“But that doesn’t mean people are going to want to look at it,” his mother said. “Thomas, you understand, don’t you—it’s for the best to keep these things hidden away, out of the public eye. You don’t want her talked about.”
“She’ll be talked about regardless. She’s going to be a duchess. Everyone will have things to say about her. That’s not something we can hope to control. If she hides her face, they’ll just talk about why she does that.”
“In the end, there’s nothing we can do about people talking,” Lady Madeleine interjected. “That’s going to happen either way. Are we agreed on that much?”
“Of course,” Thomas said.
“In which case, Your Grace, I see no problem wearing something your mother finds appropriate.”
“You see?” Thomas’s mother said. “She can be agreeable, Thomas. I think it’s only you she’s rebellious toward. Perhaps what’s needed is for you to be a bit firmer.”
Thomas felt irritated. He turned away from the pair of them. And then, though he hadn’t meant to do it, he found himself walking right out of the shop.
I’ll just go and get the marriage license,he thought.They don’t seem to need any of my help or advice here!
As he walked down the street, stewing in his anger and irritation, he tried to figure out what had made him feel that way. He wasn’t used to getting this angry with anyone in his family. Even though he had disagreed with his mother before, he didn’t usually get upset about it, and he had certainly never walked away from her.
And it was her he was upset with; he knew that. He wished Lady Madeleine had given a different answer than she had, but he couldn’t honestly be angry with her. She was trying to please the Dowager Duchess.
I wish she wouldn’t, though. I wish she knew she didn’t have to do that.
It was a lot to ask of a young lady who was joining the family for the first time, who would be gaining her first experience of what it meant to live such a public life. He would have understood if shedidwant to hide her scars.
But he couldn’t help remembering what she had worn to the ball when they’d first met.
He hadn’t gotten a good look at her that night, but he did remember the shape of the gown. He knew that her neck and collar had been exposed. She hadn’t been hiding anything that night and easily could have covered up a bit more.
She wasn’t afraid to let people see that scar.
It was Thomas’s mother who was afraid of what people would think. She was the one making Lady Madeleine believe she had something she needed to hide. And that bothered Thomas. It wasn’t true.
He sighed and started off down the street.
If his mother was determined to make Lady Madeleine wear those dreadful gowns, there was probably nothing that could be done about it since Lady Madeleine seemed to want to cooperate with the idea. He wasn’t going to try to tell her what she could and couldn’t wear.
But, he decided, once they had her measurements, he would have some other gowns made. More stylish ones that weren’t wholly designed around the idea of trying to hide her from the world. Perhaps she would feel more comfortable in them. He would hope for that, and he would hope that, eventually, she would begin wearing them instead.
Her scar isn’t such a distracting thing. It’s noticeable the first time you see it, but if we let everyone in the ton get a good look, they would all quickly move on to thinking about something else.
He was fairly sure he was right about that. He knew how gossip worked. A topic was only relevant until something more interesting came along to take its place.
By trying to hide that scar, they would be making it interesting. The best thing they could do was to try to make it mundane. Then people would lose interest.
He would make that point to Lady Madeleine. But not today.
Today, he would simply get the marriage license and then take them home. Let his mother believe she had won this round.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
“Sit up straighter,” Henrietta said. “There, that’s better. And now try tilting your chin down just a bit—there. That’s perfect. I can hardly see it now.”
The posture was uncomfortable, and it felt unnatural to Madeleine. She didn’t like it at all. But she was doing her best to cooperate. She knew that the more she made Henrietta and Thomas happy before the wedding, the more likely they would be to leave her to her own devices after it had taken place.
That didn’t mean it was easy. Every few seconds, her body tried to straighten itself out. She had to constantly remind herself to hold her head at this strange angle.
She also didn’t like the high collar of the gown she was wearing. It had arrived at her house that morning with a note indicating that she ought to wear it to tea at Westcourt that day, and of course, she had obliged. But she despised it already. The collar was so high that it scratched her ears, and it was made of a rough material that allowed it to stand upright but felt like sandpaper against her skin. She couldn’t wait to get home and take it off.
“You really do look lovely,” Henrietta said as if that would be some sort of consolation.
