A Most Scandalous Proposal (34 page)

“What is that supposed to mean?” In contrast to her earlier outbursts, Mama posed the question faintly, almost delicately, as if the answer might break her.

“He’s challenged Clivesden over this.”

“He? Challenged Clivesden?” She drew herself up and found her voice once more. “What sort of nonsense is that? If anyone should have issued a challenge, it should have been Clivesden to Revelstoke.”

Well. Mama might prefer that scenario, since it would still offer her a chance at getting what she wanted. “Are you really so mercenary as to wish Benedict to face a pistol?”

“What? No.” She threw her arms in the air, but they just as immediately flopped back to her sides. “I don’t want anyone to face that. And your father …” She waved her arms again.

Long observance of her mother, both in society and in private, had always revealed a composed woman. Every move calculated, every gesture, every expression. Even earlier when she’d berated Julia for running off, her words had purpose—to arouse guilt.

Mama knew where she wanted to be and behaved as
if she’d already attained a lofty position in society. She couldn’t even disagree over wedding plans with a long-term acquaintance in any but a rational, civilized manner. She’d long ago ingested and embodied the rules of proper conduct.

To witness such discomfiture now was unsettling.

“Mama.” Julia rose from the bed and laid a hand on Mama’s shoulder. Beneath her fingertips, the skin of Mama’s neck was cold and damp. “Mama, it’ll be all right. Benedict has agreed to act as Papa’s second, and Papa’s done this before.”

Mama laid her spread thumb and forefinger across her brow. “That old duel. He told you of that?”

Julia leaned closer. “He told me he called out Cheltenham.”

Was that an actual blush spreading over Mama’s cheeks? The heightened color dropped years from her face, until Julia could picture her as a young girl making her first foray into society. Her beauty must have turned all the men’s heads and sent the other young ladies into fits of jealousy. Not at all unlike Sophia.

“How much did he tell you?”

At the wariness in Mama’s tone, Julia pricked up her ears. “Only that he felt he had to defend your honor.”

Mama’s cheeks turned crimson, and the wash of pink crept toward her forehead. “That romantic old fool,” she muttered.

Julia let her hand fall. In all her years of observing her parents, she’d never imagined anything like this. They’d always treated each other with a stiff courtesy—when they had to interact at all. But to see Mama pinken like a schoolgirl over the memory …

“Mama, what happened?”

“No one was hurt, if that’s your worry. A small miracle, that. Neither one of them could shoot straight in their condition. They were both thoroughly foxed.”

Julia pressed her lips together and tried to imagine a younger version of her father, swaying with intoxication and pointing a dueling pistol vaguely in another man’s direction. “Why do you think he did it?”

She had her own ideas, but how much did Mama suspect?

“The man was besotted with me.”

The man. Not your father, not Charles, but the man. The wrong man. And Mama was still bitter after a quarter century.

“Do you ever wonder if he still is?”

“What sort of question is that?” Mama snapped.

“An important one.” Yes, very important. A week ago, she wouldn’t have thought to ask.

“After all this time? I doubt it.” She heaved a sigh. “I suppose I might have remedied that in the beginning. It’s too late now. Too late for everything.” She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed. Then she raised her fingers to Julia’s cheek, the touch fleeting and cool like the passage of a ghost. “You take after your papa, you know.”

“How so?”

“Your looks, your temperament. He was never one to let his feelings show, either.” And with that, Mama swept from the room.

Mind abuzz, Julia sank to the mattress.
I do not want to turn out like her
. An echo of her statement to Sophia floated through her head. Those words had taken on an even more fundamental truth. She did not wish to become a replica of her mother, her beauty fading with the years, yet still pleasant to look at, but inside still seething with acrimony over a past she could not change.

But Julia did not have to become that person. She had her future before her, a future with Benedict, and, as he’d pointed out to her earlier, she had only to make the
choice of how she intended to conduct their marriage. She need only open her heart.

By the time Sophia waltzed into the bedchamber, Julia had changed into her night rail and snuggled beneath the covers. She pushed herself into a sitting position and hugged her knees. And what sort of reception would Sophia give her? A row with her sister would only serve as a capital end to a perfectly miserable evening.

