This was bad.
This was very, very bad, indeed.
The only thing that made Chloe’s public ruin before Gabriel, Lord Waterson, Lady Rowley, and Jane anything slightly less than disastrous was the absence of Chloe’s mother.
And if not for Lady Rowley, with relish in her eyes as she took in the sight of Chloe and Lord Tennyson, Chloe might have weathered the scandal. But there could be no excusing or explaining how an unmarried lady came to be under the gentleman in a darkened room with no other guests about.
Her stomach pitched, and she reflexively clasped the marquess’ jacket.
“Hardly the time for an embrace, love,” he whispered with an infuriating casualness that jerked her from the haze of shock.
“Unhand me,” she gritted out, giving the marquess’ shoulders a shove.
That abrupt movement seemed to startle him into action. He straightened.
She’d known the gentleman but a handful of moments and well recognized that practiced, icy grin on his lips as a false one. A like panic reflected in his hardened gaze. “Waterson, Waverly,” he acknowledged. Then, angling his body in a dismissive gesture, he turned that rakish smile on Jane. “My lady,” he greeted with a sweeping bow.
Gabriel and Lord Waterson stood shoulder to shoulder, palpable rage dripping from both of their frames.
And Chloe, who’d stood boldly before her father as he’d come at her, fists raised, fell to cowardice. She gave thanks for the marquess’ willingness to fill the silence, sparing her from words.
“Get away from my sister,” Gabriel ordered with an icy calm that only her eldest, stoic brother could be capable of.
The marquess inclined his head and edged behind the sofa, putting several more steps between him and her family. “Ladies… gentlemen… this is simply a misunderstanding,” he said with a practiced grin.
How many times had he been caught in a like manner? And how many women’s reputations had lived to be repaired?
None. I am ruined…
Her heart sank to the soles of her slippers. There could be no possible hope of a position at Mrs. Munroe’s, or employment anywhere aiding young women, after this.
Chloe gripped the edges of the seat as panic clawed at her chest, robbing her of breath. Enough! Be rational. Be focused. You are Chloe Edgerton. Not some simpering debutante. “We were not meeting,” she blurted. All eyes, including Lord Tennyson’s, swung to her. “He was meeting another and—”
Lady Rowley flicked a gaze up and down Chloe’s person. When she spoke, disdain dripped from her words. “And it appears, in Tennyson’s usual fashion, he made do with whatever woman was about.”
Ever the finishing school instructor, Jane quietly chided the daringly dressed beauty. “That is hardly appropriate or kind, my lady.”
This was the woman the marquess had been meeting, then. That explained her appearance and indignant fury. A jealous lover.
“If you will excuse us?” Gabriel commanded Lady Rowley in clipped tones.
Only, when this cold-eyed harpy walked out with the story of Chloe’s ruin, it would spread about Polite Society like a cancer, destroying Chloe’s reputation and ending the dreams she carried of Mrs. Munroe’s. “I fell.” No truer words had ever been spoken. Desperation made her voice pitch high. “I tore my hem and was going to tend it when I tripped on the fabric.”
Jane stared back with stricken eyes.
Chloe gave her head a slight shake. Even through the horror that held her in its fold, she could not blame Jane for having intervened on her behalf in the ballroom.
“Tennyson?” the earl gruffly demanded.
Chloe craned her neck back to look at the marquess, demanding with her eyes. Tell them, damn it. Tell them, the reason we are both here, together…
Except, his face might as well have been carved of granite. He lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. And with that go-to-hell gesture, he sealed her fate.
Lady Rowley pounced. “Never tell me the ever-chivalrous Lord Tennyson was good enough to see to your injury?” A cackle better suited to a witch than a stunningly beautiful woman spilled from her lips.
Chloe tightened her mouth, and a new, distracting emotion took root—annoyance. Yes, Lord Tennyson was a rake in every sense of the word, but he had attempted to help her.
Swinging her legs over the side of the sofa, she struggled to stand.
The marquess took a quick step toward her.
“Move away from my sister, Tennyson,” Gabriel snapped.
