Page 30 of Denying a Rakish Duke
“Please, Your Grace, it is not my place to say.”
“Just because I do not live here anymore does not mean that you should treat me like a stranger! I have only been away a few days! Everything seems so changed!” Vanessa had rather assumed that there might be a collection of suitors being entertained in the parlor so that she might steal away unnoticed to provide herself the opportunity to corner her younger sister into a conversation.
Gone were the flowers and trinkets that had adorned the entrance the last time that she saw it; it appeared that there was a bit of redecorating happening. Art had been removed from the walls, and furniture sat at awkward places looking for their new permanent fixtures. However, the most appalling was perhaps the volume of shouted voices coming from within the Manor.
“You cannot keep me in suspense forever, pigeon poppet!” Uncle Tobias called from upstairs. Vanessa watched, mute, as her mother quickly made her way down the winding stairs and into the foyer. She was so consumed in her own thoughts that she did not notice Vanessa standing there at first.
Petunia plucked up the closest bundle of thick white linen that she could and clutched it to her chest protectively. It did not seem to matterwhatshe grabbed so long as her hands were properly occupied, lest Tobias attempt to continue their conversation and come waddling down the stairs after her.
“Mama?” Vanessa interrupted before Petunia could start anxiously down the next hall. The woman spun too quickly, nearly fumbling the item in her hand awkwardly. She looked frazzled.
“Vanessa! Dear child, what are you doing there?!” Petunia smoothed the linen back into place in her arms and offered Vanessa a tense, forced smile of greeting. “Should you not be off enjoying your honeymoon?”
Vanessa was stunned. Why would she be enjoying something that she had been forced into? Did they really presume that she would have come back home to gloat? Certainly not. She would not come here to flaunt her status or title … she came here for, well, she came here to apologize. Though Petunia no longer saw anything wrong with what Vanessa had done, apparently. “Is there something about it that is supposed to be enjoyable?” Vanessa said frankly, and Petunia’s eyes narrowed.
“If you have merely come home in an attempt to pick a fight, you will have to come back another day— I am of no mood to quarrel with you, and I am already quite flustered.” Petunia nodded to the door, dismissing her daughter.
“That is all that you have to say to me? Mama? You have no other words to share, no other feelings to be expressed? Are you really so cross with me that you can dismiss me that easily? Is my offense really so great to you?” Vanessa could feel her own precariously contained temper threatening to break. She did not wish to cry, for she knew that would not get her the reaction that she wished. She swallowed back her tears and choked off the emotion thickening her voice. “Never mind. I have come here to visit with Amanda if she will speak with me.”
“She has not come down from her chamber much as of late. That has not changed in the days that you have been away. I do not think that she will see you.”
“Well, I do not intend to take your word for it. I shall have someone summon her, and if they will not— I will simply go up to her chamber myself. You shall not be able to stop me from seeing her either, Mama, but you are always welcome to try.”
“That is exactly the issue, Vanessa, yes. No matter what, you seem to refuse to listen to all reason! I suggest that you return home at once and put your fiery spirit to work in making the best of the situation that you created! Be thankful that the resolution was a simple one!”
Vanessa snapped. “I am hardly the first one of your daughters to be threatened with scandal, Mama, yet I am the only one that you have punished like this! Bridgette was compromised in the middle of a ball, slandered across thetonby the man who assaulted her, and you escorted her away to safety and spent the following months with Seraphina, personally correcting the mistakes.” Vanessa ticked the points off on her fingers.
“Seraphina’s suitor was involved in a scandal where our own uncle was accused ofmurder,and yet, you did not even blink! So long as she got the title of Duchess! A title that I, too, now possess because of a scandal that is already old news to those in your social circles, not even mentioned at tea, and yet I am the one you ostracized? I am the one who you dislike so severely, for what?”
Petunia blinked. “Do not speak to me in such a tone of voice.”
“I shall speak to you in whatever way that I like; I am a Duchess.”
“Not for long, should you not attend to your marriage properly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?! It is not like you prepared me for this like the others. I, who doted on you, followed your teachings to the letter until the day came to be that Seraphina left home, and youglossed me overand focused on Amanda. What is the matter, Mama; do you hate me so much? What did I do?!”
“You look like your father!” Petunia blurted and then clasped her hand over her mouth tightly. She could not pull the words from the air; she could not take them back. A tear fell from Vanessa’s eye and rolled slowly down her rosy cheek.
“You look so much like him; none of your sisters ever did … and looking at you, it hurts my heart to see so much of him looking back at me through your eyes. Oh, Vanessa, I do not hate you.” Something in Petunia seemed to crack, the linens fell from her arms as she wrapped them both around herself. “I thought that perhaps, should you continue to be so opposed to marriage, that I should get tokeepyou, just one of my daughters, for myself. I could keep that piece of your father with me for just a little bit longer … and you professed to wish nothing to do with the marriage mart … I saw the way that you looked at the Duke the first ball … and I knew. I knew that singular interest, and itfrightenedme. Everything happened so fast, and then the Earl started pressuring me with offers of marriage myself once all of your girls were married off and out of the Manor—”
Vanessa gasped, and her eyes widened as realization dawned on her. It was why Uncle Tobias had been lingering so close to her and why he suddenly involved himself in so many of their affairs. He had set his eyes on his brother’s widow.
“I reacted so poorly … and then by the time that I got my wits together everything had fallen apart around me … I raced from the chapel after your wedding vows … I wanted to profess everything to you then, how sorry I was that things were not right between us, but you left so quickly I thought that I should never see you again and, Daughter, I am so deeply sorry. I would never forgive me if I were in your position!” Petunia’s shoulders sagged, and she looked older in that moment to Vanessa than she thought that her mother ever had before. World weary and more than exhausted with the burdens that had been placed on her shoulders.
“I have behaved appallingly, but I have only been able to keep your uncle at bay with the promise that once Amanda is married— I shall give him his answer, and I dearly do not wish it. I have been having these terrible thoughts … and I cannot allow myself to sabotage your dear sister in her chances for a prudent marriage, but Vanessa, as you are a married woman now, I can confess that I am frightened.”
Vanessa wished to comfort her mother but was at a loss for words that would soothe her. “I, too, am frightened, Mama— I have no idea what I am doing, and I thought that I lost the love of my family forever because of a reckless choice made without thinking.”
Petunia walked to her daughter and embraced her firmly. “I am so, so deeply sorry, Child, I have no excuses for the way that I have treated you, alienated you for things that were not at all your fault.”
They hugged one another in that way until tears no longer threatened to spill. They embraced until Vanessa could let go knowing that she could breathe evenly once more, but Petunia did not let go of her hand. “Come, please; I wish to explain everything to you.”
They moved to the closest open room and sat on furniture still covered with the heavy linen cloths with no care to how strange it might seem to somebody else. “How long has Uncle Tobias been pressuring you to marry?”
“Since Seraphina’s last visit. He said that seeing so many prosperous couples made him long for companionship of his own. He said that I should be grateful for his hospitality, and perhaps that there would be a way to ease the burden of stress on him by our being here. He said it was only right to marry his brother’s widow, and he could think of no better partner for himself than I.”
“But that is impossible; you possess a brain capable of wit where he only has lackluster ribbon between his ears,” Vanessa countered.
