Page 3 of Scars of a Passionate Revenge
“You cannot save every poor person you see, though, my friend.”
“I know that,” Benedict said, realizing that his voice had come out a little more sharply than he had intended. “But I will help whoever I can. That is who I am, and it will not change.”
Cecil shook his head as they continued their walk homewards. “You are a better man that I, Benedict. I will say no more on the subject.”
Chapter 2
Alice suppressed a groan as she heard the door of the drawing room swing open. She looked up from her book to see that her intuition was indeed correct; her stepmother, Dorothea, was standing in the doorway, glowering at her.
“You are hiding in here, I see, with your book?”
Alice glanced at the book in her hand—a romantic novel that she was sure Dorothea would not approve of—and placed it down on the sofa next to her, its title hidden from view. She had been rather enjoying it, the way it allowed her to escape into another world, and she was not in the least bit happy for her solitude to be interrupted. But it could not be helped. Dorothea had as much right to be in the drawing room as she did, after all.
“I was not hiding,” Alice replied. “I was simply reading my book.”
Dorothea looked at the book with disdain. “You should not spend so much time reading. It will affect your eyesight. And no one will marry you if you have a squint!”
Alice sighed. Of course, any conversation with her stepmother would come around to the subject of marriage sooner or later. There was no point in hoping for anything else. She braced herself for more.
Dorothea crossed the room and sat down opposite her, smoothing out the skirt of her morning gown as she did so. Dorothea always looked impeccable, even if they were not expecting company. Alice wondered how she had the patience for it, preening and primping herself all day long.
“Alice, I wanted to speak with you about your behavior at the soiree yesterday evening,” Dorothea said, a frown creasing her face and her piercing blue eyes fixed unflinchingly on Alice’s face.
Alice looked at the floor, trying hard to resist the urge to roll her own blue eyes. She had known that this was coming, and she had been dreading it.
“You did not dance at all!” Dorothea exclaimed. “I do not know how you think you are going to find a husband, if you are not prepared to exert yourself a little on the dance floor, and try to look your best. Everyone knows that the best matches are made while dancing. And you rejected Lord Grisham, and at least two other eligible gentlemen! Whatever were you thinking?”
Alice bit her lip. Should she accept the telling off, or protest? Experience told her that the conversation would be over sooner if she just accepted what her stepmother said and apologized, but something in her rebelled against that approach.
She thought for a moment before speaking. “My ankle was hurting. That is why I chose not to dance.”
“I do not believe a word of it!” Dorothea exploded. Her eyes blazed and she sat up straighter, almost as if she was trying to make herself bigger, more intimidating.
Alice tried to hold her resolve, but it was not easy in the face of such rage. “It is true, Madam, I assure you. I slipped when I was in the garden with Clara yesterday, and my ankle was not recovered sufficiently for me to be able to dance.”
It was partly true, what she was saying; she had taken a slight tumble the previous morning, but she would have been quite capable of dancing, if she had wanted to. She had simply not felt like it, and none of the gentlemen who asked her had been at all handsome. But of course she could not admit that to her stepmother.
Dorothea glared at her. “I do not believe your excuses,” she said icily. “But the fact of the matter is that you need to learn to behave like a proper young lady. You are old enough to be married now, and yet I do not see you making a scrap of effort!”
Alice winced at that. She was twenty-four years old, so quite old enough to marry, but she simply had no inclination toward marriage. Why would she, when she had her freedom now? Not to mention the fact that she was yet to meet a gentleman whom she found remotely interesting. There had been not a single tempting prospect among them at the soiree last night.
Dorothea cleared her throat. “It is high time that you started to behave properly. If you leave it much longer, then you will be a spinster. You will be too old for anyone to want you, and your poor father will be saddled with providing for you forever. And that will not do!”
But my father wouldn’t mind providing for me,Alice thought to herself.He wouldn’t ever force me to marry against my will, against my inclination.
She sat silently as Dorothea continued to berate her.
“A lady in your position must find a husband. Surely you know that. You cannot imagine that you can be single and live alone, like some kind of eccentric?”
Alice shook her head. There was no point in arguing with Dorothea once she had got herself into a state like this.
“And your poor father!” she went on. “He has been so unwell, and your behavior is making him sicker by the day!”
At this, Alice jerked her head up and glared at her stepmother. She knew that his illness had nothing to do with her; he had been sick for some time, and she was sure that her unmarried state was completely unrelated to his illness. But it was just like Dorothea to attempt to make her feel guilty. She tried not to allow her stepmother’s toxic insinuations to take root in her head.
If anything, she reflected, as she stared past her stepmother and out of the window towards the gardens, her father had always encouraged her to be herself. He would not have tried to make her dance if she did not want to.
Not that he had been paying her much attention lately, she thought, a little bitterly. Or even for the last few years, nay, for as long as she could remember. Since Dorothea had come into their lives, in fact. Alice’s own mother had died in childbirth, and her father, the baron, had married Dorothea when Alice was only six years old.
