Page 27 of The Reclusive Earl’s Scandal (Vows and Vanity #1)

“Eloise died when the twins were only three years old. Nobody truly knew why. A natural illness, perhaps, or an accident I do not recall, but suddenly there was only one raven left to fly, her wings clipped with grief, and my parents did not know how to console or fix any of it except with gifts and spoiling her. Elena was granted every wish, every request, excused for every poor behavior she exhibited. At first, my parents said it was just the grief, that she would overcome her childish ways—until it continued because they did not stop it when they had the chance. Now, Elena believes the world is hers to command. She is a genius who excels in chess, and we are all but her pawns.” He gave a small shrug.

“I do not like it, and as the head of the family she should listen to me, but she does not. I spent too long not trying to scold her behaviour until now.”

“Why now?”

“Because she involved you.”

The confession struck Rebecca unexpectedly. “Oh.”

“And I could not let that go unchecked,” he told her.

Her courage gathered, and she feared she ought not to let it, but she had been born with her mother’s sharp tongue and her father’s boldness, so she spoke her mind.

“And yet you have not spoken to me in almost a week. You have not been to visit me as you promised. I wished to speak with you before you spoke to my father about our betrothal, yet you have not visited him, either.” She paused.

Not that the duke was in any fit state for company , but she did not need to mention that yet.

“You have just told Lady Elena I am to be your wife, yet you have ignored me for a week. You must understand my confusion, Edward.”

“I do,” he said quietly. “I could not visit, but I should have written a correspondence to you to assure you.” He hesitated again, his gaze dropping to the floor. His face seemed to grow even paler. “I… I have been ill.”

“Ill?” she echoed. While he did look pale she wasn’t sure what he had been ailed with. “You could have let me visit you. I would have taken you for a turn around the room.” Rebecca’s smile was faltering, thinking of him helping her through her recovery.

“It is—it is not that kind of illness,” he said. “A walk would not help. A turn around the room would have made it worse, and meeting with your father…” He broke off, and she had never heard him sound so ragged or disconnected from himself. He sounded as though his mind was a thousand miles away.

Rebecca flinched but nodded, feeling vulnerable and foolish for her jesting. “I understand.”

But Edward shook his head. “No… no, you do not, but I will explain. Not tonight, but soon.” His eyes met hers, and she saw something quite destroyed in them, something that made her want to approach him, to perhaps take his face in her hands.

She squashed down those desires, fearing how intense they were.

“Rebecca, I must ask. You are truly, truly certain about marrying me? If you have any other suitor you prefer, I would ask you to consider...”

“I am certain,” she said quickly, cutting him off.

“I have spent enough days hoping that every knock on the door was you to approach my father.” There was no time to speak to him of her family’s debts, but she could.

She could find time before the wedding. She would have to see what her father said first before she hastily revealed the desperate circumstances of their finances.

“I am ready for you to speak with my father, Edward.”

If he recalled his promise to discuss something with her that she had requested he did not show it. He only nodded.

Quietly, Rebecca asked, “are you certain you want to marry me?”

A moment passed where her heart beat too loudly in her ears, her blood rushing. And then he murmured, “my thoughts only remain on you and your well-being. I know what I want, even if it is a cruel, beautiful dream in its full extent. I wish to marry you, Rebecca. I wish to.”

There was still a niggle of question in her, and she didn’t know why he sounded so anguished, but Rebecca nodded, drawing near. Edward stepped back, his eyes tight, and jaw clenching. He spoke again, and when he did his voice was rather flat.

“I must attend to some business,” he said. “I want to have myself in order ahead of meeting with your father. I must prove the Thornshire wealth to him.”

Rebecca could have cried at that, but she only nodded, accepting the dismissal. Something hung heavily between them, but it would have to wait. They needed to secure their betrothal first. That was the priority.

Feeling unsettled, Rebecca passed Edward, feeling too far away from the man who had dived into the river to save her without a second thought.

***

“Is he in there?” Amelia whispered, sitting next to Rebecca where the two of them hovered on the staircase.

