Page 11 of Cora
But it was Gideon Wentworth who’d made her feel truly hunted.
“Wentworth threatened you?” Annalise asked, wide-eyed.
Not quite. Cora had never been able to adequately describe the sensation of his stare. She’d felt like she was eyeing a wolf in a forest, unsure whether he would attack or move on to easier prey.
The way he’d looked at her made her feel like she might be a wolf, too.
But young ladies didn’t make wild analogies. They married for money and connections, not raw animal spirits. She’d tried to ignore him. He never approached her. He simply watched from a distance.
“No. He never spoke to me.”
Confusion inscribed Annalise’s delicate features.
“When we reconvened, I sat down to play the piece we had agreed upon. I knew from the moment my fingertips hit the keys that it wasn’t the one I’d been led to expect. It was a simple tune. No challenge whatsoever.”
She hesitated, twisting a button on her sleeve and not meeting Annalise’s empathetic gaze. That was when she should have spoken up. Instead, she’d gamely persevered. Eleven years of self-flagellation for that fateful decision. She forced herself to continue her story.
“Then people started singing. Men. All men. One of the dukes, most of the earls—half the audience, really.” At least Prince Leopold hadn’t joined in. She was grateful for that, though he hadn’t done anything to stop his friends from laughing. He’d appeared rather put out. “The women sat there tittering as they belted out the lewdest song you can possibly imagine.”
“About a whore, naturally,” Annalise rolled her eyes. “What did you do?”
“I swear my soul left my body. I panicked. I couldn’t seem to stop playing, but I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. They were laughing at me. All of them. The entire room.”
Lady Pindell and Lysander had been the ones to intervene, which made Cora seem complicit in the prank. She had finally stopped, mid-tune, slamming a wrong note, knocking back the pianoforte stool, lifting her skirts and exiting at a dead run. In the one shocked glance she spared for the audience, she saw two men slapping Gideon Wentworth on the back as if he’d achieved a real victory by stealthily switching the sheets.
He had to have planned it. How else would he have had the music ready to hand?
Later, she heard that he’d been put up to it by his loathsome friends, a rationalization she might have accepted if not for the fact that the man was nine years older than she. A grown man had no excuse for pulling such a nasty, pointless prank.
He’d ruined her. Deliberately. For no reason that she had ever been able to discern.
Cora would never forgive the man. Not if he got on his knees and begged her. She huffed a laugh. Wentworth was too proud to beg anyone for anything. Ever.
“What an arse,” Annalise held out a handkerchief, which Cora refused. She had vowed never to cry about that incident again, and she wouldn’t break that vow now.
“It’s long in the past.” She tried to wave off the story she’d just told. “But I wouldn’t trust Wentworth as far as I could throw him. What was his offer?”
“He is willing to take a stake in the bank, on one condition.” Annalise held her gaze. “You must agree to marry him.”
CHAPTERSIX
CORA
Cora’s heart thudded against her ribs.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am dead serious,” Annalise answered. “Gideon Wentworth wants to marry you.”
“Absolutely not.” There had to be another way to save her family from ruin.
“That’s what Eryx told him,” Annalise said. “I argued that it should be your decision, Cora. Eryx wasn’t going to give you the choice. I insisted, and he said that if I felt so strongly, then I should be the one to convey the offer.”
She felt as if she had stepped through a mirror, like Alice into Wonderland. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. Cora’s hands trembled. “When did he make this proposal?”
“Almost two weeks ago. Eryx turned him down immediately, of course. I think you should know that. He laughed Wentworth right out of the club. But as conditions at the bank have deteriorated, we decided that we needed to at least ask you whether you would be willing to agree to such an arrangement.”
“Isn’t there any other solution?”
