“Finally! He’d promised himself to her ten years before he actually showed up to marry her. She said he asked and then he disappeared and left her alone. Fortenyears,” Willa had to repeat.
“Wellington didn’t really disappear,” Cassandra said reasonably. “Wasn’t he in the military all that time? He was quite busy fighting for our king. She knew where he was.”
“If he was going to go dashing off, he shouldn’t have extracted a promise of marriage from Kitty, leaving her towait. I swear, men have all the fun.”
“He was shot at, and war is ghastly.”
Willa shook her head. “So is standing around ballroomswaitingfor someone who you want to believe cares about you to put in an appearance. And Wellington hasn’t been completely alone while he’s been shot at. You know his reputation—even married.”
“He is not the most attentive of husbands.”
“Exactly. Just like my father and so many others. The men go off into life while the women... wait. And for what? Death?”
“You are being a bit dramatic,” Cassandra warned.
Willa came to her feet. Pent-up frustration moved her to pace the room. It was also a blessing to finally be able to speak her mind to someone she trusted. She had her own list to tick off. “Camberly left right after our betrothal ball. It was as if the clock chimed midnight and he vanished. That was months ago, and it was the last time I saw him. We danced three times, he walked me around the garden, and then he was gone. He didn’t even say good-bye. He just disappeared and then word comes to me that he is at Mayfield.”
“Has he at least written?”
“No, not even to tell me he is alive. I feel like a dairy cow he has purchased. He has contracted a sale with my father and plans on showing up tomorrow to milk me. One doesn’t write letters to dairy cows.”
Cassandra choked back laughter. “That is a terrible image.”
“A humbling one.”
“It is, and surprising. Matthew Addison is one of my husband’s friends. Soren speaks highly of him. I can’t believe he’d be so...” She paused as if searching for a word.
Willa supplied one. “Thick?”
“I was going to say absent.”
“Yes, he has definitely been that. Then my path crossed Lady Wellington’s. Kitty saw me wandering around ballrooms alone and took pity on me. She said I reminded her so much of herself.”
“Why were you wandering?”
“Because I don’t fit in anywhere. Usually, once one is promised, you attend events with your intended. I was alone.Obviouslyalone. I am no longer one of the debutantes. I have my duke. If I was around them for the simplest of reasons, their mothers hissed at me like old geese, as if I will chase away prospects for their daughters. I can’t join the matrons. All they do is gossip and discuss their children and their husbands. Oh, Lord, how they carry on.”
“There are other women at these events than in those two groups.”
“A single woman cannot roam around the card room.”
“Isn’t your mother usually there?”
“You know how she is with her friends. She has also made it clear that now is her time. She no longer needs to chaperone me the way she did before I was promised. According to her, she’s done her part—I’ve landed a husband.” Willa’s mother was not the doting sort. “And you know Father. Always too busy and important for mere ballroom floors.”
No, he saved the best of himself for his mistresses, something Willa had promised herself she would never tolerate. Especially after witnessing how happy Cassandra and Leonie were with men who valued them...
And yes, Camberly’s infatuation with the adulterous Lady Bainhurst had been a strong mark against him.
It still was.
“But certainly, you have friends,” Cassandra protested.
“I don’t. You and Leonie were my friends. The others...? Even Lady Bettina distances herself from me now that I am to be married to a man she has let everyone know she’d wanted. She has said some ugly things.”
“I don’t doubt it. She was always whispering about us.”
“Until we brought her into the game,” Willa reminded Cassandra. “The other evening, she informed me I shouldn’t even be seen in Society without the duke since I had ‘won’ him.”
