Page 36 of The Duke’s Sworn Spinster (A Duel and a Wedding #1)

Chapter Four

“ I always thought that you were a respectable lady, a matron of the ton!” The Marchioness was screaming at Lady Forthwell as Vanessa pushed open the door to the dining room and was met by the chaos within.

“But now I see that you have brought up your daughter to be a wayward, defiant, and loose… wagtail!”

Vanessa gasped, just at the same time that her mother let out a howl of anger.

“How dare you!” she roared. “That is my daughter you are speaking of! My daughter!”

“Yes, a daughter that is clearly a strumpet who has been running around with other gentlemen behind my Samuel’s back!”

Vanessa covered her mouth. She could not believe the scene in front of her.

While her and Langdon’s mothers yelled at each other, Lord Forthwell and the Marquess were whispering together in a corner, looks of stark fear on their faces.

Lord Langdon, meanwhile, was storming around the dining room, making the candelabras shake every time his feet hit the marble floor.

As Vanessa and the Duke of Thornfield entered, however, the commotion died away, and everyone turned to look at them.

Shyness—as it so often did—seized Vanessa, and she looked up at the Duke.

He seemed to take the queue from her because he gave her a small nod and then stepped forward, releasing her arm.

“I have wonderful news,” he said, in a cold, emotionless voice that belied his words. “Lady Vanessa has agreed to marry me.”

“I will challenge you!” Lord Langdon shouted at once, leaping forward. “I demand satisfaction! You will meet me at dawn with pistol, Your Grace, or I will?—”

“You do not want to do that, Samuel,” the Marquess said, moving forward and laying a hand on his son’s shoulder which Langdon immediately threw off. “His Grace is a very fine shot.”

“But I would very much enjoy shooting you,” the Duke said, and Vanessa closed her eyes at the horror of the situation washed over her. The Duke might be better than Langdon, but he was still a beast. He was still the Duke of Thornfield.

“I have a right to demand satisfaction!” Langdon snarled, and Vanessa’s eyes snapped back open.

“Samuel…” his father was looking at him with desperation now. “We must discuss this privately…”

“I do not care what you and Lord Forthwell have done!” Langdon shouted. “Why should I suffer for whatever duplicitous dealings you have carried out? Why should my bride be taken from me because of your ineptitude and greed?”

“She is not your bride,” the Duke snarled, his voice so low and so deadly that it scraped the ground. There was something fiercely protective in his tone—something possessive—and Vanessa couldn’t suppress a shudder. “She has a right to choose whom she wants to wed, and she has chosen me.”

“Do not be upset, my love,” the Marchioness said to her son, the iciness in her voice slicing through the room.

“The chit has clearly thrown herself at the Duke in order to secure this match. She has undoubtedly entrapped him. You do not wish to marry a woman like that. She will be part of the demimonde soon enough.”

“And you,” the Duke said, turning slowly to face the Marchioness, “should learn to hold your tongue before you make enemies of the Duke and Duchess of Thornfield. Believe me, you will regret such a thing.”

“Are you threatening my mother?” Langdon demanded, and this time, when Vanessa looked at him, he was no longer red-faced and furious. There was something even more terrifying about the way he was looking at the Duke with a cold and deadly hatred that seemed to freeze her blood.

“I am advising her,” the Duke said. “You would do well to take my advice as well.”

Langdon stepped forward. He wasn’t as tall as the Duke, but that did not stop him from stepping right up to him and looking him straight in the eye, as if he were not even remotely intimidated by him.

“Then let me offer some of my own advice,” Langdon murmured.

“Lady Vanessa has been promised to me since we were children. I will not let you, or any man, take her from me. She will be mine whether she likes it or not.” Vanessa felt fear prickle up her spine, and instinctively—unconsciously—she shrank toward the Duke, as if for protection.

“And for the insult you have done me today,” Langdon continued, “I will have my vengeance. Make no mistake.”

Vanessa felt as if she were going to be sick. This was not the spoiled, selfish, manipulative Langdon she had always known. The man who spoke now seemed older and more powerful. He spoke like someone who planned to keep his word.

The Duke, however, did not seem impressed. He raised an eyebrow, giving Langdon a look that was both pitying and disdainful.

“You may do what you like,” he sneered. “But I have taken down better men than you, and your threats do not scare me. Now, I suggest that you leave before you threaten my future wife again.”

Langdon cast one last, furious glance at Vanessa then beckoned to his mother and father.

“We are going,” he snapped. They did not argue. Both trailed him out of the dining room without a word. Only once Vanessa heard the front door slam behind them did she finally let herself breathe.

She slumped forward into one of the chairs around the table and let her head fall in her hands. She could not believe what she had just been through. She felt as if she had aged five years in one evening.

Her mother, however, did not allow her to rest for long.

