Miss Grantham's One True Sin (The Regency Matchmaker Series Book 2) (23 page)

Chapter Seventeen

S
HE

considered climbing higher into the tree. She considered jumping into the water. She considered staying quiet and hoping no one would spot her. She considered grabbing a tree branch and trying to cover herself as best she could.

She considered curling up and dying.

In the end, she didn't have to make a choice. One of the hounds spotted her and gave a yelp, and in a moment the entire pack was baying and jumping at the base of the tree.

"I am not a fox, you stupid dogs! Go away!" she cried, though her voice was lost in the cacophony. A moment later, they did as she requested. One hound caught the scent of the fox and bounded across the water and up the bank after him. The rest followed.

Unfortunately, not one of the riders moved off. No. They were all staring, open-mouthed, at Marianna. She had not a stitch of clothing on. The only cover she had was her long hair, which clung to her breasts, making her feel even more naked than she was. She felt faint and clutched a branch to keep herself from falling with one hand even as she attempted to cover her ample breasts with the other. As though in a fog, she recognized several faces. The hunting party was from Trowbridge, of course.

"I say," a man intoned as though bored, "where is the Viscount Trowbridge?" Marianna recognized the speaker as the tulip who had harassed her the day the guests arrived. "I should have thought he would be here," he said. "Stroking the swells, perhaps?"

A few of the party had the grace not to laugh at the quip, but many more didn't even make the attempt.

"What are you looking at, Raymond?" a lady at the back of the pack asked, though everyone knew very well that Marianna was visible to the entire group.

"Nothing, my dear," her husband said and turned his mount. The rest seemed to gather their wits about them, and most wheeled away and galloped over the hill—though several of the bachelors' gazes lingered a bit longer. Marianna marked them all off her list of possible husbands.

She might as well mark them all off, she realized.

It was no use attempting to winnow her list of bachelors. She'd be lucky now if
any
of them would take her. This disgrace was the final nail in her social coffin. She would never find a place amongst the
ton
now. She climbed down from the tree and dressed, tears flowing from her eyes so that she found it difficult to see.

Everything was ruined.
She
was ruined.

It wasn't just that a score of the
ton
had just seen her naked, swimming
sans
clothing in the brook. Now the suspicion True Sin had planted in their minds, the idea that he and Marianna had been swimming naked
together
, was all but confirmed.

She made the long walk back to Trowbridge, dreading her arrival. Her heart hammered in her chest as she entered the manor and climbed the stairs to her chamber. On the way, she passed two servants and six house guests. The servants both averted their gazes. Obviously, the news had already reached them, and they were uncertain what to say or do, or even where to look. The house guests, however, suffered from no such malady. Their smiles were large and falsely gay, their voices cheerful. They engaged her in conversation, but their eyes, flicking from one side to the other, told her they had more interest in being seen with her than in talking to her. She was True Sin's betrothed. And now she had a notorious past, too.

She held no hope that her parents would remain ignorant of the matter. She was certain they already knew of her disgrace. The house guests would have rushed to be the first to tell them, just as they had rushed to Marianna's side to tell her of True Sin's many disgraces. She could imagine their eagerness as they told her poor mama and papa how they'd happened upon their daughter naked in a tree.

She could imagine how they'd laughed together as they'd ridden back to the manor. How they'd scorned her even as they planned to pursue her acquaintance for their own social gain. She was nauseated, humiliated. And utterly disillusioned.

Is this how it felt to be True Sin?

Was that what he was trying to make her see?

She was angry, but not at Truesdale. She was angry with the
ton
.

How could she explain that to her parents? Would they understand? Would they listen to her when she told them what she'd learned about the
ton
? Would they believe that Polite Society wasn't so vastly polite after all? They had worked their whole lives so she could take her place amongst the
bon ton
.

There were good people amongst the
ton
, just as there were bad people outside of it. She would simply have to find a good man, an understanding man, one who would judge her based upon the balance of her character, not upon some momentary lapse in judgement. Marianna would still marry within the
ton
, but she would have to find a sensible man, a fair man, an honest man.

An image of Lord Lindenshire sprang into her mind and, along with it, a pain so sharp that she gasped. He was a very proper gentleman. He was a very fashionable gentleman. Young women who swam naked, raced astride, and consorted with True Sin were not proper or fashionable. Lindenshire knew the truth about her, but the rest of the
ton
did not. By all reports, he stood proudly at the very pinnacle of Society. He would never ally himself with her now. Very few gentlemen, titled or not, would even consider marrying her now unless they needed money very desperately indeed.

Debtors' prison or Marianna Grantham-—the choice might not be very clear.

Her heart ached at the thought of facing her parents.

