy her way out of it.
“Perhaps you could getFlavionto divorceyou!” Sophia sidled up beside Emily. “You could do something so very terrible that he could not help but begin divorce proceedings.” With Sophia being the most timid and shy of her friends, this suggestion came as a bit of a surprise.
Emily pushed her spectacles up higher onto the bridge of her nose and grimaced. “It would have to be truly horrible. The cost of a divorce is exorbitant! He would end up spending a huge part of your dowry on legal fees. And if he divorced you, Cece, your reputation would be beyond repair. The scandal would be horrendous.”
By this point, Rhoda had returned from the ladies’ retiring room and picked up on the last part of the conversation. As the four had continuously discussed methods to free Cecily from her marriage for several days now, she had no difficulty in picking up on the train of thought. “What could possibly make him angry enough to do that? Cece’s dowry was his sole purpose for marrying her after all.”
Cecily closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. She could barely organize her champagne-muddled thoughts. After a few moments, she picked up the idea again. “Heisgrowing quite angry with me for locking my chamber door at night. Despicable man. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold him off. I find it reprehensible that he still expects for me to… that I will… well, that I would present him with an heir — the lying, snake-in-the-grass, scum-sucking rat.”
“You could make him into a cuckold. Present him with another man’s child,” Sophia suggested breathlessly.
Three sets of widened eyes turned on her at the same time.
“That’s perfect!” Rhoda said.
“She’d be an outcast,” Emily stated.
A shiver ran down Cecily’s spine as she imagined Flavion’s reaction to such a scandal. “I’d be free,” she whispered. “But how would I go about doing such a thing? I know nothing of seduction, and if I did, who on earth would I seduce?”
In that moment, a commotion arose by the doors where a man bearing an eerie resemblance to Flavion Nottingham stood. Instead of being fair and blond, this man’s skin was bronzed and his hair more of a tarnished golden color — but the eyes were the same, the features nearly identical. And as several ladies swooped in on him, it quickly became apparent that he also possessed the same lethal magnetism.
“What about him?” Emily asked with a wicked glint in her eyes.
It had beenover eight years since Stephen Nottingham had last set foot in a London ballroom. He’d left England at the age of one and twenty with a resolve to find his own place in life, and had finally returned, having done so. He’d established a fortune, a rather convenient set of circumstances, considering the letter he’d finally received from his cousin. News was that the family coffers were in dire need of funds. Stephen vowed this would be the last time he would bail out his cousin, now the earl. He only hoped he wasn’t too late. As the second in line to the earldom, and having been virtually raised by his uncle, Stephen felt more than a little responsible for the family estate and holdings.
He was in a position to save it, and save it he would. But there would be conditions. He would not offer his assistance without oversight.
Upon the death of Uncle Leo, Flave had most likely relinquished full control to the stewards who had worked under his father for years. There would have been no control, no guidance, and no innovation.
Stephen tried to ignore the niggling of guilt that assaulted him whenever he pondered his uncle’s death. He had not returned home for the funeral. He’d stayed away intentionally, still feeling the sting of his family’s betrayal. He had left Flavion to cope alone.
And Flavion had always been a spendthrift. Who knew what had transpired over the past five years or so? Nothing lucrative, for certain.
Stephen would be damned if he would sink his hard-earned funds into the properties and then allow them to be mismanaged. Flave must learn to put in some effort.
