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To her horror, she found the Marquess and Marchioness standing in one corner, talking to the Viscount of Chaney. They were a short distance away from the crush of the ball, but she could see that her father’s features held none of their usual joviality and her stepmother—why, Lady Horatia looked as if she was about to keel over and faint any moment.
Trembling, she approached her father just as the Viscount of Chaney voiced out his displeasure.
“I apologize for my abruptness, Lord Rutbridge, but I will have to withdraw my suit for Lady Emily,” Lord Chaney recounted as if he was truly and rightfully incensed about something.
“But why, Lord Chaney?” the Marchioness asked him, fluttering her fan faster in her anxiety. “Has Emily offended you in any way?”
The Viscount looked past the Marchioness and straight at Emily. She caught the wicked glint in his eyes before he took on a most devastated expression.
“I chanced upon Emily alone with His Grace, the Duke of Gilleton, in the gardens,” he admitted. “Alone. Unchaperoned. I…I had no idea that she was of such loose morals—”
“You will be careful to watch your tongue when you are talking about my daughter in my presence, Lord Chaney,” the Marquess of Rutbridge warned him in a low, dangerous voice. “I know my daughter well enough to be certain that she would never do something as preposterous as you suggest.”
“But Charles—” the Marchioness started just as Emily decided she had had enough of the duplicity of the Viscount.
“How dare you spin lies and defame my character!” she told him in a soft, steely voice.
Both the Marquess and Marchioness of Rutbridge turned towards Emily in surprise.
“Emily, child, where have you been?” her father asked her. His eyes took in her slightly disheveled appearance, and she saw the disappointment in them, felt it as keenly as if he had stabbed her with a knife.
“Look at her, and you will know I am telling the truth!” Lord Chaney scoffed in disgust.
Emily turned towards her father, her eyes pleading with him. “Father, you know I wouldn’t—”
“I never thought you would be capable of doing something so scandalous!” her stepmother screeched, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Look at you—your hair is in disarray; your clothes are muddied. What do you have to say for yourself now?”
Emily looked at her angrily. “You choose to believe him even without hearing my side of the story?” She glared at Lord Chaney. “Maybe you might want to ask Miss Melissa Halstead—she will tell you that I left the ballroom with Lord Chaney and not His Grace!”
“My God, what is all this ruckus about?”
They all turned around to find Benedict walking towards them with the Duke of Gilleton right behind him.
“Your sister,” the Marchioness huffed, “has been found in a rather compromising position with His Grace, the Duke of Gilleton!”
At her words, the Duke’s eyes glinted dangerously and his previously bland expression darkened with anger.
“Madam, you might want to choose your words carefully,” he warned her in a low voice. His blue eyes flicked over to the Viscount, who was regarding the ensuing mayhem with a smug look.
Benedict turned towards his sister, his eyes conflicted. “Emily, is this true?”
Emily shook her head. “Benedict, I can explain—”
“Damn you, Gilleton!” her brother swore, turning against his friend. “What have you done with my sister? I swear if you do not answer for her—”
“That is enough!”
Everybody stilled as the Marquess of Rutbridge raised his voice at his family for the first time. He regarded everyone with a warning glance, silencing them all with the ill-concealed fury in his eyes.
“Benedict, if you carry on much longer, youwillruin Emily,” he told his son. “Lady Horatia, I would advise you against breathing a word of this to anyone, or we will risk ruining Amy by association.”
Damage control, Emily realized weakly. What her father was trying to do was contain the damage within their small group by silencing everyone. He no longer believed she was innocent and did not even wait to hear her explanation.
He merely accepted the word of a man over hers, just as he believed Amy and Lady Horatia over her for many, many years.
Her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she regarded her own father stonily.
“I…might have a solution to your predicament, Lord Rutbridge.”
