Page 34 of Miss Hawthorne’s Unlikely Husband (The Troublemakers Trilogy #3)

Melbroke House, Mayfair, London

T wo days of tense silence and general avoidance had passed since Elodia and her father had their argument about Richard.

He wouldn’t take his words back and she refused to even entertain the idea of changing her mind.

He stayed in his study or his club, and she stayed in the parlor or music room when she was home.

She was in the middle of practicing her scales on the piano when heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. She looked up to see her father enter with a somber expression. He didn’t have his paper, and he didn’t take a seat. He simply stood there with his folded arms, towering over her like a general.

“Ellie,” he began, letting out a puff of air.

“Have you come to apologize?” she asked, continuing with her scales.

“I have not.”

“Then I don’t want to speak to you.”

“I don’t very much care,” he snapped before closing the lid on the piano. “We need to discuss this further.”

She snatched back her hands to avoid the lid and glared up at him. “Discuss what exactly?”

“This misunderstanding about your mother.”

She tilted her head. “You mean the misunderstanding about her you allowed to prevail?”

His jaw clenched hard and he closed his eyes for a moment, as she watched him fight back a wave of temper. “I don’t want to fight you, Ellie.” He opened his eyes. “You have to know it was never my intention to allow your reputation, or your mother’s, to be besmirched.”

She could continue to fight him but she needed true answers, and if he was willing to speak, it didn’t make sense to stay at odds. “Why did they think you’d never been married before?” she asked.

He sat down on the chair and rubbed his face roughly with his hands, his signet ring glinting coldly in the sunlight. “I can only imagine my father somehow kept that information private.”

“I’m sure he did,” she grumbled. He really had been the most hateful person.

“The point is, I did not intentionally mislead anyone about your status. The truth is, I did not think it was something I needed to prove, as I’d been married to your mother for over a decade before she passed.”

That was a fair point. The likelihood that no one knew the firstborn son of a viscount had made a freed slave a prospective viscountess was low, even if it had been in the colonies.

People talked, and more often than not word got back home.

After all, her presence or ethnicity hadn’t been a surprise to anyone, from the staff to the ton in general.

“As it is,” her father continued, “I will correct the record which will improve your prospects. Therefore—”

“Therefore nothing. I am still marrying Richard.”

“Stop calling him that,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.

“He is my fiancé,” she replied, her anger returning swiftly.

“Elodia, I have done and will do everything in my power to ensure that your position in society is unquestioned. Your position as the legal first-born daughter of a viscount. You do not understand the protection that you are throwing away by quitting the sphere in which you have been raised. If you marry—”

“—when,” she corrected.

He glared at her. “ If you marry him, you will no longer be a member of the nobility. You will be the wife of a merchant. Your children will be the sons and daughters of merchants.”

There was no point arguing that fact. Instead, she took a different approach. “Are you saying that you will abandon me and have nothing to do with me if I leave your social sphere?”

“I am saying that your value of life will decrease.”

“Because I won’t be invited to balls hosted by the nobility?” Did he truly think she valued such things so highly?

“Yes. There are doors open to you now that you will lose access to.”

“Have you considered that there is nothing behind those doors that I want more than Richard? He loves and respects me. Don’t you want that for me?”

“If you would at least consider—”

She rose to her feet. “I do not need to consider anyone else. It is precisely because I have been observing them for years that I know my choice is the correct one. I have wanted to be his wife for years.”

“Elodia, you do not understand what you are doing.”

“Yes, I do, and if you force me to choose between a lonely life among the nobility and life at his side, you are going to be disappointed.”

He shook his head and turned away from her, looking up at the ceiling, no doubt praying for patience. “Willful, impossible girl,” he grumbled.

“Have we finished discussing for today? Only I have an engagement to attend.”

“Yes, as it is clear you cannot be reasoned with.”

She whirled on him, unwilling to let him have the last word. “I can reason with reason . What you are presenting is something else.”

He walked away grumbling under his breath and Elodia let out the breath she’d been holding and unclenched her fists.

