Page 17 of An Accidental Elopement

“And... is she happy?”

His father looked at him with a genuine smile on his face. His facial expression softened.

“It seems so. For all the mess this has created, it seems that Hester and Lord Lambourn are actually in love. I trust the same cannot be said for you and Miss Gaywood?” His father raised his eyebrow in question.

Archie shook his head as he pouted and averted his gaze towards the fireplace.

“Nevertheless, Miss Gaywood might be good for you. She certainly seems like a reasonable young woman. I trust that you will be faithful to her?"

Archie tried to curb the urge to squirm in his chair. He took another large sip of brandy to avoid answering. He had not given the matter any thought. But he assumed that if Cecilia shared his bed willingly and gladly, he would not have a need for a mistress.

“I don’t see how that is any of your concern, Father,” he said curtly.

“Trust me on this, Archie: You must do your utmost to make your marriage a success.” His father paused and took another swig of brandy. “Your mother is the greatest gift I have ever received...”

Archie felt his brows draw together at the statement. He knew his parents were devoted to each other, but he had never heard his father say this.

“You might be thinking that my children should also be but truthfully, I would have had children no matter what woman I had married, and I would have cared for you regardless of who she was. Without your mother I would not be the person I am today.” His father’s gaze turned from the brandy in his hand to Archie, the same piercing quality to them. “Mark you my word, Archie. You should do everything in your power to make your marriage to Miss Gaywood a success. You say that you view yourself as her friend, that is at least a good start.”

Archie returned his father’s gaze but did not comment on his speech right away. He knew that his parents’ marriage had not started out on the best terms and that his father had kept mistresses for the better part of a decade.

“Is this about Lady Lindley?” he asked brazenly.

His father snorted as if he had seen right through him.

“No, Lady Lindley saved our marriage, but I still find it difficult not to regret that I was not more open with your mother when we first married. That way she might have dared to confide in me as well.”

Archie never had a chance to ask what his mother might have confided and perhaps his father would never have told him anyway. At that moment Cecilia’s cry pierced the wall between the two rooms:

“No, I won’t do it and you cannot make me!”

Both Archie and his father looked at the wall as if it might hold answers.

“You will end up like your Aunt Elizabeth!” Mr. Gaywood bellowed.

“Perhaps I would rather...” Cecilia began but was cut off when Mr. Gaywood shouted:

“Don’t be so naïve, girl!”

Without thinking, Archie rose from his chair and hurried out the door, down the hallway and into Cecilia’s room, not caring that he was only in his shirtsleeves and stockinged feet.

Cecilia, Mr. Gaywood and Algernon Gaywood all carried equal looks of bafflement in their wide gray eyes. It was not until he saw them all together that Archie noticed that particular family resemblance.

“Lord Archibald,” Mr. Gaywood stated, his voice vibrating and his shoulders tense. “You might as well take on your husbandly duty already and make my daughter see sense. She refuses to marry you.”

As he spoke of his daughter, he pointed at her with a shaky finger. Archie looked from Mr. Gaywood to Cecilia who was staring at her father with a scowl on her face, supporting herself on her crutches.

“There is no reason to ask him to do anything, Father,” she said calmly, ice dripping from her voice. Archie hoped that she would never speak to him in that tone of voice. "As I’m not marrying him.”

“Cecilia,” her brother pleaded at the same time as her father sternly said:

“You will!”

“We drove in a carriage; we ate dinner and then we retired to separate rooms. I know that it does not look the best, but if the five of us do not say anything, then no one will know, and I will not be ruined.” The last words came out high-pitched and pleading.

“You will. If you do not, you will end up even worse off than your Aunt Elizabeth.”

Archie had no idea what her Aunt Elizabeth had done, but the statement silenced Cecilia for a moment and she bit her lower lip before her face took on a steely quality once more as if she was about to speak.