‘Why was your first Season so bad?’
Margaret huffed out a sigh.
‘If you don’t wish to tell me, that is perfectly all right.’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s just a tedious story that has probably been told many a time before.’
He waited. Margaret was unsure that she wanted to reveal anything about her past, although she did want him to know what being out in Society was like for a debutante, something he not only did not understand but saw as a source of amusement and ridicule.
She took a deep breath and plunged on before she could falter. ‘I thought I had fallen in love,’ she said matter-of-factly, as if this was not the most devastating thing that had happened to her. ‘I actually thought Cupid’s arrow really had struck me and I had fallen in love at first sight, just as you described it to Lady Chedmore.’
‘And?’
‘The man was…’ She hesitated. ‘The man was a charmer, a notorious rake and someone who took pleasure in seducing debutantes.’
She felt him stiffen beside her.
‘But don’t worry. I saw through him before anything untoward happened. I remain completely respectable and still suitable for your purpose.’
Instead of causing him to relax, his body grew tenser. ‘Men like that should be horse-whipped.’
She looked up at him in disbelief. ‘What? Rakes? Seducers?’
‘Yes, men who prey on the innocent.’
‘Is that not a case of the pot calling the kettle black?’
He came to a halt and looked down at her, his jaw tense. ‘No matter what you may think of me, Miss Whitmore, I am not a seducer and until now have never been associated in any way whatsoever with a debutante.’
She noticed that he did not deny being a rake. But as that was well documented in those newspapers her father thought she did not read, it would be foolish to try and do so. And she would have to take his word regarding his claim not to be a seducer of the innocent. Not that it mattered because he most certainly would not get a chance to seduce her, even if he wanted to, which she had ample evidence to prove he did not.
‘So, what happened to this blaggard?’
‘Well, he did try to have his wicked way with me, as they say in all the best melodramas.’ She laughed off what had been far from funny at the time. ‘And let’s just say the man discovered a woman can sometimes wield a parasol as effectively as a fencer his sword.’
To prove her point, she gave a quick jab in the air with her closed parasol.
‘Good for you. But did your father not do anything about it? He’s already threatened to ruin me if I harm you. Surely he did the same with this scoundrel?’
‘At first, I chose not to tell Father, and he put my change in mood down to being thwarted in love, which in a way I suppose I had been. But when I saw the man behaving in the same solicitous manner towards another debutante I was so furious I told Father everything before he could cause further harm to another young lady.’
‘And?’
‘I’m not entirely sure what Father did, but no one saw…’ She paused, not wanting to mention that vile creature’s name. ‘No one saw him again during the Season as he had departed for Australia. I heard rumours that his eminently respectable family were so horrified at their son’s behaviour they sent him out there with instructions never to return. I believe in such cases the reprobate is paid to remain on the other side of the world, with the threat that the family will financially cut him off entirely if he ever sets foot in England again.’
‘Yes, remittance men, but such a fate is far better than he deserved,’ the Duke mumbled. ‘I am so sorry you went through such a terrible ordeal. Is that why you hate the Season so much, because you think all men are like that?’
She shrugged, not knowing the answer to that question.
‘That does make perfect sense,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘So why do you keep attending each Season? I would have thought no one could make a woman with your strength of character do anything she did not want to.’
Again, she shrugged, not entirely sure herself. ‘For a while I suppose I still foolishly lived in hope of meeting a man who would be all that I wanted in a husband.’ She huffed out a derisive laugh. ‘But mostly it’s because it’s just easier to go along with what Mama wants.’
She could have added that it did not take long for her foolish hope to be replaced by cynicism. Despite, or because of, her mother’s increasingly desperate efforts to find her a husband, no man showed any interest in her during her second Season. By the third Season she was well and truly confined to the wallflower corner and knew that was where she would find herself during her fourth.
‘Am I to assume you never told your mother about what happened?’
‘You assume correctly. While Father and I have a relationship based on honesty, with Mother things are slightly different and we do try to protect her. Although, because I never told her what really happened, Mother thinks it was all my fault and I allowed a suitable husband to get away.’
