Page 47 of The Reclusive Earl's Scandal
“On the contrarywhat, Dominic?”
Rebecca froze at her mother’s tone. Of course, a week of hiding in her room, lost to her thoughts, of her own tragedy caused by her husband’s lack of stability, would build up. But did it have to benow?
Nervously, Rebecca cleared her throat, glancing at Lady Thornshire. “I do not mind at all. A church is beautiful, but the most important thing, as you said, Mama, is that...”
“I have changed my mind. It appears locationisimportant. Perhaps if we had wed in a drawing room we would have remained in love.”
Rebecca’s heart stopped altogether. Silence dropped over the dining hall, and mortification spread through her. She did not even have the courage to lift her gaze to Edward. Tears burned her eyes.
“Please,” she said weakly. “Let us not do this here, not now.”
But her father only laughed quietly, drained the last of his glass, and gestured for another. Rebecca’s mother tried stopping him from drinking more.
“Dominic,” she said quietly. “No more wine.”
“I will have what I please,” he snapped. And then a terrible, false grin appeared on his mouth, and Rebecca had to look away from how untethered it looked. “Lady Thornshire, your marriage to your husband… If you do not mind me asking, was it better for a drawing room wedding?”
“Papa!” Rebecca admonished, but he waved her off, utterly nonchalant. It dragged nails of discomfort through her. She hung her head in shame, resisting the urge to flee the table. She could feel Edward’s eyes on her, but she refused and shecould notlook up at him. Her parents’ arguments had mostly been kept behind closed doors, out of earshot, but her mother had sequestered herself away from the family for so long neither cared how the argument spiraled.
Lady Thornshire coughed. “I am not certain it is appropriate for such displays of… discontentment,” she said delicately. “After all, this is about Lady Rebecca and my son.”
“And I, as Lady Rebecca’s father, do not want her to enter a marriage where she will be miserable.”
“And yet you would have had me marry Harry Maudley.” Rebecca’s own snapping comment came without her own authority, yet the words flew from her mouth. Anger flared through her, and she balled her hand on the table, shaking her head furiously. “You urged me to marry for love, and then threatened me with having to marry him based onfalseaccusations.”
“Heavens, look what you have caused!” Her mother’s voice rose, and Rebecca flinched, only to find that the anger was not directed at her. “Do you want to embarrass us further?”
Rebecca had never heard her mother address her father’s actions, and now it was spilling out, the product of both of them holding back, avoiding one another, and turning to other methods of coping. Rebecca stared, appalled and humiliated.
Edward looked torn between standing up for her, and not overspeaking. A furrow creased his brow and after a moment, he tried to settle the tension with a gentle, “perhaps we can discuss this another time? We have plenty of time to decide.”
At his weary attempt to settle the brewing argument from escalating, Rebecca softened. Nobody had ever seen enough of her family to fight alongside her. To acknowledgesomething, and to guess that it might hurt, that she carried more than she spoke about. She held his gaze properly. For the first time in days she felt as though there was no tension. At least not between the two of them.
“We do,” she agreed vocally, but her parents were still glaring at one another, and Rebecca’s chest was still tight as she tried to force more words back down her throat. Confrontingthem would do no good, but holding back her thoughts had never worked before. Her thoughts still snagged on the fact that her father had been able to offer Edward eighty percent of her dowry. Had her mother’s dresses replenished it, allowing the offer to go ahead? She hated the thought, but couldn’t shake it.
All she wanted was peace; she wanted their families joined. She wanted tosettle, and the man opposite her was willing to give her that. Why couldn’t it just be simple?
“You cannot even keep your wits about you for one dinner, foroneduration of a guest visit,” Rebecca’s mother seethed towards the duke, whose eyes couldn’t focus. He reached for his glass again, but the duchess knocked it away. The glass tipped sideways, the wine spilling onto the white, pristine tablecloth. The stain looked like blood, and Rebecca heard a sharp gasp from opposite her.
And then she was torn. Edward’s gaze turned vacant as he stared at that stain, but then a clattering echoed through the dining hall. Rebecca’s head whipped around in time to see her father’s eyes roll back. His body went limp, his dinner fork clattering against his still-full plate, and then he fell sideways off his chair.
The Duke of Bancroft thudded to the floor, unconscious.
Chapter Fifteen
Wine spread over the tablecloth like blood, and Edward could not stop staring at it as it seeped deeper and deeper into the fabric. He barely heard the thud of Rebecca’s father hitting the floor, too vacant in his own head, too far gone in his own thoughts.
His breath was loud in his ears, the blood rushing through him and his heart pounded. The tablecloth beneath his palm felt too scratchy, too soft, both things all at once. He was aware of the panic building, the panic he needed to keep at bay, but he struggled.
He was back at the dinner gathering where his father had fallen in. The name of their host escaped him, replaced only by the terror of watching his father slump forward, his forehead making a loud noise onto his dinner plate. He had sent his own glass of wine sprawling that night, and the table had laughed.
Oh, look! The Earl of Thornshire has had a little too much to drink, it seems.
But then the Earl of Thornshire had not woken up, and no matter how much Edward had shaken his father’s shoulder, no matter how many times he had shouted his father’s name, there had been no response.
His hands shook now, and Edward forced the fear and horror from his mind. Panicking right now would do him no good. No, right now, he needed to focus on the Duke of Bancroft, on Rebecca’s well being as she stared at her father’s unconscious body a moment before she was on her feet.
She didn’t run to him, not like Edward would have done in her position.
