Page 4 of The Broken Marchioness (Lords of Inconvenience #3)

CHAPTER FOUR

“N ow is the time you let go of me,” Frederica hissed.

No, no, no!

Frederica kept screaming the words in her own mind as she watched the lady at the far side of the corridor screaming relentlessly about a scandal.

Lord Padleigh released her fast. This time, they staggered away from one another with Frederica leaning against the nearest wall and Lord Padleigh standing out in the open, his hands pulling on his dark brown hair in stress.

This cannot be happening.

Yet no amount of Frederica screaming in her own mind would make her wake up from this nightmare. She had been seen and seen in the company of Lord Padleigh, wrapped in his arms.

It took no great leap of the imagination to guess at what people would think of her now. It was her second scandal in just over a year. Within minutes, this story would be spread across the whole of the assembly rooms. Everyone here would be taking the tale back home with them.

She gave it a day before it would appear in the scandal sheets. She could just picture the horrifying headlines now.

Disgraced daughter of an earl sets her sights higher, seducing a marquess after her conquest of a viscount last year.

She shivered in fear.

The lady’s shouts had brought many to them. A whole myriad of people had run up the stairs. Faces and curious unblinking gazes turned toward her and Lord Padleigh.

She tried to be thankful that Lord Padleigh and her parents weren’t amongst them, but it was no great feeling. They would all be hearing about this soon enough.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

Those words seemed to rouse Lord Padleigh beside her.

He darted toward her and stood in front of her, blocking everyone’s view of her.

“What are you doing?” she hissed at his back.

“That’s enough gawping,” he declared to the crowd gathering at the top of the staircase. “Leave us be.”

“My Lord,” one rather delighted man’s voice began, “you must know everyone will know about this sooner or later. There is little point in shielding your lover now.”

Frederica nearly buried her head in Lord Padleigh’s back in embarrassment. To be thought of as Lord Padleigh’s lover was a new and shocking thing indeed.

It didn’t matter that years ago, when they had first met, she had liked him. She had liked him rather too much. Her nervousness in society and fear of being rejected had halted her from ever saying anything to him. They had just enjoyed one another’s company when staying at a friend’s house in the country.

That was all it had ever been though, a fancy of hers. She knew that Lord Padleigh would hardly ever consider a disgraced woman, especially now she was disgraced twice over.

“I know very well that you feed on gossip as you feed on your food, sir,” Lord Padleigh’s said to the man who had spoken. “Your buttons straining to hold your waistcoat together are evidence enough of that.” His jibe made some of the group snicker.

Frederica couldn’t know. She just wanted to remain hiding here behind Lord Padleigh’s back.

I wish to pretend this did not happen.

“Return to the assembly,” Lord Padleigh demanded at once though there was no sound of shuffling feet. “Go, now. Do you have no respect at all? May I remind you that a marquess has the ear of…” He didn’t even need to finish his threat.

People began to shuffle and hurry away. Whether Lord Padleigh had intended to threaten he had the ear of a duke or maybe even the Prince Regent, Frederica didn’t know, but now, it didn’t matter either.

As the final person left the corridor, Lord Padleigh turned to face her.

“This way.” He tried to take her hand, but she avoided taking it. “After what has just happened, what does it matter if you’re glimpsed holding my hand, Frederica?”

She wished to say something, to bicker with him again and throw some angry comment in his direction, but she could not. She felt listless, dizzy in her shock.

She placed her hand in his, allowing him to steer her back down the spiral staircase behind them. She barely looked where she was going, just concentrating on holding onto his hand and staying upright as she followed.

“I’m ruined,” she whispered.

“Don’t say that.”

“I was already ruined once. You think a lady can survive two scandals? I didn’t even survive one!”

“Two?” he spluttered, turning to face her as they reached the next floor. “What do you mean two?”

“You have not heard?” This was unthinkable to Frederica. “You’ve not heard why I have been missing?”

“I have been traveling. I came back three months ago to hear that you had been gone,” he said huskily.

She blinked madly. She was sure that someone would have told him by now. Unless, he had decided to stick his head in the sand and ignore any news about her.

“Dorothy didn’t tell you?” she whispered.

“Tell me what,” he said, somewhat impatiently now. “Tell me what?”

Then there was a sound at the distant end of the corridor.

“Another time. We have to get you out of here.”

“Lord Pad — ah!” She was dragged to the side before she could say anymore.

Somehow, Lord Padleigh found a path through the assembly rooms she had not known existed. They trailed down sets of stairs he must have taken before, probably reserved mostly for staff that she had not seen. When they appeared in the entrance hall, he took his frock coat and her cloak from the footman then towed her outside.

“People will see,” she hissed.

“They’ve already seen us, and they think the worst,” he reminded her.

Frederica felt sick. What would become of her now?

