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Page 10 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Eight

I t was a well-established truth, at least in Cordelia’s mind, that nothing soothed a stormy heart quite like the city.

The wind was brisker, the people more refreshing, and most importantly, there were no brooding dukes with penetrating eyes and inconvenient heroics to be found in Mayfair’s more fashionable tea houses.

Or so she prayed.

The Dowager Duchess had been called to her solicitor on family business of a delicate and dull nature, and with two hours of freedom granted, Cordelia had fled with the desperation of a ship escaping a squall.

She needed tea, conversation, and the blessed certainty that she was still a person apart from her affliction.

The tea house on Bramble Street was an unassuming little establishment, tucked between a modiste’s and a pastry shop.

Cordelia had chosen it with purpose; it was not a place frequented by the ton’s most glittering ladies or scandal-seeking columnists.

It was quiet, charming, and most importantly, it was where her two dearest friends awaited her.

The moment she stepped through the door, the soft tinkle of the bell above summoned a flurry of motion.

“Cordelia!”

Lady Matilda Sterlington, the Dowager Viscountess of Forth, was already rising from their table by the window, her hands clutching a dainty napkin like it might save her from collapsing under the weight of her own nerves.

She was dressed, as always, with understated elegance of subtle greys and blues that did not compete with her delicate features or her honey-brown curls.

Lady Hazel Thorne, on the other hand, remained seated. Her expression was calm, her cup of tea balanced neatly in one hand. She raised an eyebrow as Cordelia hurried over.

“You’re late,” she said with a smirk. “Which means something dramatic has occurred. Sit down. We shall require detail.”

Cordelia flopped into the chair between them, removing her gloves like a soldier might remove armor after battle.

“I am,” she divulged in a hushed tone of voice, “in ruins.”

Matilda gasped softly. “Oh dear.”

Hazel merely poured her tea with unbothered grace. “So, the Duke is handsome.”

They were, of course, informed of what had transpired in the past week as Cordelia had written to them both, assuring them that she was all right and safe.

“I never said it was about the Duke!” Cordelia hissed which, of course, only confirmed it.

Matilda’s hand flew to her chest. “You’re in love?”

“No!”

Hazel narrowed her eyes. “You kissed him again, didn’t you?”

“No!” Cordelia said again, more offended than was strictly warranted. “Well, not since the first time, but as I explained to you in my letter, that was a misunderstanding, and there was practically a corpse there at the time. I could hardly be expected to act normally under such conditions.”

“Oh, goodness me,” Matilda blinked with a chuckle. “I thought you kissed a dead man!”

“Well, no,” Cordelia clarified. “And he was just nearly dead. He got better… unfortunately.”

Hazel set down her tea. “Begin at the beginning. And do not leave out a single foolish detail.”

Cordelia groaned and dropped her forehead to the table.

“I do not understand him. One moment he is carrying me across gardens and bandaging my wrists like some sort of romantic novel hero, and the next, he is furious with me for touching a cabinet I had no idea was sacred. He speaks so little, but when he does—ugh! I never know if I want to strangle him or… well. That.”

Hazel raised her brows. “Strangle him with affection?”

Cordelia groaned louder. Matilda patted her hair sympathetically.

“I think,” Matilda said gently, “that he may be a bit like you.”

Cordelia lifted her head. “Impossible. I’m not grumpy and terrifying.”

“No,” Hazel agreed. “You’re reckless and exhausting. Opposite shapes but same puzzle.”

Cordelia sighed, taking the teacup now offered to her. “I came to London to forget him, to remember who I was before he started calling me difficult in that maddeningly lovely voice.”

Hazel smirked. “And yet here you are, discussing him over scones and scandal.”

“I miss being boring,” Cordelia said mournfully. “And certain.”

“Oh darling,” Matilda said softly, “you were never boring.”

“And never certain,” Hazel added with a smirk.

Cordelia lifted her teacup in mock toast. “To womanhood. And madness. And men who are too handsome to be decent.”

They all clinked their cups.

Matilda was mid-sip when she paused suddenly “Speaking of dead men…”

Cordelia straightened. “Please don’t.”

“No, truly,” Hazel said, setting down her teacup with the same finality one might use to draw a sword. “There have been whispers.”

