Page 10 of Defying the Earl
“My sincerest apologies, my lady.” She was somewhat gratified to see that he was uncomfortable enough to be nearly stammering in his reply.
Bea nodded slightly in acknowledgment of his apology. She didn’t find it exceptionally sincere despite the stammer. He was likely only embarrassed to have to face her with the situation. Bea lifted her eyebrows in inquiry.
“I haven’t come up with a complete solution as of yet,” he said by way of an excuse.
“That is unacceptable, Braxton,” Lady Frampton declared. “Why did you bother coming here with this story if you didn’t know what you intended to do to solve it?”
“You ought to go ahead and court her, then,” Lady Charlotte said immediately, not waiting for the earl to answer Frampton’s question. Bea didn’t like the knowing glance the two sisters exchanged. It crossed her mind that they might have already been aware or somehow concocted the entire situation. She tried to dismiss the thought, but she couldn’t completely put it past them to do something outrageous.
Bea held her silence, waiting for the room to settle once more. She was perfectly aware that the Earl of Braxton was not going to court her. She wondered how he would wriggle out of the mess he had made. It only seemed to be getting worse by the moment. He couldn’t just run off to the colonies now that he was Braxton, she didn’t think. Of course, men could nearly do whatever they wanted.
“I cannot court her,” Braxton said, predictably. “That would put her reputation at even greater risk, wouldn’t you think?”
“Not if she rejects your suit,” Lady Frampton said with satisfaction, making Bea bite the inside of her cheek once more to contain her amusement. She never would have expectedthe older woman to come up with such a plan. Bea would have thought she would want the earl to wed her to save her reputation.
Braxton stared at his aunt as though puzzled.
“Of course, Beatrice isn’t going to marry you. You made a mull of things two years ago, and she’s a smart girl. But you got her into this mess somehow. You can go ahead and court her just a little bit. Just enough to show you haven’t reneged on your wager, and then you can go ahead and lose it and pay whatever ridiculous thing you placed on such a silly bet. And maybe you’ll learn your lesson from this.”
“What if I don’t want to appear to be courted by him?” Bea asked. She kept her tone as light as she could manage, as though it were just a matter of curiosity, hoping her horror at the thought wasn’t evident in her tone.
“Of course, you do, Beatrice, don’t turn up missish on us now. He’s handsome and probably quite popular. It will do you good.” Lady Frampton’s decree sounded as though it brooked no arguments, but Bea wasn’t going to accept it without trying.
“What sort of good could it possibly do me to go along with this? For one thing, as you’ve described him, and given our vastly different circumstances, who will believe I rejected his suit? If your thought is that being seen to be courted by someone such as him might make others think to court me, it is doubtful that would happen if he is thought to have found me lacking. For quite another, I haven’t any interest in being courted by anyone, including Lord Braxton.”
“Then your rejection will have to be as public as his courtship,” Lady Frampton answered, completely ignoring Bea’s final comment and causing silence to fall upon the room once more.
Bea only hoped her chin wasn’t hanging down. She was so shocked, she could hardly think for a brief moment. How could Lady Frampton think she would countenance a public scene? Beatrice had spent the last four years as their companion being next to invisible. She quite liked it that way. She didn’t want to be the talk of theton. It would be the most uncomfortable and awkward situation she had ever encountered in her life of awkward and uncomfortable situations. She stood.
“No.” Beatrice accompanied her one, firm word with shaking her head and stepping away from the seat she had been perched upon. “I will not put myself into such an untenable situation.” She turned to Braxton. “You created this mess; you find a solution to it.”
“Please, Lady Beatrice,” Braxton began, rising to his feet to approach her.
Beatrice raised her hand. “Don’t think to flummox me by coming near and taking my hand or some such nonsense. I don’t know how gentlemen spend their days, but somehow you and your friends have sullied my name without my presence needed. Surely you can unsully it without my presence as well.”
“Wouldn’t it give you just a little satisfaction, though, Bea?” Lady Charlotte asked from where she was sitting. Bea had thought the sweet older woman had been struck silent in her shock over the situation, but she seemed nearly as gleeful and bloodthirsty as Frampton.
“What sort of satisfaction would it give me? To make a spectacle of myself sounds like the veriest form of discomfort.”
Now Beatrice could see that both Ladies were gazing at her with what appeared to be warm sympathy in their expressions. To varying degrees, of course, given their vastly differenttemperaments, but still, there was sympathy in their eyes as they looked at her, as though waiting for her to come to her senses.
“After he abandoned you so deplorably the last time, wouldn’t you like to give him his comeuppance?” Lady Charlotte asked.
Again Beatrice had to fight to keep her mouth from falling open in shock. She had thought the older women had been completely unaware of what she had thought was a courtship from this man. Humiliation and anger fought for dominance in her chest.
“You ask too much,” she finally said as she sank into another chair, the one closest to where she had paced to in her agitation.
Braxton approached her again, making Bea wish to shrink into the woodwork but those sorts of wishes were never granted, and he managed to sit beside her and take her hand into his just as she had suspected. But now she was so stiff with consternation she could barely protest, merely murmuring almost silently as his large hands engulfed hers.
The tumult of feelings within her was confusing but Bea was self-aware enough to know they weren’t all of rejection. She would have sighed with despair if she weren’t so befuddled. It was clear to her she wasn’t completely free of warmer feelings toward the earl despite her anger. Clearly she was a fool.
Chapter Six
He should never have touched her. Nate had known that when she had first entered the room, but he must have lost his mind in the meantime because here he was with her small, cold, trembling hand engulfed in his much larger one, and all he wanted to do was keep holding it for the rest of his days. That thought nearly made him drop it as though it burned him, but he managed not to make more of a cake of himself than he already had.
Nate chastised himself. He should have known his aunts would take him to task. He also should have known they would have been aware of what had transpired two years prior between him and Lady Beatrice. Despite their seeming preoccupation with themselves, there was very little they missed, especially when they wanted to know. And of course, they wanted to know everything about their young companion. He was also well aware that they cared deeply for him even if they expressed it with lectures interspersed with threats. They would have been particularly interested in his whereabouts at that fateful house party where he’d made Bea’s acquaintance.
And now he was embroiled in another scandal-courting situation with the girl. How had he been so foolish as to have allowed this to develop? He had no answer for theuncomfortable question aside from acknowledging once more that he must have lost his mind, at least where it pertained to Lady Beatrice.
