She scarcely knew how she felt about the idea of being his wife. She had been so distracted by their ruse, their pretense, and wondering whether Lord Harry would change his behavior towards her, that she did not really know how she felt about the Duke, for himself.
She thought about it as she traversed the lawn and headed for the vegetable garden that her mother had tended with such devotion, now looked after by the gardeners instead. It was perfectly tidy but lacked the charm it had in previous years. It was almost as if the soil and the plants could tell they were no longer being tended with the love that had once been bestowed upon them. They still produced leaves and flowers, but nothing was quite the same as it had been before.
She remembered their walk in the garden on the day of the Duke’s first visit to their home. She had enjoyed his company and felt that he had not been repulsed by hers. And he had been so attentive at dinner, too. But at that time, the whole thing had been a sham. And now he found himself forced to marry her!
That kiss, though! Surely it meant something? It had certainly felt to her as if it meant something.
She pushed the thought away. Gentlemen seducing ladies in the shrubbery, the whole thing was too ridiculous to take seriously. Perhaps he had just seen an opportunity for a dalliance and had seized upon it. And yet, what little she knew of him did not seem to support this view.
But it was too outlandish to imagine that he could really want to marry her. No, he had been forced into this situation by their misconduct. Could she really go along with it and force them both into a loveless future? She found, as she stared at the flower beds, now becoming more and more sparse as the winter approached, that she did not know what to do for the best. She had lost count of how many times she had wished over the last few hours that her mother was there to advise her and comfort her, and now, she felt that wish in her heart even more strongly than ever. She had never felt so alone.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
“When do you think you will next see the Duke?” Martha asked Charlotte. It was the following morning, and they were sitting together in the breakfast room alone. No other members of the family had come downstairs yet, and Charlotte was glad to have a moment alone with her sister, having been denied her company for much of the time for the last few days.
Charlotte frowned. “I do not know, to be perfectly honest,” she replied, then took a bite of her toast and chewed it thoughtfully. It tasted of nothing – the stress and worry of the last few days had all but entirely taken away her appetite. “He sent me a note yesterday to say that he has requested a special license for our marriage and that the wedding will take place within the next few days.”
Martha raised an eyebrow. “He is serious, then, in his intentions.”
“It seems so,” Charlotte nodded. “He is doing the honorable thing despite his own wishes.”
“How do you know that it is despite his own wishes?” Martha asked.
Charlotte scoffed. “How can it be anything else? There is no way that he would be consenting to marry me if it was not for this scandal.”
Martha sighed. “Sister, I think that you should trust him. I am sure he could have found a way around it if he really wanted to.”
“It does not seem right, though, to allow him to go through with this marriage when he could not possibly desire it.” Charlotte sighed. “But I do not feel that I have a choice, either. If I refuse to marry him, I will be ruined, and I will ruin your chances of a happy marriage forever, too.”
Martha waved a hand in the air. “You must not think of me. I gave up any hope of romance long ago.”
“But Lord Miller…” Charlotte said, then stopped herself before she could say anymore. It was not fair to get her sister’s hopes up when everything around them was in chaos.
But Martha looked at her shrewdly. “Lord Miller has nothing to do with it,” she said firmly. “And neither do I. You must make the decision as you see best. But do you not want to be a duchess?”
Before Charlotte had the chance to answer her sister, the door of the breakfast room flew open, and her stepmother entered, with Alison following in her wake.
“Well, good morning, Your Grace,” Lady Margaret sneered at Charlotte.
Charlotte flinched in response. “Please, I wish you would not call me that,” she said in a tired tone. She had always known that her stepmother hated her, but her stepmother’s jibes were getting worse with each passing day, and this insistence on referring to her by the title she would acquire if she became a duchess really was quite unbearable.
Alison snorted. “See the airs and graces she gives herself already, Mama!”
Lady Margaret smirked. “Indeed. And I have a plan for today, Charlotte, which will help you to get used to your new elevated position in society.”
Charlotte looked at her suspiciously. Any plan that the viscountess was hatching could not be good. She never meant well, and all her plotting was solely aimed at humiliating her stepdaughters and pushing her own daughter’s interests forward.
“We are going into town after breakfast, girls. All of us!” Lady Margaret glanced at Martha, and then at Charlotte. “And we shall see how the people of the ton react when they see this young lady who is to become the Duchess of Seton, and with such remarkable speed too, and in such questionable circumstances!”
Charlotte let out a groan. Her stepmother was out to humiliate her, to expose her to the stares and whispers of every gossip in the ton. And there was nothing she could do about it.
* * *
Charlotte forced her shoulders back and took a deep breath before pushing open the door of the shop and entering. It was one of the most popular shops in the town, where they sold ribbons and buttons and other sorts of fripperies, and Charlotte would quite happily have avoided it for the rest of her days had her stepmother not insisted on them going in. And she knew exactly why the viscountess was so keen to visit.
“Ah, good morning, Mrs. Smith!” Lady Margaret trilled, following Charlotte into the shop and addressing the woman behind the counter. “I do hope you and your family are well?”
Charlotte cringed inwardly. There was no way they could avoid notice now, her stepmother having announced their arrival so obviously. And the viscountess had just a few seconds ago been saying how much she disliked Mrs. Smith and how overpriced she thought everything in the shop was, and yet here she was, chatting to her as if they were old friends. This form of dissembling was a specialty of the Lady Margaret’s; she seemed to find it uncommonly easy to be nice to people’s faces just moments after she had been criticizing and complaining about them. Charlotte dreaded to think what was said about herself and Martha by their stepmother behind their backs, considering how vitriolic she was to their faces. It hardly bore thinking about.
