Page 18 of A Hint of Scandal (The Mismatched Lovers #2)

T he marriage of Captain Maxim Aubrey and Miss Serafina Gilbert was to take place three weeks later, to allow for the reading of banns in the churches adjacent to where they were both living. As predicted, Letty had been far from amused that the aunt everyone considered plain-faced and unmarriageable had succeeded in securing a proposal before she had. And from the brother of an earl, no less, with, as a prune-faced Araminta pointed out, only a sicky brother and two small boys who could all too easily succumb to any childhood illness before they reached adulthood between him and the actual earldom.

As Max had been the one to inform Ogden and Araminta of his proposal to Serafina, and he’d done so in public at the ball, they’d been unable to express anything other than rather tight-lipped congratulations. And they maintained this silence all the way home in their hired carriage, most likely in case the driver overheard them and gossiped. He was only a hireling, after all, and would have no loyalty to them, and it was well known that with servants you get what you pay for, or so Araminta said later. However, once they were home and a somewhat subdued and sulky Letty had been dispatched upstairs to bed, they both rounded on Serafina in the cold parlor.

“Have I nurtured, no, loved like my own and cared for like a mother, a viper in my bosom?” Araminta began with, the moment the door had closed behind the departing footman.

Serafina stood her ground but remained silent. Three weeks and she’d be away from this house. She began to see the wisdom in having agreed to accept Max’s offer. Not that she hadn’t before, just that Araminta’s reaction was successfully hammering it home.

“Has he compromised you?” Ogden almost snarled. “Is that why he’s being forced to offer for you? Did you set out to snare him? Like the wanton hussy who called herself your mother did with my father? I’ve always thought you cut from the same mold as that woman and now we have the proof before us.”

Serafina bit her lip at both the insult to the mother she’d never known and the absurdity of his accusation, but maintained what she hoped was a dignified silence. What she’d really like to have done was fly at him with her fists and claw his eyes out. One of these days, she’d not be able to hold onto her temper. For now, she grit her teeth and pretended to feel nothing.

Araminta, however, seized upon the idea that she’d done something untoward to secure this offer like a terrier with a bone. “I should never have allowed you to go driving with him without a maid.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you lure him into compromising you? Is that it? For I cannot see that a well-connected man such as Captain Aubrey would ever consider importuning a girl like you voluntarily. Not one so plain and with alarming tendencies towards being a bluestocking.” She pronounced this last word as though it were the worst of all insults one could throw at a girl.

Serafina’s cheeks warmed, not just with embarrassment, and behind her back she clenched her fists. The notion that she would like to plant her sister-in-law a facer with one of them burgeoned. “No, Captain Aubrey did not compromise me. He is far too much of a gentleman to do so. And I confess myself shocked that you think I, whom you have so diligently brought up to know right from wrong, would ever consider luring a gentleman into a compromising position.” She widened her eyes deliberately. “As you know, I have no experience with young men whatsoever. I have no idea how one even becomes compromised.” That last bit wasn’t entirely true. The memory of the incorrigible Letty clasped in the arms of her lusty stableboy arose. If that wasn’t getting oneself compromised, Serafina wasn’t sure what was. How shocked would Araminta and Ogden be if she were to reveal their own daughter’s dreadful behavior. But she couldn’t do that to Letty. Annoying as she could be, it would be so unfair. Luckily for her niece, she was a girl who rarely acted on impulse.

Ogden spluttered in what looked like amazement before joining in again. “If you ask me, you have ambitions above your station in life, my girl. I cannot possibly believe this offer to be genuine. To the mere half-sister of a baronet.”

The irony of his words, bearing in mind he and Araminta had been considering the merits of that ancient duke for ‘the mere daughter of a baronet’ must have been lost on him, because he didn’t blink an eye as he said this.

“I can assure you his proposal is genuine.” Serafina bit her lip again, determined not to disclose the reasons behind the proposal. How Araminta would laugh if she discovered it to be a marriage of convenience with money at its heart. She must never know. Too humiliating. “And I have already accepted it. Captain Aubrey came to you as a matter of formality. I am of age and am able to make my own decisions.” As she had been for some time. She forbore from adding that on her marriage she would like control of the legacy from her father that Ogden had been hanging on to. It wouldn’t do to rile him too much. His face already had an apoplectic hue to it.

Araminta’s eyes flashed. “While you are in my house, you will do as you are told, miss.”

“My brother’s house,” Serafina retorted. “And we are not in his house at the moment but merely in a rented property in London.”

“Ogden!” Araminta gasped, fanning herself with her hand as though she might be about to suffer a fit of the vapors. “Stop her from talking to me like this. Immediately.”

Serafina, her confidence growing by the moment, fought to keep herself under control. The inclination to spill every grievance she’d ever felt rose within her breast, but she must not allow her emotions to run away with themselves. Not at this late a date. What was it her old nurse had said to her on more than one occasion? Discretion is the greater part of valor . She was finding it difficult to remain discreet.

