This is my battle.
After she knocked, a footman let her in and took her coat. A butler met her and led her upstairs to a parlor. The parlor was paneled in dark wood, with gilt-framed portraits on the walls.
The understated opulence of the room was highlighted by its simple blue damask wallpaper and white trimming, brass chandelier, and an ormolu clock on a mantle above a fireplace.
The table had been immaculately set; against the backdrop of snowy linen, silver gleamed, and crystal sparkled, elegant floral arrangements adding color and fragrance to the ambiance.
“Your Grace,” Lady Jane stood, her shot silk gown of periwinkle blue clung to her flawless figure. “Welcome. I hope the journey was not too taxing.”
“Not at all,” Cecilia replied. “You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” Jane replied, “Please sit. Lady Catherine is on her way.”
A maid came, greeting them, and poured their tea while Cecilia asked, “I suppose I set up this meeting because I feel it is high time something is done to stem the damage Whitmore has done to freshly debuted women, including myself. Not once have I ever approached him with anything—” she wrinkled her nose “—sexual.”
“Which,” Lady Jane sighed, “if anyone had a speck of loyalty and sense would never believe, but I suppose the ladies of the ton are happy to yank the rug out from a fellow lady that, in their eyes, did not deserve what she had.”
Cecilia winced. “Did people really think that way all this time?”
“Yes,” Lady Jane replied. “I can speak from experience, as they did it to me when I was with Whitmore. You, however, were toopure to think someone would try to undermine you. It’s called the marriage mart for a reason, dear.”
“Well, I guess I took that burden off mywould-be-saboteur’shands,” Cecilia sighed. “Nevertheless, I am still in a conundrum. I don’t know what to do to stop his maliciousness. Did he ever accuse you of being a… a tart?”
“The angel of the tonwould not dare,” Lady Jane said lightly, but Cecilia was confused about the heavy sarcasm in her tone. “Not in public anyhow.”
Frowning, Cecilia asked, “What do you mean?”
“Gabriel courted me when he was twenty-two,” she said. “And coming into his own as many lords do and with that—” she reached for a stack of letters, “—was sewing his wild oats.
“At first, he was the perfect gentleman, but months into our courtship, he began to penrequests,” Lady Jane continued.
“Requests,” Cecilia echoed. “Like what?”
Unfolding an old letter, Lady Jane handed it to her. “See for yourself.”
Curious, Cecilia spotted a familiar hand, the overly elaborate loops and swoops of Gabriel’s writing.Thatwas familiar. What wasnotfamiliar was the salacious content Gabriel had written.Only two passages in, her skin was burning down to her toes, and she finally set the letter aside, purely uncomfortable.
She swallowed. “I… I was not aware he thought like that. Not once had he ever approached me like that.”
“That is the thing about Gabriel,” Lady Jane cut into her orange cake. “He is a master of two faces, and when he realized that being a Duddering Rake would not get him the attention he wanted, he changed into the Paragon of London, and quickly enough that no one noticed.”
She sipped her cooling tea. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you keep these letters? Surely, your husband would find them upsetting.”
“I kept them because I knew one day someone would see through the veneer Whitmore has and bring him to account. As for Liam,” Lady Jane smiled. “He is not one to grow jealous over some old paper.”
Setting the cup down, Cecilia sighed. “As incriminating as that is, I am not sure whether it can help me. He can always claim it is a lie, and if published, it will hurt you more than him. You know how the double standard with women is, doubly so when facing a Duke.”
A knock from the doorway had both of them turning as Lady Catherine stepped in, her dark hair piled high on her head, and her lovely violet traveling dress had a powerful, masculine edge to it as it was styledà la militaire.
Her eyes were lowered. “Forgive me for eavesdropping, but I know how you can show the world how much of a hypocrite Rutherford is.”
Lady Jane frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
Taking her sweet time to sit and have her tea made, her smile was heavily conspiratorial. “In the early days, it was rumored that Gabriel once fathered a son by a maid he dismissed and moved to Oxford.”
A feather could have knocked Cecilia over. She blinked once, twice, reached for the teapot, but Lady Jane took it from her as her hand was quaking like a ship in the middle of a storm.
Stunned, she blurted, “Pardon?”