Jane shot Lord Waterson a pointed look. He sprang into movement. “I will see your carriage readied.” He turned to the countess. “If you will accompany me, my lady?” he urged, offering the sharp-eyed countess an elbow.
With no choice but to accept, she reluctantly allowed him to usher her from the room.
Closing the door behind their unlikely gathering, the earl at last secured a modicum of privacy. And that quiet click ushered in something more. Resignation.
It is too late… The damage has been done…
Her throat thickened, making it impossible to properly swallow, and she struggled once more to stand. She dimly registered Lord Tennyson’s determined approach. Collecting her hand, the marquess helped her up. How very strong and steady his grip was, and she found additional strength from that unlikeliest of places. Her palm instantly ceased trembling. Accepting help from the stranger at her side, she motioned to her foot. “I sprained my ankle, Gabriel.”
Gabriel and Jane exchanged a look, and then her sister-in-law was the first to quit her place at the front of the room. She hurried over, claiming Chloe’s other side. “You should not be standing,” she gently scolded. With the marquess’ help, Jane guided her back into her seat. Jane caught her gaze, and guilt fairly bled from its depths.
“Do not do that,” she softly whispered. She’d chosen to wander Lord Waterson’s halls. The blame rested squarely with Chloe. She’d not be one of those woe-is-me ladies who cast guilt upon other parties.
The marquess inclined his head. “If anyone would care to know how she knows it is sprained, it is because I inspected it.”
Bloody hell. Leaning around her sister-in-law, Chloe leveled a glower on the indolent lord. “Are you trying to make the situation worse?” she demanded, glad to have a place to direct her frustration.
“Oh,” Lord Tennyson drawled, “I trust that is an impossibility.” He reached inside his jacket and removed a silver flask ornately etched with Bacchus upon the front. Lord Tennyson uncorked it.
The gentleman stopped with the drink halfway to his mouth and then held it out, lifting an eyebrow in silent offer.
Chloe puzzled her brow. Mad. He was utterly mad.
He shrugged and took a long swallow.
Dismissing him outright, she retrained her efforts on her disconcertingly silent brother. “Nothing happened,” Chloe felt the need to point out again. “Nothing,” she added, holding his flinty stare.
“Of all the bloody gentlemen to be discovered with, it should be this one?” Gabriel slashed his palm in Lord Tennyson’s direction.
Propping his hip on the arm of the sofa, Lord Tennyson lifted his flask in salute.
Had he become so jaded to Society’s ill opinion that he should be so unfazed by a room full of people throwing aspersions upon his character? Could a person ever truly be that hardened? Thrusting aside questions about what turned a man to the stony figure before her, she jutted her chin out. “Forgive me. But if I were to face public ruin, I should have at least had the good sense to lose my reputation to a proper, respectable lord you approve of.” Because then he could see her married, free of his household, and properly looked after. The same frustration at the lot he’d always expected snapped her last frayed nerve.
Her brother glared at the marquess. “I’ll not have this discussion with him present.”
“We need to leave,” Jane agreed with such uncharacteristic solemnity that disquiet stirred all the more inside Chloe.
The marquess jumped up. “I take it I am done here?”
That was it. Seven words, a question, indicated the gentleman, with his lack of a formal offer, was, in fact, no true gentleman. Instead of any deserved upset, an unlikely appreciation filled her at his unwillingness to bend to societal pressure. For to do so would only further ruin both of their lives. “There is to be no proposal, then?” she asked quietly.
Gabriel choked, sucking in great, gasping breaths. Color filled his cheeks. “Are y-you mad?” he managed to strangle out.
“It was merely an observation,” she said between tense lips.
“I do not care what it is or was. Even if he offered, your answer is ‘no,’” Gabriel barked.
Her sister-in-law glowered at her husband. “What your brother intended to say is that you needn’t feel obligated to marry the gentleman simply because of the ensuing scandal. Isn’t that correct?”
He shook his head. “No. What I was saying was precisely that. She is not marrying him.” Gabriel jabbed a finger at an entirely too amused-looking Lord Tennyson. “Not to save her reputation. Not to fill his empty pockets. Not if God Himself demanded it.” Her insufferable brother stalked across the room, towering over the still negligently seated marquess. “Have I made myself clear?” he seethed.
