It was hopeless. Nothing she could say would change their minds. Lauren stifled her tears. “Yes, Uncle. Thank you. I see my duty now.”
“Good, good.” There was his meaningless pat on her shoulder again. “I knew you would see reason, like a dutiful niece. You will be married by Christmas, how exciting!”
“I should think so,” Uncle Augustus said.
“Ungrateful girl,” her aunt muttered. “You are excused from dinner this evening. After this morning’s revelation, I have much to discuss with your uncles. A tray will be sent up to you.”
Lauren hurried from the room and along the mezzanine to the stairs to her bedroom on the next floor. As soon as she was out of sight of her aunt, she dashed up the staircase. Her room was closest to the landing, where the most foot traffic passed, while her family’s rooms enjoyed quieter situations.
She entered and leaned back against the door. She must think.
Since her father’s passing, she had been instructed on her duty for the sake of her family—go to boarding school... have a spectacular Season... attract a titled gentleman. And now it was her duty to marry the Earl of Lulworth, whether or not he had shown himself to be brazenly duplicitous. What hope was there for a happy future with such a man?
Her uncles and aunt had told her that her father wanted her to marry a titled man, a man of good breeding. Was that all her father really wanted for her?
She couldn’t believe that.
He had married for love. That’s what she wanted too. She wouldn’t settle for title and wealth without any hope of love. She wanted so much more from a marriage.
Her thoughts untangled, and another path, another future, started to form in her mind. The only answer was escape.
Yes!
To Maisie.
Today.
She sucked in a breath. She could do it.
She must act now, before it was too late. Lauren stepped onto a chair beside her wardrobe and pulled her largest hat box from the top.
Opening it on her bed, she replaced the bonnet stored inside with underclothes and a warm day dress. Then she hid the hat box under her bed in case anyone entered her room. From her dressing table drawer, she extracted her quarterly pin money and the packet of ten-pound notes Sir Oliver had pressed into her hand at their last meeting to use for her wedding trousseau. She pushed all of the money into her beaded purse.
There was one more thing she must do.
Seated at her escritoire in front of her sash window, Lauren pulled forward a sheet of paper and started writing to Sir Oliver. He deserved some explanation of why she couldn’t go through with this wedding.
She wished he was in London now, instead of his estate in Northumberland. He had left as soon as Lauren’s engagement had been announced, giving his promise to return in time for her wedding on Christmas Eve, but here it was just four days away and still he had not arrived.
In the past, he could be relied upon to listen to her fears and at least try to sway her uncles’ views.
She could confide in him. He was the only guardian who had considered her feelings over the last six years, who had ever treated her as a person worth more than her ability to marry well. Never as a burden to be borne for a future repayment.
No wonder she had fallen in love with him, regardless of the fact he was old enough to be her father. From the girlhood love of a favorite guardian while at school, her feelings had morphed into a full-grown passion during this last year in London.
From the beginning of the Season to its end he had partnered her for the first dance at every ball she attended. He even managed to make his kind attentions appear pleasurable to him, talking and laughing with her through each set.
No matter how much she wished their relationship would evolve from avuncular guardian–ward into a romantic one, it never had. Her love for him was as unrequited now as it had been on any previous day. She had accepted that Sir Oliver didn’t love her in any romantic sense and never would just before she accepted Lulworth’s proposal, a month ago.
Now that she was rejecting her guardians’ plans and leaving this house forever, she could finally tell him what he had meant to her during all these years. She poured her broken heart out in her scrawled letter, telling him how much she had appreciated his attention to her during her boarding school days and in her London Season. She told him she couldn’t marry Lulworth and that she loved someone else, although she knew her love was unrequited.
She begged him not to think her ungrateful for her guardians’ attempts to make her life one of titled wealth and privilege. She would prefer a quieter existence and would never return. She did not tell him where she was going.
Finally, she allowed herself to end the letter “with love.” If only he knew how much she meant that.
She shoved the pages into an envelope and addressed it to Sir Oliver at his London address. By the time he received the letter, just before Christmas Eve, it would be too late to trace her.
Lauren rang for the maid she shared with her cousins, drew the curtains against the watery winter sunlight, and climbed onto her bed to wait. When the girl arrived, she informed her she would not require luncheon or dinner.
