Page 83 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
Charlene sat up slowly, the pounding in her temples intensifying. “Yes. I was. Now tell me.” Before her heart climbed from her throat!
Ashley sighed. “Someone saw you. In Vauxhall. With David Cross.”
Maddie nodded, her curls bouncing with each one.
Very well. They saw her. That didn’t mean anything. “So, they saw me.”
“It’s also being said you fled from a man like a—what was it?” Maddie asked.
“A hare being pursued by a wolf,” Ashley supplied.
Charlene’s mouth twisted. “How poetic.” David certainly was a wolf. And not the romantic, good kind. The evil, sadistic kind, more like.
“It’s most likely going to be in the papers tomorrow,” Maddie said, voice dropping to a whisper as though the walls might be listening.
So it had come to this.
Charlene dropped her face into her hands with a groan. She could already picture it: her name smeared across every scandal sheet, whispered in drawing rooms and behind fluttering fans. She would be labeled reckless. Perhaps even compromised. Tainted.
Tainted.
Adam could never pursue a woman who had even the faintest hint of scandal clinging to her. And she—Charlene squeezed her eyes shut—she would never be anything but a stain on his spotless lineage.
Well, not so spotless. But most men could weather storms of scandal. Women could not.
Even if he had wanted her—which, she thought he did—he could not have her now. Not a duke. Not a man with big duties to be fulfilled.
And truth be told, part of her still seethed with his betrayal. Adam had suspected David’s return, had hidden it from her. Perhaps he had been trying to protect her, but it had left her unprepared, exposed all the same.
Better to lose him now, before the dream grew any sweeter.
Better not to hope.
Charlene drew a shuddering breath. “Very well,” she said coolly. “I shall simply have to endure exile with as much grace as I can muster.”
Ashley stared at her. “You cannot possibly intend to simply accept this. You were going to meet Adam, were you not? He needs to step up and take responsibility. And why on earth would you run from him? Did he do something to you?”
“I didn’t run from him,” Charlene admitted. “I ran from his brother. David Cross.”
“David Cross?” Maddie murmured. “Why would you run from him?”
“Because he hurt me.” And then Charlene explained what happened to her that fateful, nightmarish night. From the almost engagement, his sweet smiles, to the moment he had tried to take what he wanted, and she refused. What happened after. And now he was back.
Tears had sprung to both her friends’ eyes, and their faces had turned rather pale. Charlene didn’t want that. She didn’t want them to pity her. “I am here, and I got through it. So, I shall have none of your pity.”
“We don’t pity you,” Ashley said, her face resuming color before turning to bright red. “I shall kill him for you. No, Linsey shall kill him for you. I cannot believe scum like him returned to London! How dare he!”
“I agree. I know where to find hemlock if you ever need a dose,” Maddie said darkly.
Charlene suddenly laughed. Her world was seemingly crumbling around her, but she still had her friends. In the grand scheme of things, that was all she needed.
And yet still, her heart throbbed with the same intensity as her temples. No good would come of her being seen today. But it was hard to tell how things would spiral. At the moment, with all the aches in her body, it was also hard to care.
But one thing she did know.
She didn’t want to live in a city where that horrible creature prowled.
“Pox on all Crosses anyway,” Ashley announced. “Who needs them when there is a pool of good, fine gentlemen in the world?”
