Page 2 of The Redemption of the Shrew

Nothing is more painful than rejection, except perhaps rejection when one is completely naked. Yet another scandalous dictum, and unlike many of her mother’s, this one was entirely true.

Gloriana stood frozen, heart pounding, while Philippe fled. Weatherby, the gamekeeper, emerged from the Home Wood, pursued him, then halted and took aim.

“No, don’t!” Gloriana cried, but he had already fired. Philippe disappeared into a small copse.

Weatherby eyed the trees for a long moment. The sound of frantic hoof beats reached them, then faded into the distance. He shrugged, then turned and gaped at her. “Miss Gloriana!”

She got ahold of herself, stuffing her shock and misery and mounting rage somewhere deep inside where she would deal with it later. She stomped back into the summerhouse and climbed down the ladder.

Weatherby’s horrified voice followed her. “Miss, what in God’s name are you doing out here at this time of night?” He was old enough to be her father and had known her since she was a baby.

If there was one thing the Warrens did and did well, it was handle the most mortifying occasions with aplomb. Putting on an act—of amusement, indifference, scorn, or what-have-you—was in their blood, honed through generations of scandal. “I was planning to bathe naked in the lake,” she retorted from the shadows of the secret room. She pulled her nightdress on over her head. She would have to leave the blankets here and retrieve them tomorrow.

“This will be the death of Lady Garrison,” Weatherby said. Poor Mama, devastated by the recent scandals of other Warrens, had nothing left but her pride.

“Not if she doesn’t find out,” Gloriana said. “Usually, it’s perfectly safe to bathe here. How was I to know there would be a poacher so close to the house?”

“A poacher, was it?” By his tone, Weatherby didn’t believe her.

“Must have been.” She pulled her wrapper on and did up the buttons. “Did you hit him?” Her heart squeezed at the dreadful thought. What if Philippe was bleeding his life away even as he rode?

Rage bubbled and boiled in her gut. He deserves it, said the part of her that wanted him as dead in reality as she felt inside.

Another part thought she would indeed die if anything happened to him.

“Dunno, miss,” the gamekeeper said. “Come morning, we’ll find out.”

She climbed the ladder and shut the trap door. Weatherby, seeing she was now clothed, helped her spread the carpet over it and placed a chair and her easel on top.

“Dear Weatherby, don’t be distressed,” she said. “I’ll be good from now on. I promise.”

“I wish I could believe that, Miss Gloriana,” he said heavily. “I wish his lordship was here.”

Thank God he wasn’t. Her brother Miles, Lord Garrison, was a good, kind brother, but he wouldn’t condone her behavior, despite the fact that his was far worse.

“We Warrens all misbehave, don’t we?” Everything from a murder a few centuries ago to her father’s death in a gaming hell brawl, her brother’s seduction and abandonment of a lady, and her cousin Daisy’s recent affair with a smuggler. Trysting with Philippe—a French nobleman of impeccable lineage—was almost respectable in comparison. “But I mean it, truly I do. Henceforth, I shall be perfectly ladylike.”

For she would have no reason to misbehave. In every way that mattered, her life was over.

He sighed. “I’ll say nowt, but I’ll still worry, miss.”

Impulsively, she kissed his leathery cheek. “Thank you. I wish you had been my father. You’re so much kinder.” Her own father had been a particularly unpleasant man. Mama loved Gloriana in her rigid way but valued nothing but rank. She would have died happy to see her only daughter married to Philippe—an aristocrat, albeit a French one.

Curse him. He had ruined everything!

Her aunt, who lived with them, was as rigidly proper as her mother. The only family members she genuinely liked were the disgraceful ones she rarely saw. She far preferred servants, most of whom were ordinary, well-intentioned people. Of course, she never dared say so to Mama, who firmly believed servants were lesser beings.

“If you were my daughter,” Weatherby said gruffly, “I’d give you a good hiding.”

“Rightly so,” she said pertly, and left, head high. He would watch until she was safely inside the house, so she maintained this pose until she was through the door with it closed behind her. Alone at last, she let the first burning tears fall.

She fully intended to cry herself to sleep, but Elspeth, her maid, stood tutting at the top of the service stairs. She must have been wakened by the shots, or perhaps she’d just been awake and waiting.

Gloriana tossed herself weeping on her maid’s breast. “I hope he’s not dead,” she sobbed.

“Hush, love. Hush. Mustn’t wake your mama or auntie.” Elspeth hurried her into the bedchamber, where she fussed and soothed and built up the fire, while Gloriana wept and blew her nose and dropped one sodden handkerchief after another to the carpet. “What if I never see him alive again?”

“No sense worriting yourself about it.” Elspeth set a saucepan on the hob. Unsurprisingly, the maid knew perfectly well what Gloriana had been up to—but she never scolded or tattled, merely offering practical advice. Perhaps this was because she was only a few years older than Gloriana, and therefore, she understood.