“How was the theater?” she ventured as a means of testing the waters.

Sophia went rigid for a moment. “You’re home.” Her tone betrayed only surprise.

“Yes, I’m home.”

“Oh, Julia.” Sophia’s face crumpled. “I’m so sorry for the way I acted the other night. I was so worried when you ran off, and thought at first it might be my fault—”

“No, it wasn’t your fault.” Julia threw back the covers and ran to pull her sister into an embrace. “I left because I wanted to make certain I’d never marry Clivesden.”

“Yes, but …” Sophia shuddered in Julia’s arms. In spite of all reassurances, it seemed her sister was about to give in to a spate of crying.

“No buts. Tell me about the theater.”

“Theater?” Sophia raised her head and swiped at red-rimmed eyes. “Oh yes, the theater.”

Julia studied her sister. Sophia’s cheeks burned bright red, and her normally neat curls lay in tangles about her ears. A suspicious-looking purplish mark stood in contrast to the porcelain skin at the base of her throat.

“Mama said you were to attend the theater tonight with Highgate.”

At the name, Sophia let out an airy sigh and leaned back against the wall, her arms about her waist. Her blue eyes held a faraway expression.

“Did you even make it as far as the theater?”

“What?” Sophia gave herself a shake. “Oh, no. Highgate
thought it preferable not to appear in public, considering …” With a wave of her hand, she trailed off.

“Where did you go then? You’ll forgive me the indiscretion, but you look as if—” She didn’t want to come out and say Sophia looked as if she’d just been tumbled, except that was exactly how she looked. Julia recognized the symptoms of afterglow.

Sophia floated to the bed and, arms outflung, cast herself to the mattress.

Julia stiffened in alarm. “Who, exactly, were you with just now?”

Sophia’s eyelids fluttered open. “Why, Highgate, of course.”

“And what were you doing all this time?”

A wicked little smile revealed the tips of Sophia’s teeth. So worldly, that smile. “Having a discussion, among other things.”

“Oh, Sophia, what have you done?” Julia rubbed her moist palms against the white lawn of her night rail. Virginal white. How ironic now.

Sophia pushed herself up on her elbows. “Nothing to ruin me, precisely … Oh, it was delicious and sinful, but I imagine you must know that.”

With a wan smile, Julia sank onto the bed, relief washing through her that she’d have someone to talk to, someone who would not berate her for throwing away a chance at a title and, worse, dragging the entire family down into scandal.

“Oh, Sophia, what have
I
done? Mama must already be making plans to send us off to molder in the country. If we’re lucky, we might be able to show our faces in Town sometime in the next ten years.”

“I thought you liked the country.”

“I do, but I’ve ruined your future as well.”

“How? You’re not going to marry Clivesden now, are you?”

“Of course not. You must know he came after us.” With a forefinger, she traced a wrinkle in the counterpane. “After what he saw …”

“What did he see, precisely?”

“Benedict and me … in bed … together.”

Sophia let out a squeal.

“Once word of that gets out, and you know it will, no one will have me.”

“But isn’t that what you want? And don’t say no one. If Benedict has ruined you, he’ll be gentleman enough to make you an offer.”

“He’s already arranged for a special license.”

Sophia reached out and patted her hand. “Well, there you are then.”

Struck by the irony of the situation, Julia stared at her sister. Here was Sophia, dreamy, flighty Sophia, being practical about the entire scandalous mess, when a few minutes earlier she’d nearly given in to another one of her tearful spells.

“Sophia, about the wedding …”

“If Benedict has a special license, you can marry whenever you please.”

“No, I mean your wedding. You cannot cry off.”

“But Highgate assured me I wasn’t ruined.” Sophia ducked her head to study her folded hands. “Although he did ask me to reconsider our plan.”

“You must. It has nothing to do with whatever just happened with Highgate and everything to do with the wager.”

S
OPHIA’S
hands went suddenly cold, and she fisted them in her skirts in a vain attempt to bring the feeling back. “Wager?” Even her voice sounded faint. “What wager?”

“Clivesden was so confident he’d win my hand, he
wagered I’d become his countess—before he ever proposed and before I even knew his intentions.”

Sophia looked up sharply. “He proposed? When?”

