“—did not mention your name in his bequests.” The solicitor accompanied this pronouncement with a kind look, surely meant to calm impending female hysteria.
Rebecca hadn’t been this far from calm since the last time she’d lost her home, after her parents’ accident. But she had never been prone to hysteria. Her escapes from reality were always in plans and schemes and numbers.
Although it didn’t always work. Her plot to keep to the shadows in order to live in the castle indefinitely had served perfectly well—until “out of sight” meant “out of mind” when it came to the prior earl’s will.
The reality of her situation wrapped cold tentacles about her heart.
“You cannot mean to toss me out on my ear,” she begged.
“I intend to marry you off, girl. I daresay that’s hardly ‘out on your ear.’” Lord Banfield stared at her as if she’d gone mad.
No—it was perhaps worse than madness. It was sanity. The bleak loss of freedom. Up until now, she had been mistress of herself. As a wife, however, she would lose all autonomy. Her independence would be gone forever.
A flash of lightning lit the corridor, followed by a crack of thunder that shook the very walls. As it always did on nights such as these, the icy ocean wind shrieked through the castle turrets like the high-pitched wail of a madwoman.
Lord Banfield’s cheeks blanched at the eerie sound. “Honestly, child. You cannot wish to stay here. No reasonable person would.”
Rebecca swallowed. Crowmere Castle had been the last place she’d wished to visit when her parents had first proposed the idea five years ago. Back then, her life had been full of laughter and joy. Seventeen years old and the light of her parents’ eyes, her first London Season had been everything Rebecca had dreamed.
Until her childhood friend and the love of her life—the delectable and devilish Daniel Goodenham, Viscount Stonebury—had given her the cut direct at the height of the Season. After leading her to believe that between them was something more.
She’d been too distraught from his cruel rejection to even consider putting herself forward with other men. When her parents despaired, she’d reminded them there was always next Season…
Except next Season never came.
Lord Stonebury might have been the first to forget about Rebecca, but it had taken no time at all for everyone else to do the same. Day by day, she’d faded from everyone’s memories.
Now that the new earl had been reminded of her existence, she was nothing more than a problem to be fixed. An error to scrub away as quickly as possible.
“I’ve nothing with which to attract a husband,” she said dully. If her own family could forget her, attracting a suitor was impossible. “I haven’t so much as a ha’penny. And every frock I own is five years out of style.”
“Piffle,” Lord Banfield scoffed. “I’ll give you a dowry, of course. Five hundred pounds should do. Plenty of men would wed a sack of grain for less.”
How complimentary. Rebecca pressed her lips together. Her attractiveness as a wife was comparable to marrying a sack of grain. Was it any wonder she preferred to be left alone?
And yet…that much money could completely change her life.
“If I were to live very simply,” she mused aloud, working the financial details out in her mind, “five hundred pounds might be enough for me to live on my own as a woman of independence.”
“Youdon’t get the five hundred pounds,” the earl reminded her impatiently. “It goes to your husband.”
“You could choose to give it to me instead,” she said hopefully. Such a neat solution would grant her the independence she craved without causing her to be a burden on anyone else.
“And have you spend the entire sum on tiaras and fur muffs?” He laughed. “Come now, child, I’m far too practical to blunder that badly. You would be penniless in a fortnight. Have you forgotten I live with six ladies of impeccable taste? What you need is a strong hand, I’m afraid.”
Not as afraid as Rebecca was. The last thing she needed was a husband. For the past five years, she had got by without anyone but the castle ghosts.
She’d missed her parents, of course. Dreadfully. And at first, she’d even missed other people. But when her year of mourning concluded, she’d had no money to return to London and no sponsor to accompany her to another Season.
More importantly, by then the idea of trying to fit in with the fashionable set no longer interested her. She held no desire to be among silly people, or have Lord Stonebury’s sharp tongue flay her anew. The castle was her home now.
Or had been.
She straightened her shoulders. “You cannot possibly expect me to find a husband inside of a month. It cannot be done. You are a practical man. If marrying off women were that simple, your eldest daughters would already be wed.”
The new earl frowned. “If you insist upon a Season at your advanced age, you may attend with my family in January. But my focus, as you correctly point out, must be on my own daughters. Your wardrobe and entertainment costs will be deducted from your five hundred pound balance, leaving you very little with which to attract a husband. You would need to charm him fast.”
Rebecca’s fingers curled into fists as she fought to hold her tongue at this rebuke.
