“I’m not going anywhere, Mother,” Eugenia said. “I’m staying here.” She glanced at Esther’s parents. “If—if I’m welcome, that is.”
“Of course you’re welcome,” Esther said quickly. “You’ll stay as long as you’d like to, Eugenia.”
She waited for her parents to question this, to tell her that it wasn’t her decision to make or that she had no right to extend invitations to guests, but nobody said anything. Perhaps they were so overwhelmed by the events of the last few minutes that they were finally at a loss for what to say next.
I hope so. It would be nice to have finally found a way to silence them, after all this time!
Instead, her mother said, “You can’t say anything to Esther, Tabitha. She told us what happened in London. She told us how you deliberately sabotaged her courtship. My poor daughter was doing her best to satisfy the requirements her father and I gave her, and you destroyed her chances.”
Oh, so now you believe my account of what happened?
Esther was pleased to have her mother defending her, regardless of the fact that it felt like too little too late. “Perhaps Eugenia could take the Duke for a walk around the garden,” she suggested. “Neither of them need to be a part of this discussion.
Aunt Tabitha’s fingers tightened on Esther’s arm. “Don’t you tell my daughter where to go or what to do,” she snapped. “And don’t you try to send the Duke away, either. It’s very obvious tomethat you just don’t want him to hear what I have to say about you. You’re afraid that he’ll turn on you again when he hears thetruth.”
“I know better than to consider anything you have to say to be truth, Lady Harcourt,” Hugh said. “You’ve lied to me before.”
“I’ve never lied,” Aunt Tabitha said. “Everything I told you was true, Your Grace.”
“If you didn’t lie, you certainly misrepresented Lady Esther,” Hugh said.
“Lady Esther has been nothing but trouble from the moment I took her in!” Aunt Tabitha declared. “I didn’t misrepresent her at all, Your Grace. I simply pulled back the curtain on the young lady youthoughtyou knew.”
I guessshehasn’t lost her voice!
But Esther hadn’t lost hers either. “What trouble have I been to you, Aunt Tabitha?” she demanded. “What problems have I brought to your door? Can this still be about the fact that the Duke chose to court me instead of Eugenia?”
“You seduced him into choosing you!” Aunt Tabitha raged. “All your life you’ve been a seductress!”
This was so ridiculous an accusation that Esther couldn’t help laughing. “All my life?” she asked. “Truly? This is my first Season, Aunt Tabitha! I’ve been to only two balls! I’ve only ever had one gentleman take an interest in me. How can you accuse me of being a seductress under those circumstances? It makes no sense.”
“It’s your character,” Aunt Tabitha seethed. “You were raised to trade on your beauty, Esther. You were raised to flaunt yourself before men, so that all they would see when they looked at you was how lovely you were.”
“There’s no reason she ought to hide her beauty, Tabitha,” Esther’s mother cut in. “She’s a lovely young lady, and her looks are a prize.”
Esther felt invisible. Didn’t they realize she was standing right here, that she could hear everything they were saying? They were talking about her as if she was a painting or a sculpture and not a living, breathing lady.
“Esther is a prize for many reasons,” Hugh said. “Her beauty is rare, but I would love her no matter what she looked like.”
“You think so because she has you bamboozled, Your Grace,” Aunt Tabitha said. “Have you forgotten what I told you? From the moment she arrived in London, she had her sights set on you. You can’t allow her to get her claws in you again when you were so close to escaping her clutches forever.”
“Don’t speak about her as if she’s a monster,” Hugh said.
“But sheisa monster,” Aunt Tabitha said. “This is what you don’t seem to see, Your Grace. But if you require proof—just look at what she’s done to her own cousin. To Lady Eugenia.”
“She’s done nothing to me, Mother,” Eugenia said. “Onlyyouhave ever done anything to cause me harm or pain.”
“How can you say that, darling?” Aunt Tabitha asked. “You know that everything I haveeverdone has been with your interests in mind! All I’ve ever wanted is to see youhappy!”
“That isn’t true,” Eugenia said. “You don’t care for my happiness, Mother. If you did, you would have asked me what I wanted. You would have asked me if I wanted to be engaged to the Duke.”
Then she turned to Hugh. “No offense is intended, of course, Your Grace,” she said.
“And none is taken,” he assured her.
“Of course you want to be married to the Duke!” Aunt Tabitha said, her voice rising in pitch and volume. “Who better, Eugenia? Don’t you realize that if you make such a worthy match, everyone will forget the cruel opinions they’ve held about you for such a long time? They’ll be forced to accept that they were wrong about you.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, Mother,” Eugenia said. “I know gossip hurts you. I’m sorry about that. But it doesn’t bother me. I just want to live my life, and to be happy.”
