Page 39 of Miss Hawthorne’s Unlikely Husband (The Troublemakers Trilogy #3)
H e is marrying her.
The words kept circling in Rachel’s mind as her hands fisted in her skirt under the table.
Simon Thornfield sat across from her, utterly absorbed in his own private nightmare.
She’d invited him to tea as the grubby little imbecile was her only real insight into Richard’s life outside of rumor.
Now she was tempted to flip the entire blasted table over and rage.
“Say it again, Mr. Thornfield.”
“He is truly engaged to marry her. The banns have been posted.”
“Your nephew is marrying Melbroke’s bastard daughter?” He was truly marrying that little girl with the coloring of a field hand. He would rather marry that thing with the pedigree of chattel than be her lover. There was no greater insult.
He shook his head firmly. “Not his bastard. His true born daughter.”
“Melbroke has another daughter?” She hadn’t heard anything about a second daughter.
“No. Miss Elodia is his true born daughter.”
No. “That is impossible.”
“Sterling confirmed it. Melbroke married that girl’s mother before she was born.”
There was no greater insult to the social order. “That is inconceivable.”
“Not to him, apparently.”
She was a trueborn daughter of the nobility?
If that was true then he would have a true and tangible connection, even if the chit was giving up the sphere in which she’d been raised.
He’d found his golden goose after all, in her .
How utterly ridiculous. It couldn’t happen.
If he wasn’t willing to choose her then he would have to stay where he was, in the gutter.
Richard was implacable; he would never listen to her…
unless the girl could be persuaded. Unless his golden goose ran away.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.
Simon blinked at her. “Me?”
“Yes. You do realize that if this comes to pass, you will never be able to get the better of him. Richard will always have more power than you unless you can find some blind, desperate fool to take one of your girls off your hands. Stranger things have officially happened. Although you don’t have nearly as much money as Captain Mason and his heathen wife. ”
“What on earth do you suppose I can do about it?”
“Drive a wedge. Damage her in some way, or him so that they are no longer a viable prospect.”
“Melbroke would destroy me.”
“No, you would be protected. By them and by me. There are enough members of the ton who would thank you for finally putting an end to this rash of lunacy sweeping our ranks. Our best families have been infiltrated, Mr. Thornfield. First Sterling, then a Barony gone to a black commoner and his mongrel wife, and now Melbroke’s first grandchild will be an abomination.
He is your nephew; you must stop it and defend the social order.
The nobility is meant for us, not them. If anyone can simply marry into it then where will we be? ”
“You are right, of course,”
“If they are truly engaged, there will be a party. A ball or a soiree.”
“But I have no invitation. I cannot simply attend a private function.”
“Thornfield’s uncle not invited to his engagement party? That is an oversight that must be rectified. Perhaps I shall mention it to Lady Sterling. No doubt she is educating that oriental girl on the finer points of entertaining.”
“Can you do that?”
“Of course. But if I can get her on side, if I can get you there, can you handle your nephew?”
“Leave it to me, my lady,” he said before standing, bowing and leaving the room.
Leave it to him? She scoffed. Not a chance. Idiot. He could blunder forth and give her the opening she needed. When whatever lunacy he proposed backfired then she had her own plan. Young girls in love were all the same: impressionable, desperate to please. All the better to manipulate.