Page 28 of The Reclusive Earl’s Scandal (Vows and Vanity #1)

“But His Grace has generously offered to support us publicly should that happen. I do not want to rush our wedding.” Edward looked at her knowingly, and she felt a flutter of surprise, true wonder that he didn’t mind a longer betrothal.

Perhaps now that they would be secure with one another there was no need for a rush.

They would not be forced to dance with anybody else, at least.

Rebecca nodded eagerly. “I agree with all of this, then.”

“Your marriage will go forward,” her father said firmly, “and Lord Thornshire will receive eighty percent of your full dowry.”

Rebecca, for all her masks and excellence at pretending, could not slip a faux acceptance in time.

She whirled to her father, her surprise hidden from Edward, at least. Her eyes widened, her mouth parting.

He ignored her, knowing they could not discuss the reason for her surprise.

Instead, he only nodded and offered his hand to Edward.

They had likely already shook on the arrangement; this was for Rebecca’s benefit, but she couldn’t stop worrying about the dowry.

Her father had told her she had one, and she had not entirely believed him, but since then he’d received at least three more threatening letters.

More furniture and belongings had gone missing, and the whole family pretended not to notice.

Aside from her mother and the gowns, of course.

Where had he gotten the money to offer a dowry?

Had he taken note of her plea to protect her money for her marriage?

But if so, had her siblings been left with nothing?

Rebecca mustered a smile that she knew Edward caught. He frowned at her, cocking his head in question, but they didn’t get a chance to talk, for the duke was already leading Edward further down the hallway.

“You must bring your mother and sister over for dinner tonight,” he said jovially. “We must celebrate the joining of our families. The Bancrofts and the Thornshires. An excellent partnership indeed. And did I overhear at Lord Thomas Willoughby say the other day you have acquired holdings in Bath?”

The two walked further away, leaving Rebecca looking after them. He bought more estates? Rebecca recalled Edward mentioning getting more affairs in order ahead of speaking to her father. Had Catherine really made him feel as though he did not own enough?

Her heart fell as she sank onto the bottom step of the staircase.

She was to be married, perhaps not soon, not too hastily, but she would become the Countess of Thornshire all the same.

While the prospect pleased her, the official announcement terrified her.

What awaited them when they made it? Would Catherine retaliate? Would Harry?

She already did not trust her friends, and she had been processing that heartbreak all week, but now, as she thought about the week ahead, she wondered if she had betrayed her friend, too. Had she caused Catherine’s hostility?

Rebecca’s chest ached. She could not dwell on such things. She did not love Edward in that way, and neither did Catherine, but at least Rebecca liked his company and saw him as a friend. She saw herself happy with him.

You are both using him, either way , she thought to herself.

Shame and guilt swept through her. She dismissed it as best she could, climbed to her feet, and went upstairs to her mother to ask for advice on her betrothal dinner.

***

That night, the Bancroft dining hall had more life in it than Rebecca had seen in a while. Despite the ever-constant bickering and giggling of her siblings, her parents’ absences or bouts of low moods and pulling away from family dinners had drawn some of the life from those mealtimes.

Now, with Rebecca and Edward facing one another across the table, lengthwise, the duke and duchess on either head of the table, and Edward’s mother sitting next to him, Rebecca was left with nobody next to her, yet the wine poured, and laughter spilled freely.

Notably, Lady Elena had claimed the event was “too late notice” to attend, and she had already confirmed an appearance at a friend’s dinner gathering. If Rebecca’s parents noticed, they did not mention it.

Yet.

Rebecca’s eyes kept wandering to the wine her father drank. Mentally, she kept score, knowing he would be furious with her for doing so, but she was unable to help herself. He was already four glasses in, and his laughter grew louder and louder.

“We will arrange a church wedding,” the duke announced. “Harriett wished for one of our children to wed in our own drawing room, but as Rebecca is my firstborn and the first to wed, I do not want anything spared. This is a celebration, a union , of our families.”

Rebecca mustered a smile, unable to stop noticing Edward’s face.

He kept passing through moments of smooth composure that looked too carefully placed upon his features, and then it would slip, and he would frown ever so slightly.

He kept glancing towards the vacant seat next to Rebecca.

Ever since he had told her about the raven whose wings had been clipped from losing her twin, Rebecca had found herself wanting to sympathize harder with the young lady.

Yet she was also making this whole process ever so difficult for Edward. Clearly, he wanted harmony, and she was restricting him from it.

“There is nothing wrong with wanting to watch one of our children wed in the home they grew up in,” Rebecca’s mother laughed. The sound was empty, too fabricated from forced energy and pretense in front of their guests. Lady Thornshire didn’t notice or at least Rebecca hoped she didn’t.

Her eyes met Edward’s across the table. He offered her a soft, warmer smile than she had expected, but she couldn’t return it in time before he looked away.

“Indeed,” Lady Thornshire said, not noticing the hard look on the duke’s face. “While church weddings are rather grand and beautiful, there is intimacy in a home wedding, I think. I myself wed in my father’s drawing room.”

“Where would you prefer, Lady Rebecca?” Edward’s question cut into the debate, and she found herself back beneath his attention. Something low and warm, pleasant but confusing, settled in her chest. Fighting the urge to press a hand to it, she frowned.

