Page 8 of The Reclusive Earl’s Scandal (Vows and Vanity #1)

Over breakfast the morning after Lady Montgomery’s ball, Edward was preoccupied, lost in his thoughts of seeing his former childhood friend, Lady Rebecca, although he couldn’t help but think of how casually they had spoken with one another.

I ought to call you Lord Edward, yet here we are .

Her words echoed in his mind, and he fought back a smile at the teasing way she had looked at him.

He had corrected her, and it had hurt to do so, but he’d needed to.

He had seen the flicker of empathy through her eyes, but had not wanted to linger on such a thing.

“What has you smiling, brother?”

Edward startled and looked up at Elena, who fixed him with an amused, expectant look. “Nothing,” he said quickly.

“A shame,” his mother noted delicately. “I was hoping to hear you say it was a lady from the ball last night.”

Edward tensed. How right she was, but not in the way she wanted to be. His mother watched him, her eyes alight with hope and satisfaction.

“Ah, well.” He tried to shrug off the comment and avoid the conversation centering around his prospects, but he should have known better than to hope for such a thing, not when he was surrounded by the vultures of his family, wanting a snatch of something regarding his future. “I am certain it will be soon.”

“How did your search go?” Elena asked. “Did any lady catch your eye? I am certain they did. Everybody is very beautiful this Season, I believe they all stand out. Did you dance with Lady Catherine?”

“Heavens, Elena.” Edward winced. “Give a man a moment to answer one question at a time.”

She didn’t look away, but stared at him with the same hope his mother harbored. “Well?” she demanded.

Edward coughed awkwardly. “I did indeed dance with Lady Catherine, and she was pleasant enough, if not a little… trying too hard to be memorable, or perhaps to be what I thought she would be.”

Elena’s face fell at that. “Oh. But you will give her another chance, will you not? In fact, she will be in attendance at Lady Alesbury’s ball this week! You ought to be her first dance. She will be ever so honoured.”

“Elena,” he began carefully, “I just… I want you to be prepared if I do not pursue her. None of the prospects really appealed to me.”

His mother set her teacup down harshly. Edward only tightened his jaw, forcing himself not to look at her. Looking away was his own sort of rebellion against her authoritative demand.

“Edward, this is foolish.”

“It is not,” he argued. “You know I am ailed. You know I struggle at times to leave the house, let alone integrate myself into a ballroom comfortably. You cannot expect me to adjust to both finding a wife and being back in society at the same time.”

“Of course I can,” she snapped. At that, he finally looked at her, finding the disappointment he had known would be there. “You have legs, Edward, you can simply walk out of the door and go where you please. You have a tongue. Open your mouth and use it .”

Her words landed with harsh precision, his mother wielding her prejudiced views on him with the sharpness of a knife that sliced into Edward.

He had worked hard to protect his own peace in Thornshire Hall.

Now that he was back, thrust onto the streets of London, forced and expected to blend back into a society he had turned his back on, it was hard to hear such accusations.

My legs and my tongue are useless when my mind is not where it ought to be , he thought. They are useless when my mind attempts to whisper the most terrible of things that will happen when I leave the house. How can I speak with a lady when all I can think about is the uneasiness in my stomach?

“Mother, you know it is not so easy,” he said slowly.

She made an annoyed noise in her throat, shaking her head.

When his mother looked at him, it was with half disappointment, half helplessness.

But Edward had to hide much more from them about his condition.

He had to hide just how bad it had gotten.

How there had been times when he couldn’t even walk around the woodlands in the countryside for fear of something bad happening.

“What on Earth are you so afraid of, Edward?” she asked, her voice not kind, nor soft, nor understanding.

If I knew, I do not even think I would confide in you about it .

His mouth opened, but no words came out. He couldn’t make them come. What sort of answer would satisfy his mother who was never happy with anything? He could marry a duke’s daughter and she still would not be...

His thoughts slowed. A duke’s daughter.

Rebecca’s eyes, pretty and gray, as gray as steel, rose to his mind.

Her copper-colored hair had been curled beautifully, arranged over her shoulder in a way that drew the attention gracefully, not obscenely.