The marquess stifled a yawn with his spare hand. “Go to hell, Waverly. You are as tedious now as you were as a boy with your head in your books at Oxford.” Gabriel’s nostrils flared. “It is a wonder this one,” Lord Tennyson tipped his head in Chloe’s direction, “has the spirit she does.”
“No offer was made,” Chloe bit out, and the two men going toe-to-toe looked to her. “And nothing was accepted.”
Not even in this, her public scandal, would she be permitted to speak with her partner in ruin. Every single aspect of her life—as a girl hiding from a daily beating, to this moment nearly five and twenty years later as a grown woman—had been controlled.
Lord Tennyson adjusted his expertly knotted silk cravat. “My lady, marriage to me would be even more ruinous to you than anything that could have taken place here.” Gabriel took a swift step forward. “But nothing did,” he hurried to add, holding his palms up. “As such, I trust our exchange is concluded. I shall leave your family to your discussion.” With that, Lord Tennyson left.
The click of the door and the distant fall of his steps ushered in a thick silence.
Gabriel was the first to break it. “Bloody hell, Chloe,” he barked, dragging a hand through his always immaculate hair. “What have you done?”
“Gabriel,” Jane chided.
Husband and wife launched into a tense debate on where proper blame fell. And yet…
Chloe stared blankly at the earl’s office door, through which Lord Tennyson had just taken his leave. Mayhap it was the shock of the evening, or that the realization of all that unfolded would come on the morrow with the gossip columns, for it was not worry over the impending scandal that held her frozen, but rather her brother’s charge.
What have you done, you stupid chit? Present your back for a proper punishment…
A dutiful daughter. That was what the late, dastardly marquess had expected and had attempted to achieve by beating her into submission. And though her brother never had, nor ever would, lift a hand to her in violence, Gabriel, in his quest to have her be a biddable wife to a respectable lord, was not, in that regard, unlike their late sire.
“She is ruined, and by the blackest cad in London…” His lamentations slashed across her silent musings, a confirmation of sorts.
Yes, there could be no doubting that there wasn’t a more sinister scoundrel in all of London.
Chloe released a beleaguered sigh. “It is done, Gabriel,” she said tiredly. All of it. Her hopes. Her dreams. Because, although it did not matter that her ruin would kill all marital prospects, her reputation was firmly attached to any future aspiration she’d had… or might one day have.
She briefly closed her eyes, wanting to flee. To put this room and this night behind her. For the scandal with Lord Tennyson had destroyed every hope she’d carried, in ways that Jane’s rational rejection never could have.
“Your sister is correct.” Jane reached down for Chloe’s hand and squeezed her fingers, and Chloe took some solace in that. “Nothing can be accomplished by sitting here, discussing… what transpired.”
God love her sister-in-law for always having been practical—even in this.
Gabriel gave a jerky nod. The column of his throat moved in a tangible sign of his grief. That uncharacteristic crack in his composure sharpened the ache in her chest. “You are not marrying him.”
And for the hell of the past handful of moments, Chloe’s lips tipped up in a wry smile. “As Lord Tennyson didn’t so much as ask, then I think that is not a worry for you.”
Her brother took a step closer. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Even if he did, I want you to know I would never, ever let you marry a man such as him.”
Never, ever let you marry.
When most other noblemen would force a sister into a match to salvage a shattered reputation, Gabriel sought to protect her.
Help me… please… help me…
Her cries of long ago filled her mind.
And there was surely a deficit in her character, for his brotherly showing left a bitter taste in her mouth. He was more than twenty years too late in protecting her. She’d needed him as a girl.
Now she’d have control of her own future where she could. Chloe lifted her chin. “Gabriel, I am a woman of five and twenty. I’ll not be bullied into marriage or any other decision by Society…” She held his stare. “Or anyone.”
Not that an unconscionable rake such as Lord Tennyson would ever seek marriage, as her brother feared.
And she was better off for it.