Page 1 of Marry in Scandal

Prologue

“I can never be important to any one.”

“What is to prevent you?”

“Everything—my situation—my foolishness and awkwardness.”

—JANE AUSTEN,MANSFIELD PARK

Ashendon Court, Oxfordshire, 1811

“What do you mean, the child is unteachable?” Lily Rutherford’s father, Lord Ashendon, narrowed his cold gray eyes at the governess standing stiffly before him. He spoke quietly, but that silky tone was the prelude to a temper his children had learned to fear.

Lily stood by her father’s desk, her back straight, her head high, biting down hard on her quivering lower lip. Showing fear in front of Papa was fatal. Rutherfords feared nothing.

Her sister, Rose, was the fearless kind of Rutherford—she waited just beyond the door, listening illicitly. Rose was supposed to be upstairs in the schoolroom, doing her lessons, but she’d whispered, “Don’t worry, Lily, I’ll protect you,” when the summons came.

Miss Glass, the governess, stood quite calmly before Papa. She’d given her notice after just two weeks, weeks that for Lily had been almost worse than those when Mama was dying. A week of tests and tears and punishment. Then more tests. And more punishments. And more tears.

“I will not waste my time on a child who cannot even read. I have standards. And I won’t take responsibility for this child’s failure to learn.”

Papa snorted. “Of course she can read. She’s what, ten, isn’t she?”

Eleven, nearly twelve, Lily thought, but she wasn’t about to contradict him. Nobody contradicted Papa, especially when his temper was roused. Her hands were shaking. She hid them in the folds of her black dress. Black for mourning, black for Mama.

“My late wife taught both the girls. She never mentioned any problem with Lily.”

Miss Glass gave a slight shrug. “I cannot help that. Lady Rose is well enough, skilled in all the ladylike arts, though she has a tendency to be careless with her embroidery and—”

Thump!Papa slammed a fist on his desk. “I don’t care about embroidery, and we’re not discussing Rose! It’s Lily we’re talking about.”

“Lady Lily is illiterate.” Miss Glass enunciated every syllable, almost with relish.Il-lit-er-ate.She’d made Lily copy it out a hundred times. Along with words likeig-nor-ant,un-ed-u-cat-edandun-lett-ered.

Lily’s insides shriveled.

All this time, Mama and Lily and Rose had kept her shameful inability a secret, hidden from Papa. But Mama was dead, and this tall, terrifying governess had come to take her place, this woman with her lists and tests, and her pale goatish eyes and the whippy little cane that she used on slow pupils—on Lily—the better to learn her lessons.

And now this, in front of Papa. A different kind of flaying, exposing Lily to her father, like a scientific specimen Lily had seen in a display once. Exposed, defenseless, mortified.

“Are you saying she is lazy?”

“She is obedient enough and strives to please, but she is unteachable. She cannot read, she cannot do simple sums, and she consistently mixes up her left from her right. As I said, Lady Lily is illiterate and nothing I have tried has made any difference.”

“Illiterate? Nonsense! Come here, Lily!” Papa pulled Lily to him. He seized a book from his desk and opened it at random. “Read that.” He waited.

Lily stared hard at the page, a lump lodged thick in her throat, searching for even one word she recognized. But as always, the letters seemed to slide under her gaze, like worms trying to rebury themselves.

“Well?” His impatience grated against her nerves.

She tried to swallow the lump and stared harder. But all that came was a single slow tear.

Papa, frowning, seized a pen and wrote something. “Read that, then.”

Lily was shaking all over now. Tears blurred her vision, and she could barely see the word he had written. It was short, but still...

“C. A. T.—Cat!” her father yelled. “Read it!”

“Cat,” Lily whispered. Her stomach was in knots. She thought she might throw up.