And the way she spoke… it had been with such conviction, such certainty, as though the years apart had blossomed her into a proud young woman who knew exactly what she wanted.

Perhaps she did.

Edward couldn’t help wondering who his childhood friend was now.

“Well?” his mother demanded. “I grow tired of these silences, Edward. You are the Earl of Thornshire, for Heavens’ sake. I will not have more friends of mine approach me regarding my son’s peculiarities .”

“They are not peculiarities,” he bit out. “In fact, I—” Think, think, what had Willoughby said ? “I am meeting with some old friends later today at the Greenacre. Lord Thomas Willoughby is arranging it. We are to go through strategies for the ladies we wish to speak with at the next ball.”

The thing about himself was that he contained all the information to play a role well enough, to smooth over mistakes his anxieties caused him to make in the eyes of his family, by inserting knowledge like this to show he was, in fact, the man they wanted him to be.

And he was, deep down, buried beneath layers of what if s, and stomach knots, and nerves.

He met his mother head-on, as if daring her to question him. In the end, she only nodded, and resumed her breakfast.

“Good,” she said. “See to it that you do make an appearance. I will be listening out for mentions of your name.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he muttered.

***

Edward did not attend the Greenacre. He thought about it, he thought hard enough about it that his body trembled, and his stomach wound itself into those familiar knots.

He thought until his breath wheezed in and out of him, and he’d stormed from his chambers, where he had attempted to get ready, and ended up in the library.

The scent of books had calmed him. Grateful for his mother having taken Elena out for some socializing to ensure she had a group of ladies to befriend throughout her Season, Edward was free to panic as much as he needed.

He paced the entirety of Thornshire House once over, and when that still didn’t calm his nerves, he pushed out into the garden.

It was nowhere near the splendor he was used to from his countryside manor, but he wandered anyway.

The fresh air pushed more calmness into him, filled his lungs, until his disastrous overthinking slowed to a manageable pace. Slowly, Edward came back to himself.

“I do not have to go,” he muttered to himself. “It is not a ball, merely a friendly gathering. I will see my old friends when I am better.”

Better. That was what he had told himself for a very long time, imagining a day where the thought of making plans didn’t send him spiraling.

Where he could finally explain why going to a ball with his mother and sister out of obligation was only just manageable, but the thought of going out in his own time to meet with his own friends had him rattled and shaken like snow caught in a globe at Christmas.

What on Earth are you so afraid of ?

His mother’s question echoed through him as he returned to his study to pen a brief note to Thomas, pleading mention of his faux presence, promising to catch up on the next one. He couldn’t endure his mother’s probing, and he hoped the other man would vouch for him.

What was Edward afraid of? He still could never answer why that dread shattered over his head, slicing him with shards he couldn’t avoid. All he saw was his father slumped at a dinner table, the clamor around his death. He saw his baby sisters, curled up together in one cot, inseparable.

“Twin ravens,” he had murmured aloud, still only a young boy himself.

And then there had been only one raven, growing up strong, growing up alone, and Edward had deprived Elena of her last, remaining sibling.

Even if she didn’t recall the twin she’d had, she knew and felt the loss.

She would know something . Eloise’s name was barely ever breathed throughout Thornshire, another name, another loss, buried.

Perhaps that was why Edward panicked. The fear of more loss; perhaps it was the culmination of everything his mother let go unspoken that had tangled in him, forming into this anxiety.

She must have drowned in her own grief, surely.

She must have ached for her lost love. But in being unable to speak of her grief, she had turned cold, overpowering.

Unlike her, Edward could not shove it all down.

He didn’t know anything about Elena, and sometimes grew too scared to discuss anything from their childhood, or even the event of their father’s death.

Edward finished his letter to Thomas and handed it to a footman before proceeding to take another lap around the townhouse, trying to chase away the ghosts with his presence.

***

“I have prepared a strategy for you.”

Edward turned to his sister as they stood in a corner of the ballroom at the Saltsborough townhouse.

The dancing was in full swing, ladies sweeping their skirts, and men eyeing the fuller dance cards even if they knew they would not fit their names onto it, but it meant that was the lady they ought to impress for their popularity.