Page 39 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“Oh, my dear girl, I’m so sorry. I love Lydia, I do. And Charlotte too…but his brother…” Lady Merrit sighed heavily. “His brother is a notorious rake. It is of no surprise that Corin might be as well. His would be better hidden, I suppose.”
Imelda wanted to scream.
Better hidden.
“It’s my fault.” The words were monotone, but she meant them. “I should have known better.” She’d already learned her lesson, or at least she ought to have.
But she’d allowed him in again anyway. She’d allowed herself to believe…
“It’s all part of your first Season,” her aunt crooned knowingly. “There will always be a rake. There will always be a scandal.”
“I ought to go back there,” Spencer muttered, his voice dark and angry. “I ought to—”
“You ought to do no such thing!” Lady Merrit interrupted forcefully. “Spencer Merrit, you listen to me right now, you willnotconfront Lord Salthouse about this. This scandal, as awful for your sister as it may be, is a small one right now. One that won’t affect her further in her life. It is better she learned now rather than later on down the line after having been ruined.”
Imelda couldn’t speak. What could she say? That she had already been ruined? She knew what her aunt meant, but that would have been so much better than whatever this was, this gaping hole in her chest that felt as if it could never be filled.
“He led her on!” Spencer argued hotly. “He—”
“He is a rake,” Lady Merrit sounded tired, more her age than she ever had before. She sank back onto the couch, looking sadly at her two younger relatives. “He did what all rakes do. Imelda cannot confront him about it, it wouldn’t matter even if she did, not for him. He is a baron.”
And Imelda was only a lower member of theton.
The words didn’t need to be said. They all knew they were there.
“What do I do?” Imelda asked brokenly. The tears leaked down her cheeks unchecked then, hard and unforgiving, pulled up from the very depths of her heartbreak.
Lady Merrit frowned. Her shrug was almost forlorn.
“You focus on your writing,” she said softly. “You ignore the pain. It is a woman’s weight in this world. Lord Salthouse was charming, I’m sure. Maybe he made you promises, maybe he offered you any number of things, but you need to realize that it wasn’t reality. Reality is here now. Theodore Fellowes, he has shown a great interest in you, and you seemed to be enjoying his company well enough before Lord Salthouse.”
There was no before Corin, but again, Imelda couldn’t say as much.
Theodore was pretty and complimentary.
But there was no fire between them. There was nothing loaded or heavy that made her feel at once as if she had climbed the top of a very tall mountain and been thrown off of it all at once. There was…
Nothing.
“I’ll focus on my writing,” Imelda agreed tonelessly. It was all that she had…with or without Corin.
“And give Theodore a chance,” Lady Merrit pressed.
Imelda knew she was doing so because she cared. Because she wanted to see Imelda happy.
Imelda just felt, like in all of those stories that she wrote, that there was no such thing. No happily ever after, no neat ribbon to wrap it all up. That wasn’t reality.
And her aunt was right. It was time to face reality.
Chapter 14
God save him from feuding couples.
Throughout breakfast, Romeo and Sybille sucked whatever warmth there may have at one point been from the room. Romeo tried to speak, his voice warmer and almost cloying, and Sybille refused to so much as look at him, her answers clipped and short.
Corin could barely stand it. If it hadn’t been for his own preoccupation with the events from the night before, he may well have been actually unable to.
But the events from the night before were there, glaring and discordant in his head. The memory of the way Imelda had looked at him as she’d all but begged Spencer to escort her home, the way that she had jerked so painfully away from him when he had tried to stop her.