Cordelia blinked. “About corpses in libraries?”

“No, about… you know who.”

Hazel folded her hands as she spoke which always meant that she was discussing very serious topics.

“Lord Vernon is being chased around by debtors. Several, in fact. I heard from Lady Whitby just yesterday that he was nearly accosted outside his club. And someone mentioned debtor’s prison… not in jest either.”

Cordelia’s teacup froze halfway to her mouth. “Oh.”

“Cordelia,” Matilda whispered, her brows knitting with worry. “he knows where you are, does he not?”

Cordelia swallowed. “Yes.”

Hazel’s expression sharpened. “Then you must be cautious. More than cautious, you must be vigilant. Men like that do not lose their pride easily nor their entitlement. Especially when money is involved.”

Cordelia stared at the tea leaves swirling gently at the bottom of her cup. She wished the answers might be hidden there, written out neatly like the recipe for raspberry tarts or a list of things one ought never to say to a duke.

“I know,” she said softly. “I’m not a complete fool.”

“Certainly not,” Hazel said firmly. “You’re just prone to dramatic escapes, unsupervised schemes, and adopting large, emotionally unavailable men as projects.”

“That last one was not intentional!” Cordelia protested.

“None of them ever are,” Matilda said quietly.

Hazel leaned in, gentler now. “Do you plan to stay with them indefinitely? At the duke’s estate?”

Cordelia sighed. “No. There’s a deal. I’m only to stay until my birthday. A month.”

Matilda blinked. “ A month? ”

“Dear heavens,” Hazel muttered, “you’ve been living in that man’s house under ducal protection, and you plan to just… leave?”

Cordelia winced. “It’s not as if I have a choice.”

“Of course, you have a choice,” Hazel snapped. “What you lack is a plan.”

“Yes, thank you,” Cordelia said, lifting her napkin dramatically to fan herself. “I was quite looking forward to my tea, and now, I have indigestion.”

Matilda reached across the table to take her hand. “What will you do, Cordelia?”

Cordelia met her gaze. There was no humor now, no dramatics to shield her from the weight of the question.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I truly don’t.”

There was a moment of tense silence. And then, because none of them could stand to linger in sorrow too long, Hazel leaned back.

“Well… I suppose you must marry a marquess or a pirate, whichever comes first.”

Cordelia laughed, both startled and grateful for the comment that made absolutely no sense, yet it achieved its purpose. And though the shadows still lingered behind her laughter, for now, in the company of friends, she could pretend that everything might yet be all right.

“Truly, Your Grace, I assure you I am quite adept at navigating the sun without protection,” Cordelia insisted as she stood awkwardly among displays of frilly parasols in every pastel hue known to woman or modiste.

“Nonsense,” said the Dowager Duchess with the tone of one who had already made peace with the fact that Cordelia would resist and had every intention of ignoring her. “No young lady of sense ought to be walking about without proper shielding. You will catch freckles or worse, attention.”

Cordelia blinked. “Oh dear. I do so dread becoming interesting.”

“Too late, I’m afraid.”

Both women chuckled as they continued to peruse, one willingly, the other not so much.

The parasol shop was a dainty little boutique tucked just off Bond Street, decorated in florals and satin ribbons.

It smelled faintly of lavender and smugness, and Cordelia was certain that every single employee had silently determined that she was tragically ill-equipped to belong among such delicate luxuries.

“I did have one,” she muttered to the Dowager, fumbling with a powder-blue model shaped like a tulip. “But it… well… it was left behind, at my guardian’s house.”

The Dowager turned to her, hands clasped atop the knob of her walking cane. “Did you not say your lady’s maid returned to retrieve your essentials?”

“She did,” Cordelia admitted, “but there were limits to what she could carry while dodging the housekeeper, the butler, and on one particularly unfortunate morning, the gardener with a suspicious mind and a surprisingly loud sneeze.”

The Dowager let out a short hum which in her case could have meant anything from how inconvenient to my son is going to be hearing about this .

“It would be no trouble,” the Duchess said at length, lifting a pale green parasol and studying it as though considering its potential to ward off both sun and scandal. “I shall mention it to Mason. He will send for the remainder of your things.”

