“Oh, pray do tell, Mother…” Celestine groaned as she sat up. “What is this exciting news?”
“I was just speaking with my friend, Madeline. You know the one? With the two daughters who are a little slow, for want of a nicer way of saying it.”
“Yes, I know who you mean.”
“Anyway, as she has heard it, Lord Ironvale has recently returned to London…” She looked pointedly down at Celestine. “What is more, rumors are that he is searching for a bride.”
Celestine’s face dropped. “Please, Mother, do not let the door hit you on the way out.”
“Oh, do not be that way.”
“I am not that way,” she said in a huff. “I am merely trying to find a nicer way of telling you that I do not care about Lord Ironvale, or the fact that he is looking for a bride. Why would I care?”
“Why not? He is wealthy, respected –”
“Nor do I care about Lord Westmere, Lord Strathmore, or Lord Grundon. As I have told you already, I am not interested in being courted. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never.”
“Celestine…” Her mother sighed as she sat down on the bed and started to stroke Celestine’s back. “I know that you are hurting.”
“I am not,” she lied.
“Just as I know that this is the last thing you want. Truly…” She looked at Celestine with a mix of pity and regret. “But you must be reasonable about this. Now that you are available again, it is only right that you marry. It was always expected of you.”
“What of Isolde or Marigold?”
That Celestine was trying to subvert her mother’s attention onto her sisters made Celestine feel sick. Ordinarily, her charge in this life was to try and protect them from their mother’s antics.
But that she was, and that she did not care, told to how far Celestine had fallen.
“They are young,” she said. “They have time. And, quite frankly, we must act quickly where you are concerned. As things stand, you are pitied, and most agree that His Grace is to blame. But if we allow rumor to fester for too much longer, and if you remain without a mate, people will ask why. They will then assume that there is more to the story than they have been told.”
“I do not care,” she snapped.
“You will,” her mother said assuredly. “And by the time you realize it, it will be too late. That is why I am here, dear. To help you. Just let me help.”
Oh yes, word had spread quickly about Celestine and Edward. What was more, as Edward had predicted, his shoulders took the weight of blame for the end of their engagement. Most knew already who he was and what he was said to have done, so it made sense that Celestine was seen as a victim.
What neither Celestine nor Edward had counted on, however, was her mother’s response.
Even before Edward had proposed a fake engagement, Celestine’s mother had begun to suggest and hint at her desire to see Celestine wed. And now that Celestine was available, the suggestions had become demands, and the hints had turned into decrees.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Celestine was supposed to have been viewed as damaged goods. It was supposed to be known that no man would want her. And maybe they would not?Maybe those men who her mother suggested would hear her name and run for the hills? But try telling her mother that!
And finally, to make matters even worse, it made little difference what Celestine wanted as the one thing she did want was the one thing that she could not have. There would be no happy ending for her, and that was a reality that she was very slowly coming to terms with in the most painful of ways.
“It will make no difference,” Celestine said as she fell back in bed. “No matter who you force upon me, they will not want me. Why waste the time?”
“Oh, let me deal with that,” her mother said with a wicked grin.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you need not be so pessimistic, Celestine. I mean, you were engaged to a duke! You have no idea what that has done to your reputation.”
“Duke or no, I am still the Mad Hargrave sister.”
Her mother winced. “You are not. Nor were you ever.”
There was nothing that Celestine could do to change her mother’s mind, and the harder that she pushed, the more her mother fought against it. In fact, Celestine realized that her life had returned to normal in ways that she had not counted on, much as things had been before Edward came into her life.