Once in her bedchamber, she changed her clothes, donning a modestly cut, soft gray cotton day dress to which she added a brown shawl and crocheted gloves. Her hair had dried on the long walk back with no benefit of comb. It curled about her temples now. She gathered it, pulled the curl out as best she could, and pinned it once more into a tight bun at her crown. Her reflection stared out at her from the cheval glass. She did not look different. She looked as though nothing had happened, as though nothing had changed. Yet she knew everything had changed.

She
had changed.

A knock sounded on her door. She opened it to a servant, who brought word that her parents desired the "pleasure" of her company in the winter parlor.

The white and gold room was an apt setting for their meeting, with the elder Granthams' frosty demeanor evident as soon as she was shown into the room. Her mother sat on a chair, her back rigid and her expression hard, while her father stared out a window. Neither of them bothered to turn to her when she was led into the room and announced. Without being asked to do so, the servant retreated from the room and closed the double doors behind him.

Marianna sat opposite her mother. "Mama, I—"

"Do not speak to me."

Marianna blinked back a tear. She looked down at her hands. "I am sorry," she said.

"You are
stupid
, that's what!" her father said, rounding on her.

Her mother nodded. "Your reputation is in tatters, and we are being laughed at." She waved her hand in the air, her fingers clutched around a delicate lace-edged handkerchief and shaking with fury. "It was a mistake to send you alone to London. We should have known you were too silly to pull it off all by yourself. First that race, and now you're caught parading about the countryside with nary a stitch on."

Her father stepped up behind his wife. "Daughter, you have sealed your reputation as a hoyden ... a hussy, a ... a ... " He cast about for another word.

"A slut," her mother supplied.

Her father's face hardened into a sneer. "Yes. A
slut!
"

Marianna shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.

"That ruffian you have betrothed yourself to has no reputation to speak of either, but I would not be surprised if you are too much even for
him
to stomach. If he decides you are too much of a hoyden to marry, then you will be utterly ruined, and we will have sacrificed all for
nothing
."

A fat tear fell into her mother's lap. Marianna stared at it.

She should have been feeling sympathy for them. She should have been feeling guilt. But she did not. A curious numbness had taken hold of her, and she sat in silence, saying—and feeling—nothing at all as her parents heaped the violence of their words upon her, weighing her down with their disgust and their broken dreams and their angry disappointment.

She remained silent as they castigated her, their words seeming to slur and blend into each other until they were no longer discernible as anything but a droning dirge of pain. She crawled down into a deep well of guilt and shame.

And then, suddenly, her mind fixed upon one word, “
sin
,” and her attention resurfaced.

"
True
Sin
." Her father seethed. "Do you know he is almost a pauper, daughter?"

Mrs. Grantham nodded. "We heard it from Lady Allen, who knows a certain solicitor in Town. Trowbridge owes more than he has! Without us, he would have to sell this house and all he has in it to settle his debts. A title is all we are likely to acquire from the marriage, but he did not tell you that, did he? The blackguard! No. He pretends to love you because he wants our money. That libertine doesn't give a fig about you. He just needed someone brainless enough to marry him."

Gerald Grantham hooked his thumb in Marianna's direction. "They are a good match for each other, I say, since he cannot be quite bright if he wants to chain himself to a gel as witless as that one." He made a rude noise. "He'll probably throw our money away on light-skirts or dice. I hear his father and gaffer were just the same. Wasted all they had—
two
fortunes in the father's case, for he married twice. Heard both of them was the same as you. Heiresses, wed for their money. Neither had more than one child. Both boys. Probably ruined their insides, the evil brats."

"That's enough." Marianna's voice was hardly more than a whisper, and she wasn't sure she'd said anything at all.

Her father hadn't heard her. "I knew he was a dissembler the moment I laid eyes on him. He dresses like a Sunday sailor, the miserable toad."

"
That's enough!
" Marianna roared, molten anger hardening into a granite resolve. Her parents turned to her, their pinched faces caricatures of shocked silence. She had never dared raise her voice to them.

Marianna shook off her docility as though it were water streaming over her face, and she looked around her, seeing her parents clearly for the first time. "I can bear your spiteful words.
Bells in Heaven
, I even agree with you abo
ut me.
I have acted foolishly, imprudently. But when you launch your ire against Truesdale Sinclair, I
will
oppose you."

Indeed, something inside her had broken loose from its moorings.

She stood and lifted her chin. "Truesdale is a good man, a wise man. He is a loving guardian to his nieces and a kind and reasonable master over the servants, and nothing—
nothing!
—you can say will ever change my opinion of him. He has told me naught but the truth, while
you
” —she felt bile rising in her throat—"you have told me nothing but lies."