She trailed off at his incredulous—almost wounded—stare.
Lillias felt tears of frustration begin to press against her eyes.
“I don’t feel as though I know you anymore, Lillias. Have I failed you in some way?”
“No, Papa. Not at all. It wasn’t you or Mama.”
“Then...”
How could she possibly explain?
“Papa... what if Mr. Cassidy was just... falling on his sword, so to speak?”
“Well, I’d of course have him killed at once for having the temerity to trifle with the daughter of an earl, of course.”
Lillias’s limbs iced.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Of course I wouldn’t have him killed. I’d have you killed.”
At least he was joking again.
Mostly.
“Lillias, it’s a nonsense use of time to entertain the question because surely neither you nor Mr. Cassidy would do anything so stunningly foolish for the lark of it. You’d only do it because true, true love gave you absolutely no choice in the matter.”
This was all said quite tersely and ironically. He carefully did not ask whether she was in love with Mr. Cassidy, which was somehow better and somehow worse. Her father wasn’t one to entertain illusions.
She was quiet. Shame, and regret. Those emotions were nice and distinct now.
“So. Congratulations on your engagement, Lillias. It seems you have gone and chosen yourself a husband. It’s not quite how we envisioned it happening, but I wish you every happiness and we will support you in this matter.”
Lillias pressed her hands against the settee. It suddenly seemed as though the earth had cracked open and she was slowly, little by little, sinking into it.
“We will be attending the Landover Ball, and since Mr. Cassidy is now invited, you will introduce him as your fiancé. Because you can be certain Lady Landover will dump this little bit of news into the stream oftongossip like whiskey in a bowl of ratafia. We will make it very clear that he is everything we dreamed of in a member of the family.Everyonewill want to get an American fiancé from the wilds of New York after this, because it is such a wondrous thing. Am I making myself clear? You will speak of him glowingly, as will I and your mother, and we will make a silk purse of this. And as I said, it isn’t quite how we envisioned your lifeorours, but in the end we’d like you to be happy, and that means St. John will have to make a spectacular match. Or Claire.”
She couldn’t speak. Her limbs were icy and a knot in her throat prevented words from escaping. Her status in society, the life she’d envisioned... she’d thrown them away for a chance to kiss... a stranger. For that’s how he seemed now, when his arms and lips weren’t on her. When she’d known all those other boys in thetonnearly her entire life.
She almost didn’t dare ask the question.
But not asking it would be the height of foolishness.
“Papa...” Her voice was shamefully small. “What if I don’t want to marry him?”
Her father went still.
And then he sighed.
He sat down on the settee across from her, leaned forward with his hands folded, and regarded her with a complicated expression. Sympathetic, just a little. Affectionate, just a little. But utterly implacable.
“I assume you’re asking a hypothetical question because surely it can be nothing else, as, clever as you are, you would have considered the following things. To wit: since your . . .” her father closed his eyes, then issued the word the way one might squeeze a shirt through a laundry press “. . . embrace . . . was witnessed by the people in a position to report in exaggerated detail the eventsof the evening, it would indeed become part of theton’s flow of gossip. Rowlandson might make salacious drawings of it. Remember the caricature of Olivia Eversea we saw inAckerman’s Repository? Cobwebs hanging from her. Merciless and very funny, or so we thought at the time. Yours, of course, would be somuchworse because of all the people who actually witnessed it. Andhowthey would laugh and laugh at all of us. But most especially at you. Because you... would... be ruined.”
Those last words he delivered as one might hammer in a few final nails.
“Of course.” Her voice was frayed. Black dots scudded before her eyes. “Well, certainly. Noted.”
“And then, of course, you’d have to take into consideration the matter of what it would mean for Claire’s or St. John’s prospects in marriage and society, and how this reflects on your mother and me. Once besmirched, a family’s reputation can remain that way for generations, if not forever. And our history has been pristine, if uneventful. This is not an accident of fate. Generations of Vaughns have understood the value of a family name and have taken pains to protect it. We are not a family of saints. But we are, thus far, a family of people who exercisediscretion.”
Those last two words were delivered with a certain punishing exactitude.
