Her father, clearly alarmed she had decided to hold her ground, turned like a wooden doll toward her, his face flat.
“The scandal with Lord Wetherington was not of my choosing. He tried to force me to kiss him —”
Her father scoffed and continued to pace again.
“He did. It was exactly what he did.”
“You mistake a man’s passion for forcefulness,” her father said nonchalantly.
“Father!” She was so disgusted, she actually stepped toward him. “I know the difference. As for tonight, I slipped, and Lord Padleigh caught me. That was all it was.”
“You have not told us where you have been this last year?” Ernest stepped toward her with such righteousness and indignation in his tone that she actually backed up and went to stand behind her crying mother. “What else am I left to think other than the fact you have been a kept woman this last year?”
“A kept woman!”
“Do not tell me you are so much of a fool not to know what it means?”
“Of course, I know what it means.” She gripped to the back of the chair for support. “I am simply gutted that you would think I was such a woman. My virtue is intact.” She addressed these final words to her mother. Margaret lifted her face out of the embroidered handkerchief momentarily, her eyes glittering with more tears. “This last year, I have been with a friend. A trusted friend. That is all.”
She had no intention of telling Ernest she had been with Honora. Ernest disliked Honora intently, and out of fear that he would take some action in revenge for hiding his daughter, Frederica intended on keeping her aunt’s kindness a secret.
“Oh., what does it matter anyway, now?” Ernest flung himself down into the nearest chair, burying his face in his hands. His rounded stomach looked even greater in this position, his balding head stark in the firelight. “You are so disgraced, you will take our whole family down with you. There goes my invitation to play croquet with the Duke of Alnwick next week. I am sure of it.”
“Is that all you care about?” Frederica asked quietly in amazement. “A game of croquet with a duke?”
Her father didn’t answer her, but she didn’t need him to. Her life, as disgraced as it was, disappointed her father because it affected his chances of climbing that social ladder.
It is all that matters to him.
“At least with Lord Wetherington,” Margaret spoke for the first time, her words stammering as she tried to wipe her cheeks, “he would have married you. He wanted to. Tonight… oh!” she wailed.
At Frederica’s look of confusion, Ernest took up the thread of what his wife was saying.
“She’s right,” he said gravely, staring into the fire. “Lord Wetherington would have married you. As for Lord Padleigh, he will not marry you.” He spoke the words with finality as he turned to look at Frederica. “What possible incentive could he have for marrying a woman who has been disgraced twice? He is a marquess, too. He could marry a duke’s daughter or another marquess’ daughter. He has no need to lower himself to marry an earl’s daughter.”
Frederica said nothing. Her own jaw had now dropped so far that her cheeks ached though she did not attempt to close her mouth.
The mere thought that Lord Padleigh would ever marry her was a shock indeed. She may have been attracted to him with those dark, stormy blue eyes, that heavy jaw, and the thin line of dark brown stubble across his chin. Not to mention his tall and lithe figure and the way he played with his dark brown hair. It had made her wonder years ago what it would be like to trail her own fingers through that hair.
It was a fantasy in which she had never indulged. As her father had said, he was a marquess, and she was sure he would never consider a quiet mouse like her for a bride.
Besides, was he not meeting a lover tonight?
The way he had wrapped that hand around her waist, softly, seductively, made her shiver for all sorts of reasons now. She could well imagine that any woman he did wish to marry would be very lucky indeed.
He is right. Lord Padleigh has no incentive to marry me.
“I could leave again,” she said, trying to stand tall and find some sort of dignity. “You could tell your friends anything to excuse my absence. Tell them I am sick, perhaps that I have become a nun —”
“A nun!?” Margaret cried out as if this was as great a scandal as being caught in a man’s arms.
“You need not be burdened by my…shame.”She chose the word very carefully. “Let me leave again, and all will be well.”
“No.”
She had barely finished the words when her father cut her off and stood. He moved toward her, such anger and reproach in his expression that she clutched hard to her mother’s chair once again.
“The only way to try and staunch the fallout from a scandal is to marry you off. That is what we must do now.”
