The woman in question tittered with brazen confidence. Her eyes alight with amusement, she slid her hand back into the crook of Lulworth’s arm.
His bark of laughter joined his mistress’s merriment. “I have none! If you think I will give up the woman I adore at your request, you are very much mistaken.”
Lauren closed her eyes, blanking the smirking couple from her sight as she attempted to gather her cascading thoughts. Bubbling up through the shock of this revelation were sparkling globes of relief, hope, and hysterical joy. She would not have to marry him after all!
Lauren opened her eyes to find the couple circling around her to exit the shop. “Consider our engagement ended, Lulworth,” she blurted before they could depart.
Lulworth flicked a glance at her before sharing a long look with her aunt. “I think not, Miss Edwards.” He didn’t meet her gaze again.
Lauren turned to her aunt in time to see her nod in agreement with Lulworth’s words.
Without waiting for Lauren to reply, he escorted his amore from the shop.
“What do you mean by agreeing with him, Aunt? I can’t marry him now!”
“You can and you must!” Aunt Hester’s shrill voice sent shivers of horror through Lauren’s veins.
“He has refused to give up his mistress and we aren’t even married yet!”
“You should not have confronted him. Like many aristocratic wives, you will have to look the other way, Lauren. That is the price one pays for a title. You should know that.”
What? She had hoped affection between them would have grown in time, but now she saw that was impossible. Dread settled in her stomach at the thought of her loveless future as Lulworth’s wife. She could not be trapped in such a marriage. Surely her family would not demand that of her? “Do I have no say in the matter?” Lauren asked, incredulous.
Her aunt’s hissed answer couldn’t have been harsher. “None whatsoever. Your three guardians have decided that you are to marry Lulworth, and you shall. It is too late now to withdraw. The contracts are signed. The church is booked. All the ton will be in attendance. You will marry Lulworth. Our family’s future relies on it!”
Her aunt pivoted to greet Madame Lemaire, who finally must have realized they had arrived for Lauren’s fitting.
Numb from the shock of her aunt’s pronouncement, Lauren allowed the dressmaker to push and prod her as she finished fitting the wedding dress. Lauren barely heard a word said to her. Hardly noticed the pinpricks on her skin. All she could think was that she would be trapped in a bleak future unless she could find some way to convince her two uncles and Sir Oliver that she must not be consigned to a life of misery with an unloving and adulterous husband.
Had her uncles or her aunt ever cared about her? They had sent her to boarding school soon after her father’s death, claiming that was what he had wanted for her. Nor had they visited her during term or brought her home for holidays, because there was no room for an extra girl in her uncle and aunt’s house, already full with their six daughters and four sons.
The only person who had visited her during her six years at boarding school in Bath was her third guardian, Sir Oliver. He had been her father’s best friend and best man at her parents’ wedding. Once a term he visited Bath to take her for afternoon tea in one of the tea shops on the high street and asked her questions about herself and her studies.
Toward the end of term, a letter always came from her aunt to say that she would be unable to accommodate Lauren for the holiday. Instead, each term concluded with Sir Oliver arriving in Bath accompanied by Lauren’s former governess, Mrs. Mason—Maisie. He then drove them to Maisie’s cottage in St. Albans where Lauren spent all her holidays.
As if Lauren had minded when she was with Maisie, the only woman who had loved and cared about her since her mother had died when she was an infant.
The carriage ride home to her uncle’s house in one of London’s fashionable squares gave Lauren’s aunt another opportunity to express her views on a willful miss who, for her own selfish reasons, would not do her duty by her family—especially when the family had taken her in, had spared no expense on her education and her coming-out Season.
Money, I believe, my father left to me in trust for just those purposes. Lauren had been a dutiful niece, never disputing her guardians’ wishes. She had at times suspected Sir Oliver disagreed with those directives but had been overruled by Lauren’s uncles by weight of numbers.
“Surely my father would not wish me to marry a man under such circumstances?”
Aunt Hester pursed her lips. “Indeed, he would. He was quite clear about his wishes.”
Lauren stroked a hand over the spaniel Charlie’s soft head as he lay beside her on the leather seat. He wiggled closer. “May I discuss this with Sir Oliver?”
“As you know, he is out of town and not expected back until the day before the wedding.”
Yes, she had missed him these last four weeks.
“Now it is time you repaid your family. You have six cousins who need titled husbands. As the Countess of Lulworth, you will be in a position to assist them. And their brothers will benefit from the associations those marriages forge. Do you understand your duty, Lauren?”
I understand what you see as my duty, but I don’t agree. “Yes, Aunt Hester.” Mutiny burned in her heart. For now, until she could think things through, she must not display anything but compliance.
Aunt Hester leaned forward and fixed her hard gaze on Lauren. “You will marry Lulworth on Christmas Eve, and without a single complaint to Sir Oliver. Your uncles are in agreement that this marriage will be the making of our family. We will no longer be merely wealthy, but our daughters and grandchildren will have titles as well. What a wonderful Christmas gift to your family.” She clasped her hands together and smiled at Lauren with all the warmth of a snake eyeing a small mouse.
Lauren bowed her head to stare at her hands clasped in her lap. “Yes, Aunt.” No, Aunt.
