Page 52 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
“Before you go, there is a letter waiting for you in your father’s study. The Earl of Radcliff has written his intent to visit soon.” The duchess glared at the mud-spotted parquet. “Is that not nice?”
“Very nice, yes.” Cecilia curled a hand around the rail, but her mother began marching toward her. “Is there more?”
“There is.” Her mother took on a grave air, peering down the hallways no doubt to make sure they were alone.
“I understand that I agreed to show you some leniency in the matter of your marriage, Cecilia, but my leniency is not without limit. Are you still undecided, or should I expect a favourable end to Lord Radcliff’s coming? I imagine he will ask for your hand regardless of the level of affection you hold for him, but I would rather you intimate your feelings for him, or lack thereof, to me all the same.”
That word alone,marriage,made Cecilia feel dizzy. First Raphael, and now her mother! She could hardly consider the Earl of Radcliff’s proposal while she still smelled like her lover, though that would not make for a decent argument with the duchess.
“Undecided,” Cecilia murmured with finality.
Her mother was not pleased. “There are only so many more months left in this Season, you realise, and with each year that passes so does your marriageability wilt before our very eyes.”
Her eyes shot skyward. “I am sure my dowry more than compensates for any wilting.”
“Not if we dream of a decent match for you. If you try to outsmart time itself you will find yourself the wife of a greedy opportunist. Your youth and beauty are worth your dowry a thousand times over when it comes to securing a husband who values you. Are you really determined to wait until the money is all you have left?”
“I am determined for nothing, Mother.”
Cecilia could have left things there and stormed off, but her frustration got the better of her. Uncharacteristically, she primed herself for an argument, facing her mother in honesty, woman to woman.
“The truth is that I find no joy in my acquaintance with Lord Radcliff, but I continue to entertain him so as not to break my father’s heart. Should you and papa grow weary of my dithering and force me to the church in chains, so be it. I will not oppose you, because my desire to be alone is not as great as papa’s desire to see me married to the earl. I have not the bravery to fight him on this count, no other recourse . . .”
“Cecilia, come now.”
“No!” She spun on the stairs to face her mother.
“So, I will wait until that day, or I will wait until the earl relieves me of the burden of his interest, or I will wait until I have grown into a solitary spinster and chaperone Edward and Anthony’s despairing future daughters, whom I pray to God enter the marriage mart with less resistance than I . . .”
She sucked in a breath to stop her tears from overflowing.
“Or I will wait until I fall in love with a gentleman who could not disappoint you, which is to say, I will wait until the both of you are dead to begin living my life.”
A sob broke free and it sundered her, body and soul. “Which is not what I want, I could never want that, but heavens, would it not be simpler if I could make you happy by doing as I please while still you both roam this earth?”
She gathered her skirts and rushed up the stairs. If her mother uttered anything, in consolation or in outrage, Cecilia did not hear it.
Chapter 19
The next day, Cecilia set out in the morning for Lady Daphne’s home, and this time it was not as part of a ruse. It all felt a bit performative, of course, to have ridden gracelessly from Berilton at dawn after having squabbled with her mother the night prior and spent the rest of the evening in awkward silence.
Her father and Edward had made no comment on the tension between the two women, which Cecilia took to mean that her mother had said nothing about their fight to anyone. The Norbert men were hardly perceptive enough to catch anything on their own.
After their meal, Cecilia had retired with her father into his study, where he made short work of delivering Lord Radcliff’s letter right into her lap before returning to his meditations. To her surprise, the earl’s letter had not been penned in the same stomach-churning purple prose as usual.
Matter-of-factly he had announced his intention to visit Berilton and his preferred date of arrival. Cecilia did not fail to notice the absence of a departure date. Radcliff clearly expected one of two things: never to leave Berilton again as a stranger, or to make himself an enemy and have the duke’s hounds set on him.
Cecilia’s mare snorted beneath her as she climbed the knoll that looked over Hapthorn Castle. The thoroughfare between Hapthorn and Berilton was mostly disused, and miles of endless barren grey and green fields stretched out around her.
Hapthorn beckoned, rising like a phare in that sea of dormant countryside. The Marquess of Townsend’s seat was not nearly as stately as Berilton, but it was almost twice its size, an old English fortress, or so the stories went.
The groom at Hapthorn was much more genial than Mr Pincher, and he whisked Cecilia’s mare away as she walked the rest of the distance to the front entryway, her boots grinding against the pebbled drive that led to the courtyard.
Daphne came running out of the doors in a thin cotton day dress, her auburn hair half-coiffed, half-falling down her back. She clamped her arms around Cecilia and gave her a squeeze.
“Why did you not say you were coming? Why, I was fortunate enough to spot you coming from the window!Surely that is not Cecilia on a horse, I thought. But here you are in the flesh and none the worse for wear.
A miracle!” Daphne said, her voice muffled by Cecilia’s riding hat and hair. “Oh, I am so chuffed to see you! Mother has been driving me absolutely loopy in your absence. The devil takes over when her health falters, and father has locked himself in his library to avoid her, and . . .”