Ogden wagged a pudgy finger at her. “You ungrateful hussy. You should remember who it is who took you in when your father died. Who it is who’s fed and clothed you. Who it is has brought you to London where you’ve had the luck to meet with someone foolish enough, or blind enough, to take you on. Apologize to my wife immediately.”

Serafina compressed her lips. She did, after all, have to live with them for another three weeks so she’d better comply. “I am sorry if I offended you with my words, Araminta, but I only spoke the truth. I am no longer Ogden’s ward and am free to do as I wish.” She drew a breath. “I didn’t intend to sound rude, only to point out my standing.”

Araminta’s brows met in a furious scowl. “Your place is to do as you’re told and to remember how lucky you are. We could have sent you off to the workhouse if we’d been less generously minded.”

Less generously minded? Images from Serafina’s childhood almost spun before her eyes. Thin bread and butter in a cold nursery, the sleeves of her dresses always too short as she grew, holes in her shoes that she’d had to line with paper, watching the nurses doting over little Letty while she was ignored in a corner by all except for Agnes. And then Agnes being turned away, all because she’d had the temerity to ask for a new gown for her small, threadbare charge and an extra blanket for her bed. Generosity had never been at the forefront of Araminta’s treatment of her. Serafina had at times wondered if the woman took pleasure in causing her misery. Well, she’d soon be away from them now.

Still, she couldn’t say any of this. Yet. If ever. “I very much appreciate the way you took me in when I was orphaned,” she said, keeping her voice as low and humble as possible, which turned out to be more difficult than she expected. “I’m very grateful to have been brought up in such circumstances. Grateful and lucky.”

Her tone of voice must have worked. Araminta harrumphed and smoothed down the skirts of her new puce gown. “And so you should be. I can’t abide ungratefulness and this engagement smacks to me of just such a thing. You’ve done it to spite me. And to spite our dear little Letty, who you know is the one for whom we are here.”

Serafina kept her eyes down. “I am sorry if you feel I’ve acted ungratefully, but I thought you might be glad to get me off your hands and lessen the outlay you have to make for me. I’m sure I’ve been a terrible expense over the years.”

Ogden snorted, completely missing her sarcasm. “And you’ve been very expensive indeed. I’ve a mind to ask that suitor of yours to contribute something towards my costs in having to bring you up.”

As Serafina couldn’t think of anything much they’d ever spent on her, all her clothes having been secondhand, and her meals as a child having consisted of mainly leftovers in the kitchens with Cook, she held her tongue. Wisely. One thing she’d learnt from life in her brother’s household was when to do that.

Araminta tutted loudly. “I’d very much like to do that too, Ogden, but I fear it’s not the done thing, even when one has had the generosity to take in a foundling.” She turned her stony gaze on Serafina. “But we will miss her help with Letty and the other children. We might even have to hire in another nurse. That will be a dreadful expense.” She looked back at Ogden. “Perhaps we can delay her marriage for a year. A long engagement would suit me and be helpful with the children.”

This had to be stopped. “No,” Serafina said, a little amazed at her own bravery. “Captain Aubrey has explicitly said that we are to wed as soon as the banns have been read. He does not want to delay… and neither do I.”

Araminta’s gaze fell to Serafina’s flat belly, and her lip curled. “You don’t want to delay? Are you certain you haven’t been compromised?” Her thin cheeks flushed. “Did you allow him to take… liberties with you in the privacy of his carriage? Has he touched you anywhere he shouldn’t have?”

Ogden’s piggy eyes sprang wide open. “You don’t mean that she…?”

Serafina controlled the urge to stamp her foot. “I am not with child!”

That shut them both up. For a few seconds.

Araminta found her voice first. “Serafina! We do not mention such a condition in the presence of a gentleman. Have you no decorum?”

This was too much. “You broached the subject by suggesting I might be.”

Araminta’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times but no words came out.

Ogden took advantage of his wife’s shock to interrupt. “Enough. I have heard quite enough for one night. Go to your room, Serafina, and leave us to discuss your possible engagement alone.”

“My engagement,” Serafina said, emboldened by her previous bravery. “Nothing ‘possible’ about it. I am engaged.”

“Go,” shrieked Araminta. “Go now, impudent girl. Now.”

Serafina, her breathing coming fast as though she’d been running, and already repenting on having allowed herself to get so uncharacteristically carried away, lifted her chin, turned on the spot and stalked out of the room without even a ‘goodnight’. That would have rather ruined her exit.

Letty was sitting up in bed wearing her nightgown and a fetching lacy nightcap, and sipping a cup of chamomile tea when Serafina arrived.