Then the very worst happened. As they moved out into the streets of London, they came face to face with two people standing outside a carriage.

“Frederica?” It was Margaret’s voice.

Let the wet ground swallow me whole now.

She came to a stop in front of her parents with her hand still clutched tightly in Lord Padleigh’s. It was odd that he hadn’t yet released her.

“Frederica?” Ernest said, stepping away from the carriage. His jaw dropped so low, it would be a wonder if he were ever be able to close it again. “You’re here?”

Then Margaret’s face suddenly split into a smile. She moved forward quickly and flung herself into Frederica’s arms.

Frederica had to release Lord Padleigh in order to hold her mother.

“Mama,” she said in a strained voice, “I can scarcely breathe.”

Yet Margaret continued to squeeze her tightly.

“What is this?” Ernest’s voice came coolly. “What has happened?”

As Margaret released Frederica, fussing over her hair and clothes, Frederica caught sight of the way Ernest was looking at Lord Padleigh.

“Where did you get this gown?” Margaret asked. “This is not one of yours. It’s not fashionable enough.”

Frederica chose not to answer her mother. She was too busy staring at the way Ernest and Lord Padleigh were exchanging glowers.

“Have you been keeping my daughter hidden from me?” Ernest asked in a dangerously low voice. “Have you been keeping her this last year?”

“Do not be absurd.” Lord Padleigh pulled up his own frock coat. “Like I would do that.”

Frederica looked away, shocked by what was happening in her gut. The idea that Lord Padleigh might be repulsed by the idea of being her lover was somewhat grating. It made the fact she had always been attracted to him harder to stomach.

“I came across her this evening. We have been seen together. People… misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood!?” Ernest abruptly raged, going completely beetroot in the face.

“Might I suggest you take your daughter home at once?” Lord Padleigh thrust a hand into his dark brown hair and pulled on the tendrils once again, the stress and frustration emanating off him. He took control of the situation and marched her to her parents’ carriage, giving the driver instructions to head home at once. He even opened the door in place of their footman. “Take her home, and I will do what I can to control the gossip here.”

“Gossip?” Margaret said in sudden panic, reaching for Frederica’s arm. “What have you done now, child?”

“I haven’t done anything.” Frederica couldn’t say any more. Between her parents, she was pushed and dragged into the carriage.

Any thought she’d had of escape, of fleeing and running back to the lodging house, was now all taken from her. She could go nowhere with her parents sitting on either side of her, pinning her in. Trapped — scared of the future, her hands shaking in her lap — she looked for Lord Padleigh.

He closed the carriage door. To her surprise, he said nothing though his eyes met hers through the open window.

She had no idea what that look meant, but for the briefest of seconds, there was something other than anger or panic in there.

What did that look mean?

Then it was over. He stepped back, and the carriage lurched forward, taking her away from Almack’s Assembly Rooms and to the very place she had been avoiding this last year.

She was going home.

* * *

Frederica’s hand shook over the letter she kept trying to write to Dorothy. Maybe if she could sneak out to see the butler alone, he would have this letter delivered for her though such a feat seemed impossible.

Ever since they had returned to the house, she and her parents had occupied the drawing room. It was now the early hours of the morning. The fire was raging beside them, and neither of her parents had stopped speaking for hours. They also showed no intention of letting her go to her bed anytime soon.

Perhaps they fear I will run away again.

“What is this? Enough of this.” Ernest looked at the letter she was writing. He clearly didn’t stare long enough to actually see the words, for he tipped over the ink bottle and ruined it.

“Father!” Frederica cried in panic as angry at herself as she was him. Had she had full control of her senses when she and Lord Padleigh had parted, she would have begged him to warn Dorothy for her, but that was the problem. She hadn’t been in her right mind. She had been taken over by fear.

“Do you not understand the gravity of the situation you are now in, child?” He barked at her, moving her away from her seat at the writing bureau. “You have been missing for a year, and on the night of your first return to London, you are seen locked in the embrace of Lord Padleigh?”

At these words, Margaret wailed. She had not stopped crying for the last hour. In her position next to the fire, Frederica didn’t know if it was the heat of the flames or those tears which made Margaret’s cheeks so pink. Her mother continued to bury her face in an embroidered handkerchief then shake out her slowly greying hair before wailing like a child once again.

“How could this happen?” she cried between her gasping wails. “We must have been such poor parents to have raised a child of such reckless abandon when it comes to propriety and her own… virtue.” She waved the frilly handkerchief in Frederica’s direction.

“How dare you!” Frederica barked in defiance and stood to her feet.

Her father, clearly alarmed she had decided to hold her ground, turned like a wooden doll toward her, his face flat.

“The scandal with Lord Wetherington was not of my choosing. He tried to force me to kiss him —”

Her father scoffed and continued to pace again.

