Page 3 of The Reclusive Earl's Scandal
There had been something kinder in reading about worlds that didn’t exist, worlds such a far cry from his own.
“It did,” he admitted. “But I found the solitude was kinder than the eyes of theton.”
“You really do not like it, brother?”
“I abhor it, Elena,” he sighed, stopping to look at a painting of an old, British king that his father had favored. Would Edward somehow become a similar figure? Not a king, of course, but an earl worthy of favor in thetonagain? “The parties, the social etiquette, the endless small talk. It is all so tedious. I do not know how you not only stand it, butenjoyit.”
Elena gave a soft smile that he looked at side-on. “It is my life. It is what I know.”
“Knowing it is not liking it. What if it must be expected and therefore it is easier to trick yourself?”
His sister turned towards him. “Both, perhaps, then. But when I enter a ballroom, I see endless possibilities. I see a hundred ways my life could go, a hundred endings. One suitor might offer me a title of a countess with so much land. A marquess might make me his marchioness. A duke could give me a duchy, but we may lose our money within a year. I could travel with a viscount. The stories are countless, and that is what I like.”
“Does it not worry you?” Edward asked. “If you were to choose the wrong suitor and end up in a bad life? Does it not make you think you ought to have picked another ending?”
Elena shrugged lightly. “Perhaps, but until I have picked one that is not really a problem. I will be content for my choice will be based not on a whim but genuine thought and consideration for who I am presented with. That is, if I am presented with any choices at all.”
Edward couldn’t tell if it was a slight moment of self-deprecation and doubt, or if it was a subtle jab at his absence causing people to stay away from her, wondering why she had no man of the household there to chaperone her and assess her suitors.
He had a duty to her. If he could not focus on anything else he had to focus on Elena.
“You have grown up, Elena,” he admired softly. “I do not quite know when.”
“It would have been when you started hiding in this empty mausoleum,” she countered, and set them both back on their path down the hallway. “Truly, is this all you have aspired for these past two years?”
The judgement set him on-edge, but he forced himself to keep walking, to clench his jaw to hold back a too-harsh response.
Elena pushed on. “This is what you will be content to have for the rest of your life? An empty residence, no laughter or conversation to fill it? No wife to dine with, and no child to raise and see as your pride and joy?”
Her question and notion of what he could have, made him pause. Another painting lorded over them from the wall—a woman’s hair streamed out behind her as she perched on the edge of a ship, her smile bright, her bonnet wide. Ribbons danced from the hat, and her dress looked as though it was being tangled in the wind itself.
A man reached for her from behind her, emerging from the ship’s interior.
Edward’s chest ached.
Did he want this echoing loneliness forever? This life where he told himself he was very fine alone, and that he would be all right?
His eyes wandered to the woman in the painting again.
I do want more, he realized. He recalled his earlier words. What if he had tricked himself into contentment of this solitude because it was easier than facing theton? What if facing thetoncould be worth it if he found a love like his parents had once had?
Edward turned, finding his sister’s eyes already on him.
“Let me help you,” she said. “Help me, and I shall help you. This Season shall be ours, Edward.”
Chapter Two
Deep in the heart of Mayfair, London, in Bancroft Manor, Lady Rebecca Bancroft read the letter in her hand, watching as it trembled in her grip.
Around her, the sun room faded out, her tea set beside her long gone cold in the late morning.
“This… this cannot be,” she whispered to herself, rereading the letter as if she had not done so at least three times. “This cannotbe.”
To the Duke of Bancroft,
We are writing to inform you that your request for another loan has been denied…
… Late repayments…