Serafina closed the door and leaned against it, struggling to control her breathing after her headlong flight up the stairs. She’d been rather hoping to find Letty asleep.

Letty set down her cup and stuck out her lower lip in a sulky fashion. “I must say, I never thought you would try to upstage me, Fina. That’s a little unfair of you.” Then her face slipped and she giggled, for she was not, at heart, a spiteful girl. At least not unless she was crossed. “But I must say it’s worth being upstaged to have seen the expression on Mama’s face when Captain Aubrey announced that you two were engaged. If only there were some way to preserve that image for me to take out every now and again to laugh at. She looked as though she’d just bitten into a large and very bitter sloe in mistake for a sweet plum. So funny.”

Serafina managed a rueful smile. “I suppose perhaps you are right.”

“Right? Of course I am. And Papa’s face was nearly as bad. I must say, I was glad to be sent to bed because I was having such a hard time preventing myself from laughing out loud.” She stuck her lower lip out again. “Although I do think you might have waited to make your announcement until I had formed an attachment of my own. Until Mr. Talbot has offered for me.”

“Do you think he will?” Anything to distract Letty from discussing the engagement.

Letty’s face brightened, her favorite subject being herself. “I do think so. He seems most taken with me and was very annoyed that I had no dances left on my card when he came to ask me.” She tittered. “I had to tell him that I’m finding myself very much in demand and that if he wants to dance with me in future then he must arrive earlier. And with that he invited me to come out driving with him in the park tomorrow. I haven’t told Mama yet. She’s been too taken up with your news.” She frowned. “When she should in all truth be concentrating on me. Unfair of you to dominate her attention like this.”

This was something Serafina could deal with, and agreeing with Letty would keep her on track. “She should indeed be focusing on you. I am of no importance whatsoever. My future is settled. We must all concentrate on you.” She abandoned the support of the door and came to sit on the edge of Letty’s bed. “Driving in the park, you say? You’ll enjoy that.”

Letty frowned again. “A drive in the park seemed to convince Captain Aubrey he wished for your hand, so perhaps Mr. Talbot will feel the same about me when we are driving together. Apparently he has the most dashing horses to draw his curricle.” A smile lit her face. “And everyone who is anyone will be there in the afternoon and all the other gentlemen who’ve been paying me court will see me out with Mr. Talbot in his curricle and be jealous. That will be most satisfying.”

Why Letty wanted to create jealousy between her suitors escaped Serafina, but she nodded in agreement. “And you will have the most wonderful time. I saw this evening how Mr. Talbot, despite not dancing with you, kept in constant attendance, fetching you lemonade and fanning you when you grew hot from dancing. I think he must indeed be going to offer for you soon.”

Letty pulled a cross face. “I wish he’d make up his mind, or I might change mine. Sir Arthur Dawlish asked me to dance tonight and he is as handsome as… as a Greek god.”

The fact that the unstudious Letty had any idea of what a Greek god might look like took Serafina by surprise, but she glossed over that. Sir Arthur Dawlish, she already knew, had a reputation as a bit of a rake. If he were plying his suit with Letty it might very well not be with marriage in mind. “I’d stay clear of him if I were you.”

Letty giggled. “But I rather like him. He’s a bit more… fun than Mr. Talbot. And a lot younger.”

Serafina sighed and got up off the bed. “Fun is probably not what one wants in a husband. If you remember, we had a list of attributes we were looking for in a suitor for you, and fun didn’t figure in that list.”

“Not being boring did though.”

“Mr. Talbot isn’t boring, is he? I thought he seemed very pleasant.”

“He’s boring compared with Sir Arthur Dawlish.”

Serafina, who by necessity was adept at getting herself out of gowns and petticoats unaided, began to undress. “Don’t compare Mr. Talbot with a rake. How do you think rakes get to be so popular and gain that reputation? Because they are fun to be with and ladies like that. But fun does not mean reliability and we want a reliable indulgent husband for you. Like Mr. Talbot. I’m sure he will dote on you. I doubt very much that Sir Arthur Dawlish is on the hunt for a wife.”

Letty snuggled down into her bedclothes. “I suppose you are right.” She paused. “Is Captain Aubrey reliable, do you think?”

That was a question. Serafina hung up her evening gown to give herself time to think. Was he? He’d asked her to marry him just to inherit a fortune. Was that the action of a reliable man? A fortune he’d had plenty of time to acquire in the past by marriage but had neglected to accomplish until just a few months before the deadline. Did both those actions not make him impulsive rather than reliable? Still… “He’s the most reliable man I know.” Not a lie, as she only really knew him and Ogden.

She wriggled into her nightgown and jumped into bed. Hooray. Two hot bricks wrapped snugly in cloth down at the foot of the bed to keep her feet warm overnight. Leaning over, she blew out their one candle. “And now I’m very tired so I’m going to sleep. Goodnight, Letty.”