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Cynthia definitely did not envy her twin brother. Though she had been overcome by the grief of her father’s death along with their mother, Edward had been unable to allow himself the time to grieve thanks to his new position as viscount, effective immediately upon their father’s death. It was to him that most visitors came, especially those so important as an earl’s son.
“I am sure I need not remind you of poor Stewart Talbot’s untimely demise?” Her mother sighed, looking quite grief-stricken as though she had lost a son in place of the earl’s eldest son, who had perished as a result of the plague that had swept through France.
“How could I forget?” Cynthia grimaced. Her mother had never allowed her to forget that technically she ought to have been in mourning for the fiancé who had died before they even laid eyes upon each other.
“Well, you must forget him now,” her mother said, shocking her into gaping her mouth open in astonishment.
“Mother, how could you say such a thing?” Cynthia exclaimed, horrified at the callous tone of her mother’s voice. “It is you who encouraged me to be the saddened, grief-stricken fiancée during the first month after his passing!”
“Yes, and you played your part very well while society still had its eye upon us, but now we must look to the future and the prospects that have opened up before you once more,” Viscountess Ashton explained. She reached out and stroked her daughter’s cheek before cupping it in her hand and explaining, “A promise was made between our two families long ago, and that promise is still to be kept.”
Cynthia struggled to gulp past the sudden blockage in her windpipe. Her throat constricted around it and threatened to choke her entirely.
“I am uncertain of what you mean, Mama,” Cynthia said, struggling to speak past the shock. She could feel herself shaking from head to toe, terrified of what her mother was about to say. A part of her wanted to put her fingers in her ears just so that she could not hear it. But even if she did, she would have been able to read her mother’s lips all too easily and the expression upon her face as she told her the real news she had come to impart.
Suddenly, Cynthia felt as though she had been betrayed, as though her sister’s news had been brought to her attention only as a way of lessening the blow of what came next. But nothing could lessen this blow, the blow of an attack that Cynthia had been hoping to avoid entirely ever since the earl’s eldest son had passed away.
“A few months ago, in correspondence with your brother, the earl stated that he would happily continue with the promise made between himself and your dear departed father many years ago,” Viscountess Ashton explained and with every word from her lips, Cynthia felt the pressure tightening around her throat until she wished it really would be the end of her. “All that was required was that our family accept the younger in the place of the older.”
Cynthia could feel all the heat and colour draining from her face, not just her cheeks but her entire face all the way down to her chest. She felt cold, almost numbingly so, and she wished more than ever to cry for her departed father who might have been the only one who could have changed this terrible promise between their families.
“Mother, I cannot marry him!” Cynthia proclaimed, stepping out of reach of the woman whose face quickly turned dark with anger. “I have never met the man, and Father’s promise was ended the moment that dreadful plague killed Stewart Talbot Junior!”
Though it was grotesque of her, Cynthia had been unable to stop herself from being thankful to that very plague for having stolen away the future that her parents had already planned for her. Yet now it seemed she had not escaped that fate as she had hoped that she might.
“If it was so dreadful to you, then you must rejoice at the fact that your entire future has not been entirely stolen from you!” Viscountess Ashton boomed loudly and with great vigour. “Be pleased, Cynthia, you shall be a countess before the year is out!”
Without awaiting her daughter’s response, the viscountess whipped around with the second letter still in hand and stormed from the room, making it quite clear that she would listen to no more of the girl’s whining. Stopping at the door, she turned back to add, “Your brother and I decided to wait until after your birthday to tell you. You ought to be grateful for that!”
Cynthia managed to hold herself up until her mother had disappeared from the room. Then she collapsed onto the floor, the skirts of her first colourful dress in a year pooling all around her. A stream of tears created darker splotches on the pale blue silken fabric as she wept uncontrollably.
“Oh! Cynthia!” Daphne exclaimed the moment she appeared in the doorway. Likely she had hurried away down the hall at the sound of the viscountess’s footsteps approaching the bedroom door and had quickly returned as soon as the woman was gone.
She hurried across the room and dropped down gracefully at Cynthia’s side. Cynthia did not protest as her closest friend pulled her into a tight embrace and cradled her back and forth as though she were an infant once more.
“Daphne, where is Madam La Roche?” Cynthia whimpered between sobs. The very last thing she wanted was for the modiste to see her weeping as she was.
“Fear not, your mother called her away after her,” Daphne explained, and although she did not say the words aloud, Cynthia could practically hear her thoughts. Madam La Roche had likely been ordered to join her mother in the drawing room for refreshments while they started on the plans for her youngest daughter’s impending wedding ceremony.
“Oh, Daphne, whatever am I going to do?” Cynthia wept harder still, burying her face in her friend’s shoulder.
“Perhaps wiping your nose might be a start?” Daphne suggested, her voice filled with careful amusement as though she had been hoping to lighten the mood a little. But it only made Cynthia cry harder until her friend was forced to slip a handkerchief between Cynthia’s face and her shoulder. Cynthia was all too devastated by the news her mother had dropped like a bombshell on top of her to care that she was a snivelling mess.
“I need a real answer, Daphne!” Cynthia pleaded, pulling back from her friend’s shoulder, her throat hurting too much to weep so violently anymore. “I cannot marry the man!”
The sympathetic look on Daphne’s pale face suggested she had heard everything that had been said between Cynthia and her mother. Yet it was no comfort for Cynthia to know that her friend had heard, not when there was nothing either of them could do to change the facts.
“Well, there is one thing,” Daphne said with a shrug, and Cynthia was almost certain that she heard humour in her tone once more. She gritted her teeth, entirely expecting whatever passed her friend’s lips to be yet another stupid idea. “You could always run away.”
Chapter 3
William felt as though every way he turned, his hand was being forced. After only a few weeks in France, he found himself stepping onto English soil at the London docks, having sent a letter at his father’s request only a week earlier that he intended to visit the home of his intended bride.
Even after several weeks, the knowledge that he would be married and not only that but that his bride had been chosen for him made him feel quite nauseous. Not nearly quite so bad as yet another ship’s journey had caused him to feel, however, and by the time he placed his feet on dry land once more, he had only just begun to get used to the swaying of the vessel. It might well take him just as long to grow used to his land legs again.
But one thing was for certain. His hand had been forced long enough. Even before they landed, he had decided that no matter what, from now on, away from his father, he would make his own decisions. And so that was why he decided to head directly for the Bessers’ residence. Though he knew he ought to have waited until morning as the hour was quite late, he could not bear the thought of sleeping another night without simply getting such an awkward encounter over with.
Having only had contact with the woman’s brother, the new viscount and her mother, William was slightly intrigued to learn what he had truly got himself into thanks to his own brother’s untimely passing.