“I… I suppose I did not give it enough thought,” she answered, looking between her mother and father.

Her mother’s eyes held the circles of exhaustion, days of crying and those episodes of sadness over her discarded memories held in her old gowns, of the love she must have once felt and knew she’d lost years ago.

It had taken so long for Rebecca to realize: her mother was not as passive as she thought; she was drowning in her own sorrows, and did not know how to handle it all.

It didn’t take all the blame as she watched their family sink faster and harder than a stone in water, but it was more reason for Rebecca to be less bitter.

Across the table, her father’s eyes were darkened with evidence of drinking and late nights, not enough sleep, and forced early mornings to continue business so nobody knew about his vices.

“You ought to think about it now,” her father urged. “I do think a church is more proper.”

“Well, I suppose no matter wherever the ceremony is held all that matters is that our families will be joined.” Her mother’s smile was tight.

“On the contrary,” her father muttered, but did not elaborate. Rebecca’s breath quickened when she saw how her mother clenched her fork tighter. How her fingers gripped the tablecloth as if she tried to silence a retort.

“On the contrary what , Dominic?”

Rebecca froze at her mother’s tone. Of course, a week of hiding in her room, lost to her thoughts, of her own tragedy caused by her husband’s lack of stability, would build up. But did it have to be now ?

Nervously, Rebecca cleared her throat, glancing at Lady Thornshire. “I do not mind at all. A church is beautiful, but the most important thing, as you said, Mama, is that...”

“I have changed my mind. It appears location is important. Perhaps if we had wed in a drawing room we would have remained in love.”

Rebecca’s heart stopped altogether. Silence dropped over the dining hall, and mortification spread through her. She did not even have the courage to lift her gaze to Edward. Tears burned her eyes.

“Please,” she said weakly. “Let us not do this here, not now.”

But her father only laughed quietly, drained the last of his glass, and gestured for another. Rebecca’s mother tried stopping him from drinking more.

“Dominic,” she said quietly. “No more wine.”

“I will have what I please,” he snapped. And then a terrible, false grin appeared on his mouth, and Rebecca had to look away from how untethered it looked. “Lady Thornshire, your marriage to your husband… If you do not mind me asking, was it better for a drawing room wedding?”

“ Papa !” Rebecca admonished, but he waved her off, utterly nonchalant.

It dragged nails of discomfort through her.

She hung her head in shame, resisting the urge to flee the table.

She could feel Edward’s eyes on her, but she refused and she could not look up at him.

Her parents’ arguments had mostly been kept behind closed doors, out of earshot, but her mother had sequestered herself away from the family for so long neither cared how the argument spiraled.

Lady Thornshire coughed. “I am not certain it is appropriate for such displays of… discontentment,” she said delicately. “After all, this is about Lady Rebecca and my son.”

“And I, as Lady Rebecca’s father, do not want her to enter a marriage where she will be miserable.”

“And yet you would have had me marry Harry Maudley.” Rebecca’s own snapping comment came without her own authority, yet the words flew from her mouth.

Anger flared through her, and she balled her hand on the table, shaking her head furiously.

“You urged me to marry for love, and then threatened me with having to marry him based on false accusations.”

“Heavens, look what you have caused!” Her mother’s voice rose, and Rebecca flinched, only to find that the anger was not directed at her. “Do you want to embarrass us further?”

Rebecca had never heard her mother address her father’s actions, and now it was spilling out, the product of both of them holding back, avoiding one another, and turning to other methods of coping. Rebecca stared, appalled and humiliated.

Edward looked torn between standing up for her, and not overspeaking. A furrow creased his brow and after a moment, he tried to settle the tension with a gentle, “perhaps we can discuss this another time? We have plenty of time to decide.”

At his weary attempt to settle the brewing argument from escalating, Rebecca softened.

Nobody had ever seen enough of her family to fight alongside her.

To acknowledge something , and to guess that it might hurt, that she carried more than she spoke about.

She held his gaze properly. For the first time in days she felt as though there was no tension. At least not between the two of them.

“We do,” she agreed vocally, but her parents were still glaring at one another, and Rebecca’s chest was still tight as she tried to force more words back down her throat.

Confronting them would do no good, but holding back her thoughts had never worked before.

Her thoughts still snagged on the fact that her father had been able to offer Edward eighty percent of her dowry.

Had her mother’s dresses replenished it, allowing the offer to go ahead?

She hated the thought, but couldn’t shake it.

All she wanted was peace; she wanted their families joined. She wanted to settle , and the man opposite her was willing to give her that. Why couldn’t it just be simple?

“You cannot even keep your wits about you for one dinner, for one duration of a guest visit,” Rebecca’s mother seethed towards the duke, whose eyes couldn’t focus.

He reached for his glass again, but the duchess knocked it away.

The glass tipped sideways, the wine spilling onto the white, pristine tablecloth.

The stain looked like blood, and Rebecca heard a sharp gasp from opposite her.

And then she was torn. Edward’s gaze turned vacant as he stared at that stain, but then a clattering echoed through the dining hall.

Rebecca’s head whipped around in time to see her father’s eyes roll back.

His body went limp, his dinner fork clattering against his still-full plate, and then he fell sideways off his chair.

The Duke of Bancroft thudded to the floor, unconscious.