“Come, Vanessa,” Lady Forthwell said, taking her by the arm and standing her up. “Come upstairs.”

Vanessa obeyed. She looked one last time at the Duke before her mother ushered her out of the room, but he was not looking at her. Then she was gone from the dining room, and the door swung shut behind her.

“Mama,” she said, turning pleadingly to her mother as she led her up the stairs of the townhouse. “Mama, you must know that Lady Pedington’s accusations are false! I would never, ever dishonor myself to entrap a man. I did not throw myself at the Duke; I barely even knew him before tonight?—”

“Hush, now, daughter,” Lady Forthwell said, glancing around as if to make sure there were no servants nearby to overhear them. “Wait until we are back in your room.”

Vanessa pressed her lips together with great difficulty, but the moment they were back in her bedroom and the door had been closed, she burst back into her defense.

“Please, Mama, say that you believe me!” she begged. “Say that you know I would never do such a thing and risk the family reputation.”

“Oh, Vanessa,” her mother sighed, and to Vanessa’s surprise, she pulled her into a tight hug, “I do not care what it is you did to make the Duke propose. All I care about is that you did it! You are going to be a duchess!” Her mother released her and held her at arm’s length, beaming from ear to ear. Vanessa stared at her in shock.

“But… I did not do anything,” she murmured.

“Yes, I know,” Lady Forthwell said, winking. “And that is what we will tell the rest of the ton. ”

“No, really, I did not!” Vanessa felt her frustration build. Did her mother really think that she had dishonored herself in order to force the Duke to marry her? She had never felt so insulted.

“Well, it does not matter now,” Lady Forthwell said, shaking her head.

She was still smiling. “The important part is that you are officially betrothed to a duke! In a few short weeks, you will be one of the most powerful women in England.” Her mother laughed then sank into the closest chair, as if she could not quite believe what had just happened.

“To think of it! You have gone from a shy wallflower to the Duchess of Thornfield! It is a miracle.”

“I was not such a wallflower, was I?” Vanessa asked timidly. She knew she was shy, but it still hurt to hear her mother call her that.

Lady Forthwell shook her head. “Not anymore, my dear. Come, sit at your vanity, and I will help you with your hair.”

Vanessa moved numbly to the vanity and sat down in front of the mirror. Her mother rose from her chair and came over to stand behind her.

“You really do look beautiful tonight, my dear,” Lady Forthwell said as she began to remove the pins from Vanessa’s hair.

It fell down in its usual stubbornly straight sheets, surrounding Vanessa’s shoulders.

Then Lady Forthwell took the brush from the vanity and began to brush it.

“You will do well as the Duchess,” she commented after another few moments.

“Your temperament makes you ideally suited to the Duke.”

“W-what do you mean?” Vanessa asked nervously.

“Well, the Duke is a very forceful man,” her mother said with a shrug. “He likes to get his way. And you… You are good at making others feel prioritized, at tending to their needs and desires.”

“I am?”

“Yes, dear. You like to please others, do you not?”

Vanessa nodded. She did like to please others. That was a good thing… right? She had been taught that ladies were meant to please their parents and husbands. But the way her mother said it now, it left a bad taste in Vanessa’s mouth.

You were ready to say yes to Lord Langdon simply to please your parents, a quiet, angry voice said in the back of her head. W ould you call that a good thing?

“Yes, I think you will be a very good fit for a man as willful as the Duke,” her mother said happily. “It does not mean you will have no power. You will simply have to learn to use your power to please your husband to your advantage.”

Vanessa nodded again, but she did not really know what that meant. What she did know was that she did not want to have to manipulate her husband in order to have any power in the marriage.

But she did not say this. Her mother was so pleased, so happy, and she could not risk upsetting her. After everything that had happened tonight, Lady Forthwell would have had the right to be angry at Vanessa. Instead, she was overjoyed, and Vanessa was not going to ruin that.

“And the family!” Lady Forthwell’s eyes sparkled. “The family will benefit greatly from this! Your father is shaken, yes, by the sudden turn of events, but he will get over it.

“In the end, he will come to see, as I do, that you have done the family an enormous favor. You have given us access to the highest echelons of English Society. Yes, you have done very well for yourself, my dear.”

Before she left, Lady Forthwell gave Vanessa a kiss on the cheek. Then, with shining eyes, she bade her goodnight.

As Vanessa lay in her bed later that night, she could not help but reflect that the kindest and most affectionate her mother had ever been was today, when Vanessa had been about to marry well—first to Langdon and then to the Duke.

Do I have any value to her other than as someone to make an advantageous match and elevate the family? she wondered. And will I have any value to my husband other than as someone to please him—and to help him atone for whatever terrible crime he committed in his past?

Would she ever, she wondered, be valued for who she was?

And, perhaps more pressingly: what terrible crime did the Duke commit, and how would it affect her?