Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 12

Felicity stared out the morning room window, her whole body heavy with grim acceptance. Rain splattered the pane, leaving the morning room bathed in a mournful gray.

Lady Melbourne, all Felicity’s sisters and Mary sat on the various furnishings, making pretense at sipping tea.

“What is to be done?” Mary asked looking as if she had recently been in a coaching accident.

Lady Melbourne and Felicity’s sisters had not gone home after the last of the guests had left.

They’d all stayed up. Dawn was now on the horizon and William was nowhere to be seen.

After the scene with his mother he had strode off, vaguely promising he would do nothing rash.

He had promised.

Now, all she could do was wait.

“We prepare ourselves for the worst,” said Pen, her face a mask of acceptance. She had clearly realized that the scandalous adventures of their father could not be as easily swept away as they had hoped.

“But we hope for the best,” added Lady Melbourne.

Mary blinked her light brown lashes, stunned and worried for her brother. “Nothing like this has ever happened to us.”

“Your brother has fought duels before,” pointed out Lady Melbourne as she sipped again from the pale green teacup.

“But not over a family member,” Mary breathed. “Not over a wife.”

“Since he has never been married before, I suppose that is understandable,” quipped Gus, her eyes narrowing.

George and Marianne remained quiet but they, too, narrowed their eyes.

Mary gaped. “I do apologize. I’m simply at sea. And a bit worried. I don’t usually know beforehand that he will duel.”

The tension in the room eased.

George nodded. “Of course you’re worried. He’s a lovely brother.”

“He won’t duel.” Felicity said firmly.

“Why do you say so, my dear?” asked Lady Melbourne.

“Because he promised me.”

“Men don’t always keep their promises,” Lady Melbourne said.

Felicity stared out the window as if she could will her husband to return home. “He will.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” demanded Mary.

“Because of me,” the dowager marchioness said as she entered the room.

Felicity tensed at the sight of the woman who had unleashed such unkindness upon her.

“Lady Melbourne,” acknowledged her mother-in-law.

Lady Melbourne frowned slightly. “Lady Marksborough.“

“I have been thinking a great deal about what was said a few hours ago,” Lady Marksborough began.

Felicity wanted to hate the woman but she couldn’t. Not when she knew that her mother-in-law loved her family and was trying to protect it as Felicity often wished her father had done.

Perhaps Lady Marksborough could have been kinder, but her cruelty had been out of fear for her children.

“I have been a vicious and rather shallow person as of late,” Lady Marksborough suddenly said.

Felicity blinked.

The others grew so silent the sound of passing coaches filled the room.

Her mother-in-law drew in a long breath then said calmly, “I have clung to my anger that he was forced to marry you, Felicity. I have longed to see you as a bad influence on my daughters.”

Pen bristled.

“But when I think of the time you have spent with them, you have always encouraged them to be well-spoken, good of thought and superior in action,” Lady Marksborough admitted. “You aren’t the sort of lady that sits in the drawing room complaining of the ills of society. You do something. I’ve seen the way you’ve taken an interest in my son’s career. How you long to help him. And yet, I have clung to my initial view of you and the general outlook of society upon your family.”

“General society is for fools,” drawled Lady Melbourne.

“I freely admit that I have been one.” Lady Marksborough shook her head as if castigating herself. “It is not easy. But I cannot have my son being ashamed of me.”

“Mama!” protested Mary. “William would never.”

“Oh, he would,” corrected Lady Marksborough. “And to my own shame, I have given him cause.”

“You love your children,” said Felicity.

Her mother-in-law inclined her head. “It is the only excuse I have for my actions.”

“It is a strong one,” acknowledged Felicity, daring to hope.

“Can we begin again, my dear?” Lady Marksborough asked.

“I would like that.”

Relief softened the older woman’s face. “Shall we all wait then, for William?”

“Yes,” Felicity agreed. “We will meet him as unified a front as he would hope.”

“What an experience that will be for him,” observed Lady Melbourne.

And so, despite her fear and tension that regardless of his promise, William was bleeding in a field just outside of town, she felt a measure of relief that, at least, she and her mother-in-law were no longer to be enemies.

They waited in silence. The sound of rain upon the window and the ticking of the clock were the only noises. They waited for what seemed forever. But upon inspection of the clock, it was only a quarter of an hour.

The front door opened and as if one, they all swung their gazes to the morning room door.

The sound of footsteps in the outer hall turned her blood to ice.

Was it William or someone who had come to tell her terrible news?

Unable to wait like a decorous woman should, she raced out into the hall.

William stood in the foyer in a wet linen shirt, having already handed his sopping wet coat and waistcoat to Sims.

