Cressida turned toward the door, suddenly exhausted by the familiar pattern of recrimination and concern that had nothing to do with her well-being and everything to do with social calculation. “If you’ll excuse me, I should like to change.”
“This conversation is not finished, young lady.” Her father’s voice carried the inflexibility of a man unaccustomed to being dismissed.
“Nevertheless.” Cressida didn’t turn around. “I am finished with it.”
She climbed the stairs with as much dignity as she could muster, acutely aware of her parents’ continued whispered argument below and Mary’s worried gaze following her ascent.
The familiar walls of her bedchamber wrapped around her like a shroud. Everything was precisely as she’d left it two years ago—frozen in time, a museum to the daughter who’d failed.
Her lady’s maid, Betsy, appeared almost immediately, her round face creased with confusion and concern. “My Lady! I didn’t know you were coming back. Your mother said nothing about?—”
“It was unplanned, Betsy.” Cressida began unpinning her hair, desperate to remove any trace of Ashmere Castle, any reminder of dark eyes and devastating kisses. “I need to change out of this dress.”
“Of course, My Lady.” Betsy moved to help with the buttons at her back, her fingers working with practiced efficiency. Then she paused. “Though I confess, if word spreads about your return, I don’t know how your fiancé will take the news of your… unexpected journey.”
The words penetrated slowly, like a blade sliding between ribs.
Cressida froze. “Mywhat?”
“Your fiancé, My Lady.” Betsy’s voice had gone small, uncertain. “Lord Emerton.”
The name meant nothing.
“Betsy, what are you talking about?”
Her maid’s face crumpled with dawning horror. “Oh. Oh no. They didn’t tell you.” She reached into her apron pocket with trembling fingers, withdrawing a crumpled scandal sheet. “I’m so sorry, My Lady. I thought—I assumed you knew. It was announced while you were at your aunt’s.”
Cressida snatched the paper, her eyes scanning the printed words that seemed to swim before her vision.
It is with great pleasure that we announce the engagement of Lady Cressida Whitaker, daughter of the Earl of Bardwell, to Bernard Campbell, the Earl of Emerton…
The parlor, the conversations about her future, the relieved expressions on her parents’ faces when they’d sent her to Aunt Agatha’s—it all crystallized with sudden, brutal clarity.
They’d sold her. Bartered her away like livestock while she’d been scrubbing floors and mending petticoats, her future negotiated without her knowledge or consent.
The scandal sheet crumpled in her fist.
“What is this?”
The roar erupted from somewhere deep in her chest as she flew down the stairs, the paper clutched in her hand like damning evidence. She burst into the parlor, where her parents still sat, their argument dying mid-word as she threw the gossip sheet at her father’s feet.
“What on earth is this?!”
Chapter Seven
“Why, your engagement announcement, my dear. Why are you so cross? Have they misspelt your name?” Lord Bardwell glanced up from the crumpled scandal sheet, his expression one of mild confusion rather than alarm.
Cressida’s vision narrowed to a single point of fury. “Misspelt my—what onearthis going on?”
“Your engagement to Lord Emerton, naturally.” Her father picked up the paper, smoothing it with careful fingers. “Really, Cressida, such theatrics are unbecoming.”
Lady Bardwell set aside her embroidery. “Darling, why are you carrying on this way?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mama.” The words emerged sharp as cut glass. “Perhaps my stays are laced too tightly. Or perhaps it’sthat I’ve just discovered I’m engaged to a man I’ve never agreed to marry!”
Her parents exchanged looks, that wordless conversation of long matrimonial understanding.
“Why, surely we told you,” Lady Bardwell said. “Two days ago, at tea time.”
