“I was not such a wallflower, was I?” Vanessa asked timidly. She knew she was shy, but it still hurt to hear her mother call her that.
Lady Forthwell shook her head. “Not anymore, my dear. Come, sit at your vanity, and I will help you with your hair.”
Vanessa moved numbly to the vanity and sat down in front of the mirror. Her mother rose from her chair and came over to stand behind her.
“You really do look beautiful tonight, my dear,” Lady Forthwell said as she began to remove the pins from Vanessa’s hair. It fell down in its usual stubbornly straight sheets, surrounding Vanessa’s shoulders. Then Lady Forthwell took the brush from the vanity and began to brush it. “You will do well as the Duchess,” she commented after another few moments. “Your temperament makes you ideally suited to the Duke.”
“W-what do you mean?” Vanessa asked nervously.
“Well, the Duke is a very forceful man,” her mother said with a shrug. “He likes to get his way. And you… You are good atmaking others feel prioritized, at tending to their needs and desires.”
“I am?”
“Yes, dear. You like to please others, do you not?”
Vanessa nodded. She did like to please others. That was a good thing… right? She had been taught that ladies were meant to please their parents and husbands. But the way her mother said it now, it left a bad taste in Vanessa’s mouth.
You were ready to say yes to Lord Langdon simply to please your parents,a quiet, angry voice said in the back of her head. Would you call that a good thing?
“Yes, I think you will be a very good fit for a man as willful as the Duke,” her mother said happily. “It does not mean you will have no power. You will simply have to learn to use your power to please your husband to your advantage.”
Vanessa nodded again, but she did not really know what that meant. What she did know was that she did not want to have to manipulate her husband in order to have any power in the marriage.
But she did not say this. Her mother was so pleased, so happy, and she could not risk upsetting her. After everything that had happened tonight, Lady Forthwell would have had the right tobe angry at Vanessa. Instead, she was overjoyed, and Vanessa was not going to ruin that.
“And the family!” Lady Forthwell’s eyes sparkled. “The family will benefit greatly from this! Your father is shaken, yes, by the sudden turn of events, but he will get over it.
“In the end, he will come to see, as I do, that you have done the family an enormous favor. You have given us access to the highest echelons of English Society. Yes, you have done very well for yourself, my dear.”
Before she left, Lady Forthwell gave Vanessa a kiss on the cheek. Then, with shining eyes, she bade her goodnight.
As Vanessa lay in her bed later that night, she could not help but reflect that the kindest and most affectionate her mother had ever been was today, when Vanessa had been about to marry well—first to Langdon and then to the Duke.
Do I have any value to her other than as someone to make an advantageous match and elevate the family?she wondered.And will I have any value to my husband other than as someone to please him—and to help him atone for whatever terrible crime he committed in his past?
Would she ever, she wondered, be valued for who she was?
And, perhaps more pressingly: what terrible crime did the Duke commit, and how would it affect her?
Chapter Five
“Winston—finally, there you are,” Leo greeted, standing up from the armchair he had been occupying by the fire and striding across the room to where Winston stood in the doorway. “Here, let us get you a scotch. You must need it.”
Only once they were both seated and Winston had a scotch in hand did Leo lean forward and ask, his voice lowered and eager, “Well? How did it go? Are you engaged to the lady?”
Slowly, Winston nodded. “We are to be married,” he confirmed.
Leo let out a long, low whistle. “I can hardly believe it. I thought you would be the last man to ever marry.”
“I did not plan to,” Winston agreed. “For most women, marriage is a prison sentence, and I would not be a jailer for any young lady. But in this instance, I believe my marriage to Lady Vanessa will actually result in a much better life for her.”
Leo watched him curiously. “It is very chivalrous of you to sacrifice yourself for her happiness,” he said at last. “Especially seeing as how you did not even know her before two nights ago.”
“I still do not know her,” Winston pointed out. “But it matters not. She would have been terrorized in a marriage to Lord Langdon. And I object to the idea that I shall be sacrificing my own happiness. Something tells me that the Lady and I will not see much of each other after we are wed. I imagine that we will both be free to go about our own pursuits without much input or interaction from the other.”
“I see,” Leo said, slowly circling a finger around the rim of his glass. “So that means our… nighttime pursuits… will continue?”
Winston hesitated. As much as he wanted to carry on with his mission to rid thetonof men who abused women, it would be harder to do so when he was married.