She couldn’t say it was enjoyable being at odds with her father, but there was a certain satisfaction that came from having it all out in the open.

In the end, perhaps Béa had been correct in her assessment that she needed to speak to her father, not to give him an out but to establish the truth and find a way forward.

He was rapidly becoming the most insufferable man she’d ever had the displeasure of dealing with, but she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge there was still something of the man who raised her there.

At the very least, she now knew he was more of a fool, as Ada had suggested.

That he had never been ashamed of her and her mother, although that was likely going to change once she married Richard.

He would then consider her a traitor to him.

She walked out of the room to the stairs and heard him calling for his carriage.

Probably going to his club again. Unless…

Richard. Her father wouldn’t be able to persuade Richard, could he?

The sudden thought sent a chill through her.

What if he managed to get Richard to agree with him and leave her behind for what he believed was her best interest?

She couldn’t let her father ruin her happiness.

She rushed to change her shoes, grabbed a shawl and ran out the door.

*

The summons to Brooks was unnerving. Richard hadn’t known what to expect in the days following Melbroke discovering his engagement with Elodia.

He’d had every intention of going to the man and discussing it once he was certain of Elodia’s interest in him as a husband even though he was almost certain the man wouldn’t agree at first.

But now everything had gone off course and Elodia and her father were at each other’s throats.

Richard was positive that this last-minute summons to Brooks was in response to that fact.

He dressed in a dark green frock coat and a waistcoat made of a brown and green cloud brocade his grandmother had sent over from China and set off in his carriage, his gloved hands fiddling with his father’s pocket watch.

When he was dropped off at St James’s Street, he took a deep bracing breath and glanced at his driver. “Stay here, I don’t see this lasting very long.”

The driver nodded, the corners of his mouth tightening. “Very good, sir.”

Richard walked through the doors and proffered the note from the viscount to the doorman. “The Viscount Melbroke is expecting me.”

The man blinked a few times before glancing down at the logbook and the note. “You are…”

“Thornfield. Mr. Richard Thornfield.”

He blinked again and looked up at Richard with widened eyes. Richard met his gaze patiently. This was a typical enough experience for him. No one expected to come face to face with a Chinese man after hearing his name.

“Yes, come this way, Mr. Thornfield.”

Richard removed his hat and followed him, taking in the pale green walls and dark wood of the interior. For such an exclusive establishment, it wasn’t as opulent as he was expecting.

The footman led him past inquisitive and downright astounded glances of the regular patrons to a private study occupied by the Viscount Sterling, and a tea service that Richard imagined was some kind of attempt at civility.

“Mr. Thornfield, Lord Melbroke,” the footman announced him, despite the fact that the man could clearly see him.

“Thank you, John,” Melbroke said, staying in his seat.

“Very good, my lord,” John nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Whatever curiosity he had was no match for his training.

Richard waited a beat after the door clicked shut before speaking. “Lord Melbroke, I take it you would like a word with me?”

“I would. Please have a seat.”

Richard sat in the plush leather chair, crossed his legs and eyed the teapot on the table between them. He could already smell that it was overstepped. Hopefully the viscount stopped at appearances and wouldn’t try to serve him any of it.

“It was recently brought to my attention that you intend to be married to my daughter.” The older man said.

That was one way to put it. “Yes. I also had the privilege of hearing your feelings on the matter.”

His mouth tightened as he folded his fingers together on his knee. “It is not a personal objection, Mr. Thornfield.”

Richard barely suppressed a scoff. Far be it for a peer of the realm to object personally to someone. “Of course not, that would be unreasonable. As I understood it, your objection is rather more generalized.”

Melbroke’s mouth tightened. “Yes.”

“And I imagine you haven’t changed your mind recently.”

“No.” He sat up and leaned forward. “As a man of the world, I’m sure you appreciate my position. Elodia is a member of the nobility; her position is unique on several levels. It has provided a certain level of protection for her that she has never been without.”

“That is true.”

“She is not prepared for the reality of life without that protection.”

“Make your point, sir.”

Melbroke leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I would like you to convince Elodia to give you up.”