“He did. The night of your engagement dinner. Sophia?” Alarm sharpened her sister’s tone.

Of course, Julia thought she was about to burst into a flood of tears, as she’d often done in the past over Clivesden’s slights. No more. She would waste no more of them on him.

“I never asked for any of this, you know.” Julia jumped to her feet. “I never once encouraged him. I did not even know he was interested until the night at the Posselthwaites’, and you know—you
know
, Sophia—I did all I could to encourage him in your direction.”

“I know,” Sophia whispered. Her voice refused to go any louder.

Julia took a step forward. Her chin trembled. “It’s not as if he ever loved me or planned to. Do you want to know why he chose me over you?”

She paused, pacing across the room and back, but Sophia couldn’t bring herself to answer. Morbid curiosity prodded her to learn the reason. Whatever it was, she could withstand it.

“He doesn’t want a wife who loves him. He told me he wanted me specifically because I did not love him, and what’s more, I did not seem to love anybody. Apparently, I have a reputation among the men of the
ton
. They think I’m made of ice.”

“And so he proposed to you?” Her words emerged flat, when, like a dam bursting, the years of built-up pain within her ought to have shattered in a violent eruption of heat, as rage seethed to life. Instead, calm pervaded her. Imagine, she was actually discussing Clivesden proposing to another woman—her own sister, no less—and the prospect didn’t bother her in the least.

“I’m sorry. I did not think I ought to tell you. I knew you’d be upset.”

“I’m not upset, honestly.”

“I turned him down flat,” Julia went on as if Sophia hadn’t spoken. “Papa and Clivesden blindsided me that night. They made an arrangement behind my back, because I never suspected a thing. I could not very well make a scene in the middle of a ballroom in front of the entire
ton
. And part of it was shock. I could barely believe what was happening.”

“Julia, I’m not going to cry this time. Truly.”

But Julia hadn’t finished her speech. She leaned over and placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt in all this, but please understand one thing. Any of the hurt comes from Clivesden’s doings, not mine. It’s always been him. For the past five years.”

“I know,” Sophia whispered. “I understand that now.” She understood even more, an unpleasant truth, perhaps even more profound than the one Julia had just voiced. Clivesden hadn’t spent the last five years hurting her—not intentionally. He couldn’t have when he’d barely acknowledged her existence. If anyone had hurt Sophia, it was Sophia herself in allowing her fantasies and her illusions to take root to such an extent they blurred reality. “But what does any of this have to do with my betrothal to Highgate?”

“Papa owes Clivesden a great deal of money.” Julia sat beside her once again and looked her in the eye. “If he can’t pay, the family is bankrupt. Clivesden was willing to forgive the debt in exchange for, well, me.”

“No!”

“It’s true. It’s all true. Papa admitted as much. Can you imagine if Mama knew? She’d have preferred I went through with it as a duty to the family.”

“But how … how
could
they?” Sophia couldn’t say more. The eruption of fury she’d expected much earlier
seethed through her now. And yet her eyes remained strangely dry, as if the spate of heated emotion had evaporated all her tears.

“For what it’s worth, I mainly blame Clivesden. It had to be his idea. The wager he made, claiming he would marry me—the amount of the wager was the same amount Papa owes him. I think … No, I’m sure, he meant to find a way to recoup his losses.”

“The cad. The utter, utter cad!” Sophia gulped in cool air, in hopes of calming the inferno within. “To think,” she said when she could go on, “only a week ago, I’d have done anything to be standing in your shoes—or at least to have caught his eye in time.”

“Yes, well, because I’ve managed things so he no longer wants me, he’s determined to send Papa to prison over the debt. This is why you must marry Highgate. If you are settled, this cannot hurt you.”

“And what of Mama?”

“I’ve already promised to look after her. Papa is satisfied with the arrangement.”

“What will become of him then?”

“That remains to be seen. He has to survive a duel with Clivesden first.”

Sophia reached for her throat to tug at her locket. “A duel? Papa means to fight a duel?”

“Yes, with Benedict as his second. Sophia”—Julia’s brow puckered—“Sophia I just remembered. This talk of the wager. Does the name Keaton mean anything to you?”