Standing next to her younger sister, Rebecca felt giddy and like a little girl again, the two of them listening in on their parents’ conversations when they thought there was gossip to be discovered.

“He is,” Rebecca whispered right back, her eyes glued to the hallway ahead of them.

Her father’s study door was shut, the walls heavy, but she imagined she could hear the voices from inside, anyway.

She couldn’t, but after a couple more days of worry and strangeness between Edward and her, she needed something to give her hope.

She knew he was meeting with her father finally, to state his intentions to marry Rebecca and her heart raced. Amelia’s hand slipped into Rebecca’s, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Are you excited, sister?” Amelia asked, grinning.

Rebecca nodded, realizing she was . Despite the tension while in Thornshire House the other day, Rebecca was on the cusp of hopefully doing everything she had set out to do at the start of the Season. She would find happiness and contentment along the way of saving her family.

She had sworn to herself that Edward would not enter the marriage blind, but she still believed there was time to tell him.

“You will make the prettiest countess,” Amelia gushed, giggling. “And when you make good connections through His Lordship, you must ensure I find a good husband, too.”

“I would do that regardless,” Rebecca promised her.

It seemed as though an eternity passed before the study door opened, and Rebecca shot to her feet from where she had been sitting pressed to the banister, too old to do such a thing.

Her eyes immediately landed on Edward who still looked grave-faced, but there was a more relaxed curve to his smile when he saw her.

He silently raised a brow before striding over to her.

He bowed his head at Amelia, who squeaked and scurried off.

“I recall us sitting on these stairs when we were children,” he told her, glancing over the wide staircase. “Not a lot has changed, in some ways. Your sister, however runs fast.”

“She thinks you are very dashing,” Rebecca laughed, keeping her voice low, for her father still had not emerged. “Are you quite all right?”

“I am well,” he answered her. “Do you think I am dashing?”

Before she could answer, her father came out of his study, and she was grateful for it.

How could she say that yes, she thought he was but with no platonic way to express such a thing?

For today, her father looked clear-eyed, and her breath left her in a jagged sigh of relief even if she could not explain why out loud.

“Yes, I do,” she whispered to Edward in a moment of surprising confidence, before stepping forward towards her father. Her heart gave a skip at her confession, her intention not to outwardly acknowledge it, nor look back at Edward. “Well, Papa? What news? Do not keep me in suspense.”

Her father fixed her with that hard stare of his, his arms rigid at his side.

His posture straightened, every inch the Duke of Bancroft that wielded his authority well.

Like this, he was the man people spoke of benevolently.

He was not the ruined, crumpled man who had admitted to Rebecca that he had woken up in tavern doorways.

Like this, he made her proud, not ashamed.

“I have given the Earl of Thornshire my blessing,” her father announced. “Although it appears you neglected to tell him about one thing.”

Rebecca gasped, whirling around to face Edward, her face stricken.

But he didn’t look angry; he didn’t look like a man who’d had it concealed from him that his burden now was to financially carry a ruined family.

Instead, he tucked his hands behind his back.

This was the earl she had not had the chance to formally know.

This was not the boy she knew from childhood. This man… this was to be her husband.

And that didn’t disarm her in the slightest negative way.

“Your father informed me that he told you some time ago that should Mr. Harry Maudley attempt to publicly dishonour your name then you would have to marry him. I was not aware of this fact, and not knowing could have landed me in some trouble. I would have won over Mr. Maudley in terms of social status, but the accusations, as false as I believe they were, would have ruined us both.” His voice dropped a great deal of the formality, his eyes flicking to hers. “I would have liked to know.”

Rebecca nodded guiltily. There is more you need to know. “It was something I wished to tell you myself,” she murmured. “I did not get the chance.”

“I was there that day in the drawing room, so I believe you about Mr. Maudley,” he continued formally again. “But had I not been… there is a lot of bad speculation, I believe. However, it is your father’s and my own shared belief that our betrothal announcement will quell them.”

“Or it could make the tutor’s boy act faster than your wedding can happen,” her father added.