“He did. It was exactly what he did.”

“You mistake a man’s passion for forcefulness,” her father said nonchalantly.

“Father!” She was so disgusted, she actually stepped toward him. “I know the difference. As for tonight, I slipped, and Lord Padleigh caught me. That was all it was.”

“You have not told us where you have been this last year?” Ernest stepped toward her with such righteousness and indignation in his tone that she actually backed up and went to stand behind her crying mother. “What else am I left to think other than the fact you have been a kept woman this last year?”

“A kept woman!”

“Do not tell me you are so much of a fool not to know what it means?”

“Of course, I know what it means.” She gripped to the back of the chair for support. “I am simply gutted that you would think I was such a woman. My virtue is intact.” She addressed these final words to her mother. Margaret lifted her face out of the embroidered handkerchief momentarily, her eyes glittering with more tears. “This last year, I have been with a friend. A trusted friend. That is all.”

She had no intention of telling Ernest she had been with Honora. Ernest disliked Honora intently, and out of fear that he would take some action in revenge for hiding his daughter, Frederica intended on keeping her aunt’s kindness a secret.

“Oh., what does it matter anyway, now?” Ernest flung himself down into the nearest chair, burying his face in his hands. His rounded stomach looked even greater in this position, his balding head stark in the firelight. “You are so disgraced, you will take our whole family down with you. There goes my invitation to play croquet with the Duke of Alnwick next week. I am sure of it.”

“Is that all you care about?” Frederica asked quietly in amazement. “A game of croquet with a duke?”

Her father didn’t answer her, but she didn’t need him to. Her life, as disgraced as it was, disappointed her father because it affected his chances of climbing that social ladder.

It is all that matters to him.

“At least with Lord Wetherington,” Margaret spoke for the first time, her words stammering as she tried to wipe her cheeks, “he would have married you. He wanted to. Tonight… oh!” she wailed.

At Frederica’s look of confusion, Ernest took up the thread of what his wife was saying.

“She’s right,” he said gravely, staring into the fire. “Lord Wetherington would have married you. As for Lord Padleigh, he will not marry you.” He spoke the words with finality as he turned to look at Frederica. “What possible incentive could he have for marrying a woman who has been disgraced twice? He is a marquess, too. He could marry a duke’s daughter or another marquess’ daughter. He has no need to lower himself to marry an earl’s daughter.”

Frederica said nothing. Her own jaw had now dropped so far that her cheeks ached though she did not attempt to close her mouth.

The mere thought that Lord Padleigh would ever marry her was a shock indeed. She may have been attracted to him with those dark, stormy blue eyes, that heavy jaw, and the thin line of dark brown stubble across his chin. Not to mention his tall and lithe figure and the way he played with his dark brown hair. It had made her wonder years ago what it would be like to trail her own fingers through that hair.

It was a fantasy in which she had never indulged. As her father had said, he was a marquess, and she was sure he would never consider a quiet mouse like her for a bride.

Besides, was he not meeting a lover tonight?

The way he had wrapped that hand around her waist, softly, seductively, made her shiver for all sorts of reasons now. She could well imagine that any woman he did wish to marry would be very lucky indeed.

He is right. Lord Padleigh has no incentive to marry me.

“I could leave again,” she said, trying to stand tall and find some sort of dignity. “You could tell your friends anything to excuse my absence. Tell them I am sick, perhaps that I have become a nun —”

“A nun!?” Margaret cried out as if this was as great a scandal as being caught in a man’s arms.

“You need not be burdened by my… shame.” She chose the word very carefully. “Let me leave again, and all will be well.”

“No.”

She had barely finished the words when her father cut her off and stood. He moved toward her, such anger and reproach in his expression that she clutched hard to her mother’s chair once again.

“The only way to try and staunch the fallout from a scandal is to marry you off. That is what we must do now.”

“You just said it yourself,” Frederica said desperately, “Lord Padleigh would never consider marrying me.”

“Yet another would.” Margaret leaned forward, nodding furiously with her words.

“Exactly.” Ernest seemed completely resolved. “There is one man who has been hurt by your disappearance this last year. One man who was so devoted to you that he was often here in the hope that one day you would return.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Margaret said with eagerness. “He could save us all from this mess.”

“Indeed,” Ernest went on. “You might never have warmed to him, but he could do much for us now. It is only right after your first scandal with him anyway, regardless of what has happened now.”

“No…” Frederica whispered, knowing exactly what her father was going to say. It was not love that this man felt for her. It was possession, desire perhaps, but nothing so soft and caring as love. For why would he threaten the life of someone she cared so much about if he loved her? “You will not make me marry him. I despise him.”

“You do not have a choice in the matter anymore. We must speak to Lord Wetherington. Maybe he will still marry you.”