Page 25 of Denying a Rakish Duke
She was caught alone in a room with the Duke. She had brought the final shame and scandal on her family. She would be ruined forever. She would now have to resign herself to her fate as a spinster for the rest of her days— at least that part she was prepared for. She had seen the dirty looks that other fallen women were given as they walked down the street or went about town … she did not know how she would endure that. All for a single moment of weakness? It was not fair. Nobody was supposed to see.
Petunia slammed into Tobias’ back with how quickly she rushed into the room, and the disgruntled man was forced to fumble forward a few steps. Petunia caught one glimpse of her daughter and the Duke and came to the obvious conclusion with a gasp of shock and disappointment. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand and turned to try to stop Amanda and Thomas from coming into the small office next but failed. The room seemed to be growing smaller by the second.
“How dare you! I should have known better! I heard all of the disgusting rumors about you! About your family! I was kind enough to allow you into my home, and this is how you repay me! In my son’s office! How dare you! You will pay!” Tobias kept shouting, louder and louder, but his voice remained somehow flat, spewing vitriol and blank statements of shock and outrage until he was forced to breathe and sucked in air in one great suctioning gasp and nearly toppled over from the theatrics of it all.
Tobias nearly swooned again and caught himself on a bookshelf. He fell heavily into an armchair that groaned under his weight and a puff of dusty air was forced from the seldom-used cushions.
“There has been a great misunderstanding if you would allow us a moment to explain,” Joseph attempted again in a soothing voice, but Petunia would not allow it.
“I do not have to give you a single thing.” She folded her arms across her chest, but her ire was not aimed at the Duke; rather it was aimed at her daughter. If she could have miraculously formed the ability to shoot daggers across the room by sheer will alone, poor Vanessa would have been gutted.
“Amanda, please, I am so deeply sorry—” Vanessa finally side-stepped out from behind the Duke, her joined hands clasped in front of her chest as she took a step toward her sister and Thomas who were at her back. Amanda’s expression was unreadable, and Vanessa desperately wished that she would say something. It was not as if they hadseenanything. It was pure conjecture at this point … no matter how compromising the situation appeared.
Amanda studied her sister’s face intently, searching for a hint of maliciousness, but only found contrition. Still, her chin dimpled, and she found the entire situation to be entirely too overwhelming. Amanda turned sharply on her heel and ran from the room, swerving around the bodies that might have blocked her path.
“I shall … I shall go and check on her,” Thomas offered softly and turned more slowly to follow Amanda from the space. “Please, give some space; it is time to retire for the evening,” Thomas said to those in the hall as he made sweeping gestures with his arms. “The party is over; thank you for coming, but you must go now,” Thomas’ voice faded down the hallway, leaving the remaining people to explain themselves.
Petunia was the first to speak. “I never thought that you could stoop so low.” She shook her head in disappointment, hardly even blinking as she stared at Vanessa. “I knew that you were attempting to help your sister, however misguided that your intentions turned out to be, butthis?” Petunia pointed to the Duke.
“I beg your pardon?” Joseph said, offended at being referred to as if he were little more than an object.
“Now is not the time, Boy.” The Dowager made her way into the room and used her cane to shut the door in case any of those guests from earlier did not actually leave when they were asked to though that seemed like the least of Vanessa’s concerns at the moment.
“After all the pain and suffering that our family has already endured from your sisters, you did not think that perhaps we have already been through enough? We had managed to spare Amanda from all of that strife … and now you place the scandal right in her lap? I have never been more disappointed in you … in fact, I do not think that I have ever been this disappointed inanyoneever. It is such a great wound in my heart that it is painful tolookat you!” Petunia’s words were spoken softly as if she could not even muster the energy to shout at Vanessa, and somehow that hurt Vanessa even worse. Her mother didn’t even consider herworththe energy that it would have taken to shout.
“I did not want this,” Vanessa said softly, her hands pressed over her heart as she addressed her mother and desperately attempted to pretend that none of the other bodies in the room existed. “I told you that I did not want a cad to ruin our family furtherbecauseof all of the scandals that we have endured. I wanted things for Amanda to be perfect— I did not wish her to feel as if she were forced to marry the Duke of Willow simply because his title is the highest of eligible rank this Season!” She wanted Petunia to see things from her perspective; she wanted to make her mother understand.
