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It was her father’s turn to laugh, and she realized they must have been talking about her. Her mother stifled a gasp of shock, and Sybil almost dropped her spoon. Rowena shuddered, suddenly overcome by nausea. Any part of her that had believed her father cared about her quickly withered and died. She now knew he saw her as nothing more than a means to an end. She was devastated.
For the rest of the meal, she felt too sick to even pretend to eat. All she could do was picture herself married to the earl. She did not look in his direction again, but she could feel that his eyes never left her. Blessedly, her father was too busy chatting away to notice she was ignoring the earl. If she had had to speak to him, she feared she would run from the room screaming.
Suddenly, she remembered what had transpired earlier that day. The proposal offered by the baron sprang to her mind, flooding her with relief. She still thought it was a strange thing for him to do - to propose to her so suddenly. But there was one thing she couldn’t deny: he was right. Wedding him was a far better prospect compared to marrying the monster currently sitting at her family’s dinner table. And it was certainly worth considering a bit more seriously.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day, Andrew sat in his study, trying to focus on compiling his monthly business ledgers. However, he was unsuccessful in his endeavors, to say the least. All he could think about was his meeting with Miss Whitworth the day before. He could hardly believe he had made such a proposal to her so bluntly. He also couldn’t believe how hopeful he was that she would accept it.
“Andrew,” his mother said from the doorway. It startled him so badly that he jumped and scratched his quill up the middle of a page, making an inky mess. He sighed, ripping out the page and setting it aside to copy the data from it onto a fresh sheet of paper.
“Mother,” he growled, quickly wiping up drops of ink that had dribbled onto his desk as he wrestled with the ruined page. “Do you not believe in knocking?”
The dowager baroness shrugged, crossing the room and standing before his desk without waiting for any invitation. Andrew decided that his father had been the only reason his mother had ever respected the boundaries of the men in the family.
“I am worried about you,” she said.
Andrew looked at her and raised an eyebrow warily.
“Why?” he asked.
His mother shook her head and looked at him impatiently.
“Because while you are hiding away in your study, other gentlemen are surely calling in on Lady Viola,” she said. “You would be an utter fool to let a chance with her slip away.”
Andrew rubbed at his temple with his free hand. Of course, she wasn’t worried about him. She was worried about how he wasn’t doing exactly what she wanted him to do. He couldn’t help wondering if his mother cared about him at all. It seemed the only thing she cared about was forcing Andrew into a marriage he would find unbearable and producing heirs he didn’t want.
Just as Andrew opened his mouth to deliver a sharp response, there was a knock at the door, which his mother had left wide open. Andrew looked up and saw his trusted footman, Roger, standing in the doorway. Andrew rose and smiled, puzzled at the intrusion but grateful to be able to ignore his mother to see what the man wanted.
“Roger,” he said, moving past his mother to approach the footman. “What is it?”
Roger cast a look past him toward the dowager baroness, then looked at Andrew again with raised eyebrows.
“I have an important matter to discuss with you,” he said.
Andrew grinned, even gladder now to see the man. He turned to his mother with an unabashedly smug smile on his face.
“If you would excuse us, Mother,” he said. “I must tend to this business.”
The baroness scowled at her son and, for a moment, he thought she would argue with him. She did not, however. She huffed, leaving her spot in front of the desk and marching toward the door.
“This isn’t the end of our conversation,” she said, glaring at Roger. “So, prepare yourself.”
Andrew bowed, still grinning.
“Goodbye, Mother,” he said.
Silently gloating, Andrew watched as his mother exited the room. Andrew motioned Roger forward, giving him a look of relief mixed with curiosity.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Roger nodded, holding out a sealed letter.
“This just came, Lord Elsbrook,” he said. “It was delivered by one Miss Sally Bisley, the lady’s maid to Miss Rowena Whitworth.”
Andrew was already opening the letter hurriedly before Roger had even finished speaking. He knew at once who it was from when the footman had said Sally. He read it quickly, his heart beating faster as he did so:
Dear Lord Elsbrook,