His dark hair was about his face in wet tendrils. The white linen of his shirt was virtually transparent, clinging to his hard body.

“Thank God,” she breathed.

He lifted his dark gaze to hers, his face a mask of solemnity.

“Is Eversly dead?” she suddenly asked.

“Eversly?” Horror dawned on his face. “No, my love. Eversly is very much alive, tucked into his club, no doubt drinking himself into thankful oblivion. I did as you suggested and allowed him to send a written apology to my club. I have not seen him again this night.”

“Then where—“

“I have been walking.”

“Walking?” It was something her father might have done. “But the city is so dangerous.”

“I was out in St. James Park.” He took her hands in his. “And then I walked out of the city and back.”

“That is no less dangerous!” she exclaimed. “There are footpads and—“

He smiled softly. “Your concern touches my heart, but I had a pistol with me.”

“Oh.” She breathed a sigh of relief. There were few night watchmen to protect those traversing the streets through the darkness.

“I am not foolish with my person.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, “because I have been concerned as of late that I did fall into that general category.”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“Felicity, I have gone through my life as if asleep,” he lifted a hand and stroked a lock of her hair back from her face. “I have done all the things I was supposed to do. I have gone to Eton. I have gone to Oxford. I have been a rake. I’ve learned the martial arts. I’ve taken my seat in the House of Lords. I’ve always done what is right. I—“

“Married out of honor,” she put in.

“Yes,” he agreed. “And that one act. That one act of doing the right thing?”

Oh dear. The floor seemed to open before her as if it might swallow her whole while she waited for his next words.

“Marrying you has opened a whole new world to me. A world of possibilities I never imagined because, Felicity, you have not done what society expected you to and yet you are the most wonderful person of my acquaintance. You have overcome derision, abandonment, pain. All with a kind word, a witty smile, and a generous heart. I always longed to be like the best of society. It was what I was raised for. But do you know what I wish now?”

She shook her head.

He took her hand and turned it palm up, kissing the soft skin. “I wish to be like you.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. She could scare believe what he was saying.

“Though I know it is sudden, there is no denying my admiration for you. . . I love you,” he said and as he said it, it was like he was just realizing it, for his whole face lit with the emotion. “And I am so grateful that you and Lord Trumbold stumbled into my life that night. For if you had not, I’d still be upon the same tried and true path, never imagining that I might be more than a rake and a lord. With you, Felicity, I know I can do great things because you don’t demand that I be ordinary.”

“William,” she whispered. “Perhaps I have given you this but you, too, have given me so much. You have given me a life free of fear for even if you do choose a life of greatness, I know you will never choose a life of selfishness or cruelty. You will always think of me, your sisters, and your mother. You are a man who can be given a heart and be trusted not to destroy it.”

“And do I have your heart, Felicity?” he asked softly.

“You do,” she confessed as she threw her arms around his neck. “I have been so frightened.”

“That I would fight a duel?”

She nodded against his chest.

“But I promised I would not,” he pointed out.

“I have known so many broken promises,” she explained.

“Not from me.”

“No.”

He rested his cheek against her head. “I never should have left you in such doubt.”

“We’ve been waiting for word for hours,” she admitted.

“Who is we?”

“Come and find out!” piped Lady Melbourne from the morning room.

William groaned but he was laughing, too. “Dear God, how many people are in there?”

“Seven!” Augusta gleefully declared.

“All of your sisters?”

Felicity nodded. “And Mary and your mother.”

“Good God,” he groaned.

She gave him a rueful smile. “We were concerned.”

“Then let us go in and I will ask for pardon.”

As they entered the room, Lady Melbourne decreed, “Dear boy, I never doubted for a moment that you’d return. Eversly is a coward after all. He’d never face you on the field.”

Felicity didn’t point out that Lady Melbourne had been uncustomarily quiet for the last hour.

“And I knew,” his mother said, “that you would keep your promise to Felicity, because that is the kind of man you are.”

Mother and son looked at each other for a long moment.

“Please forgive me for behaving so badly,” his mother said quite seriously. “Your words shook me. They forced me to look at myself.”

“I love you, Mother,” he replied generously. “I always shall. And we shall always forgive each other.”

The dread that had lined Lady Marksborough’s face lifted.

Felicity’s heart lifted even higher at the reunion of the two.

“A new chapter, then?” Felicity asked.

“A new book,” her mother-in-law replied, beaming.

“A new world,” William said with awe. “For I love my wife and all is right with the world.”

“And when society drags my family through the mud?” she teased.

“We shall rise above,” he declared, taking her in his arms despite the company. “After all, we have love, Wife.”

“Why yes, we do.”