Chapter Nineteen
“You are ruined!”
Phaedra flinched as her father’s voice echoed off the walls of the parlor and carried through the halls of their home. She had never heard him raise his voice to this degree. Not surprising, considering that shewasruined, yes. In more ways than her father could ever imagine.
But not because of tonight. One might say she’d been ruined the first night Deerhurst kissed her in the garden, or certainly by the night they’d spent together. But since no one knew about any of those things, they did not count. At least, not where society was concerned.
She was ruined in other ways too. Her heart for one. Her heart was utterly and unequivocally ruined.
I love you, Phaedra.
She had wanted to believe him so badly, but how could she ever trust him after he’d kept the truth from her? He had betrayed her, lied to her, and kept secrets from her. He’d been one of the reasons men wanted to trap her into marriage. No rational woman could forgive such betrayal, right?
Which was another thing that was ruined: her trust.
“You are ruined,” her father exploded again.
Phaedra grimaced. She was starting to hate that word. Ruined, yes, and with her actions, she had placed them all in a terrible position as well. Scandals were like that. They never just touched the person embroiled in it, but the entire family crest as well. It was almost as if it were a living, breathing creature. One that had tentacles that reached far and wide.
Phaedra sighed. This was as angry as she’d ever witnessed her father. They’d caused a scandal, yes, but she doubted after the ladies of society read some of those wagers, they would condemn Phaedra for what she and her friends had done. Those women ought to be outraged, as they had been. But Phaedra could not forget this world belonged to men, and men had a long history of keeping women in their place.
One of those men was her father.
Phaedra lifted her chin. “I merely took a stand.”
“A stand!” A vein popped in her father’s neck, and he just about turned purple in the face. “This is what you call a stand?” He motioned at her clothing. “You started a mutiny!”
Phaedra’s temper flared. “Well, good! If that is what it takes to teach those rogues a lesson, I am glad!”
“Who do you think will be taught a lesson when all is said and done?” Her father bellowed.
“Robert, that’s enough,” Phaedra’s mother attempted to intervene in the face-off between father and daughter. “We are all civilized beings, let’s talk about this calmly.”
“Calmly?” the earl asked incredulously. “Your daughter is wearing breeches and you want to talk calmly? Do you have any idea the consequences of what she has done?”
Her mother nodded. “More women will be wearing breeches from this night on, dear husband.”
“This is no laughing matter, Eleanor. This is serious.”
“I daresay that no one is laughing at what transpired this evening,” her mother, answered. “At least not at her.”
“Not now,” her father said. “But when the dust settles, where do you think society will cast their eyes? If all this goes wrong, Phaedra and her friends will be blamed.”
Of course, her father was worried about that, and not how she felt about being the object of countless wagers. She didn’t blame him. This was the way of the world, which was why they had sought to push against it in the corridors of power. Winning or losing didn’t matter. Awareness had been their goal.
But she had thought it would feel more satisfying.
Phaedra rubbed the bridge of her nose.
She was tired, both from this evening’s excitement and the emotional turmoil she faced in the library with Deerhurst. Before that train of thought could run out of control, her father’s next question made her back snap up straight.
“How the hell did you get your hands on those pages?”
He meant the copies of the book they’d gleefully fed to the unsuspecting crowd at the ball that night. That it did not occur to her father that they had copies made from the book itself spoke volumes of the deep arrogance that made up the character of men.
Phaedra lifted her chin. “They fell into my lap.”
“Don’t be tart,” her father said. “Besides the scandal of your unruly behavior tonight, the betting book was stolen from White’s—a criminal offense. Then copies of the pages are found in you and your friends’ hands. I am surprised Bow Street has not knocked on our door yet.”