“So you didthis?”Petunia gestured to the room. “This was your solution?”
“Do not be silly!” Joseph said to Petunia in Vanessa’s defense. “Whatever you believe was happening in this room was not some … someplotto overthrow my chances to court Lady Amanda. Lady Vanessa has been very insistent from the first conversation that we ever had how important her sister’s feelings are to her! She would not do anything to wound her; I do not claim to know her as well as you do, Lady Farbridge, but that is something that I am positively certain of.”
Vanessa was moved and turned to the Duke to express her gratitude for defending her, but Petunia spoke first.
“Do you not see? This was all an act, was it not, Daughter? You weredeterminedto keep the Duke from Amanda, and now you have.”
Joseph’s brow pinched in confusion. He wanted to believe that it was not possible. He watched as shock and horror wove across Vanessa’s face. It could not have been done by design … he had just finished pouring his heart out to her; she hadwantedto kiss him. Had she not? He replayed the conversation they had over quickly in his mind twice … she had not actually said anything either. She had said that she had not wanted to be courted by a rake. “Is this true?” Joseph asked, directing his question to Vanessa.
“Of course, it is true!” Tobias shouted from the chair, and Petunia gestured that he should lower his voice, but Tobias was incapable. “She is to blame for this, of course!”
“What?” Vanessa exclaimed, tears falling down her face. “That is not true! Do you really think me so wicked as to scheme againstmy own family?”
“I would not have thought that before,” Petunia said, “but now I am not so sure. You have placed us all in a terrible predicament!”
“I cannotbelieve this!” Vanessa’s voice broke; she fought to keep from crying for a single second longer, but that only made it even worse. Her throat and nose felt clogged as if she could suffocate on the spot. Perhaps that would be better. Perhaps it would be easier to endure that than the pain she was caused by her family.
“You are accusing me of hatching some villainous plot to steal the man intended to court my sister for no other reason than my own wickedness?” Vanessa exclaimed, her voice rising. “To what end? What purpose does that serve? To harm my beloved sister and bring shame and scandal to my family as well as put me on the streets for ruining myself? Why would I do that? What could I possibly have to gain from such an evil scheme?” Vanessa looked from one accusatory face to the next and settled on Joseph’s. “You do not believe a word of this, do you?”
“I do not know what to believe now—” Joseph looked to the far wall, his anger for allowing himself to be tricked like this forced his hands into tight fists at his sides.
“I suggest that you start apologizing to the Duke. Grovel if you must, but this man now holds your future in his hands, the future of thiswhole familyin his hands! Every person in attendance at this dinner party will be gossiping about this come morning! There is no way to hide this damage, Vanessa!” Petunia’s words relayed her ire with every syllable.
Vanessa was without words. It felt as if she were being sliced in two, a pain that burned so hot and cut so deeply that she did not know if she would ever be able to put the pieces of herself back together again. She wanted to run far away from this place. She wanted nothing more than to run out of the Manor and down to the stables where she and Apple could run away, run very far away. How could have things gone so wrong? How had they gotten so out of hand?
She had kissed Joseph because she hadwantedto, and now with just a single seed of doubt planted in his mind, he turned on her?
Until this moment, the Dowager Duchess had been content to stand by and watch the situation unfold. She was not normally the sort of involve herself in her grandson’s affairs beyond their recent bargain. She would offer advice, and he could choose to listen to it or not. However, she had been watching this particular event unfold withkeeninterest.
She could see the way the poor girl in the center of the room was being picked apart like a fresh carcass was devoured by vultures. She knew what would happen should she and the Duke leave this room without another word. The likelihood of Vanessa being turned out was high, and after seeing her son turn out his second wife for failing to produce an heir, she had promised herself to never stand by and watch another woman ache in the way her second daughter-in-law had ached. It had broken the previously strong, spitfire of a woman into nothing. No woman deserved to be treated like that, least of all when she knew that her grandson had been equally involved in whatever situation it was that Tobias had walked in on. The Dowager tapped her cane firmly against the floor in front of her, turning all of the attention in the room to her, and silencing them from any more shouting.