Cordelia froze.

“No! I—Please do not trouble him. It’s only a parasol. I can live without one. I have strong bones. My complexion has already been compromised by years of ill-advised afternoon picnics.”

But the Dowager only offered her a bemused look over the curve of a pale pink handle. “My dear, have you truly not yet learned that what you call an inconvenience, he calls Tuesday?”

Cordelia’s eyes widened with horror. “But that’s precisely what I mean! I am an inconvenience or at the least, very near it. And I prefer not to draw further attention to my status as a helpless refugee who forgot to pack her slippers and her dignity.”

The Dowager turned fully to face her now, her expression softening with a warmth that always managed to unnerve Cordelia far more than a lecture would have.

“You are not helpless,” she recounted. “And you are certainly not an inconvenience. At worst, you are… untidy.”

Cordelia huffed. “Charming.”

“But even if you were an inconvenience,” the Dowager continued, choosing a seafoam parasol with faint embroidery along the edges and handing it to the shopgirl, “I would still tell Mason. Because it is the right thing to do. And because I strongly suspect that you are no burden to him at all.”

Cordelia flushed.

“That’s… that’s not true.”

“I wager,” said the Dowager, sweeping toward the counter, “it is more true than you are ready to hear.”

Without waiting for Cordelia to reply, she had gone to the counter to settle the account. Cordelia turned toward the nearest display, pretending to examine a dainty lace-trimmed parasol in robin’s egg blue. That was when she heard the voice.

“Ah. So, this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Cordelia froze. The parasol slipped through her fingers and landed with a dull thud on the carpeted floor.

Stepping out from behind a row of pale muslin umbrellas with the same grace and menace as a ghost at a séance was none other than her own mother.

“Do forgive me,” the Marchioness of Forth said, her tone brittle and sweet as overripe fruit. “I would have written, but I assumed my letters would be as unwelcome as my presence.”

Cordelia could not find her voice. Her tongue had curled back on itself, her throat grown tight. And yet her mother went on, as if rehearsed.

“Quite clever of you, really, to run off and find yourself a new mother. One with a title even grander than mine. A duchess, no less.”

“Please,” Cordelia finally whispered. “Please don’t do this.”

“Oh, but I must.” Her mother leaned in, her eyes sharp and her smile deceptively soft. “What else have I now, Cordelia, but my words? You’ve taken everything else.”

Cordelia swallowed the thick knot in her throat. “I didn’t take anything.”

“You left me without notice, without thanks. And now, I’m to be replaced by that woman parading you through London, dressing you in her kindness while I am left to be spoken of in past tense like some discarded lady’s maid.”

“That isn’t true,” Cordelia said though the tremble in her voice betrayed her.

Her mother tilted her head. “Isn’t it? And what, pray, are your plans after this grand charade is done? Once you’ve received your precious inheritance, will you come back to me then?” Her gaze narrowed. “Or is it only useful while it ensures you remain tolerable to others?”

Cordelia blinked. “What?”

Her mother smiled. “You always needed to feel useful, didn’t you? Needed to serve some purpose. And I told you often enough, once a woman’s youth fades, her usefulness must lie elsewhere. But perhaps you never had much of either to begin with.”

It was not shouted, not cruelly hissed. That was her mother’s talent: each word delivered in silk, the blade hidden in the fold.

“I did not abandon you,” she said finally. “I… I was trying to survive.”

“Oh, darling. You don’t survive me by running to strangers. You survive me by growing up.”

And with that, her mother adjusted the lace of her glove and stepped lightly past her, leaving behind the scent of gardenia like poison.

Cordelia couldn’t move. The soft clink of coins at the counter was the only sound that returned her to the world.

The Dowager Duchess, smiling gently, approached her with the shopgirl trailing behind, holding the boxed parasol.

“My dear, are you?—?”

“I’m fine,” Cordelia said too quickly.

She took the parasol then she thanked the girl.

She smiled as one does at funerals or particularly awkward card parties, but inside, she was splintering.

Because she did want to stay and not just for the month.

Because for the first time in her life, someone saw her not as ornamental or expendable or merely useful.

And she was terrified that if she didn’t prove herself every moment of every day… she would lose it all.

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