Page 10 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

Catherine looked at her innocent younger sister with affection and pity. How could she possibly explain that she had agreed to marry the masked Duke largely so that Jemima wouldn’t be coerced into marriage instead?

“It’s a private arrangement between Hugh and me,” Catherine said, at last. “I didn’t want our news spread to all and sundry like this. Especially not before we’ve even spoken to a priest or obtained a license.”

News of the betrothal would doubtlessly have spread through the entire servants’ quarters by now and would make its way into neighboring homes before nightfall. It would be all over the tonwithin days, and that would mean weeks of well-meaning but unwelcome questions from relatives and friends.

“Ah, I understand,” Jemima said sympathetically, although it was impossible that she could.

“At least someone is trying.” Catherine mustered a smile. “I appreciate that.”

“Father is just too happy about this to consider that you might have wanted some privacy,” Jemima commented. “He so badly wants to see us settled in life, Catherine. He worries about losing all his money and leaving us without support. I’ve heard him speaking to lawyers, as well as his agent. You shouldn’t be so hard on him all the time.”

Shouldn’t be so hard on him? If only Jemima knew what Catherine knew. Although, Catherine was glad that her younger sister didn’t.

Bitterly, Catherine remembered the evening she had looked down through the banisters on the first-floor landing and seen her father kissing Lady Harvey in the hallway. She had even heard him call that woman “My dearest Evangeline.”

Catherine had never seen her father kiss her mother like that, nor speak to her so lovingly.

Until that night, Catherine had assumed that Lord and Lady Harvey were invited to all their parents’ house parties and eventsmerely as good friends. That one kiss instantly threw a whole new and sinister light on Lord Sedgehall’s long walks in the countryside with Lady Harvey, his solo calling on her in London, or their outings to theaters when Lord Harvey was occupied with business.

Fifteen-year-old Catherine had told no one what she had seen. She had assiduously avoided her father for a week, her resentment festering on her mother’s behalf, and unsure whether she ought to inform her of what she had witnessed.

That question had answered itself when Catherine overheard a second encounter, this time between her parents, the details of which were still seared in her memory.

“I’ve had enough, Albion. I could tolerate your behavior when you were discrete, but now you humiliate me and our daughters by flaunting your adultery all over London.”

“What else do you expect me to do, Elizabeth? I’m only human, I’m only a man.”

“I’m only human, too. What do you think I’ve done all these years with you, Albion? I did not break my marriage vows and humiliate you.”

“No, you chose to wallow in self-pity and indulge your sense of being hard done by in life.”

“How dare you! I did my duty in this marriage. I gave you two perfect daughters. I gave you my fidelity.”

“But not your love, never your love!”

“Love?! Is that what you call it? Love? Fornicating with your hussy at every chance you get, even under our roof? Showing that creature off to all your London friends while I’m here, raising your children, and her husband turns a blind eye? You’re nothing but a farmyard animal rutting with whatever female will have him. How many more have there been?”

“Elizabeth! This is a most unreasonable accusation. Keep your voice down, please. The servants will hear.”

“I’m sure they know about Lady Harvey and all your other women already. But the girls don’t, thankfully. I want a separation now, Albion. I don’t want our daughters exposed to such flagrantly immoral behavior, and I’m sure even you can see the sense in protecting them. I’ve already spoken to my brother, and he’s consulting a solicitor.”

Shocked and rocked to the core by those barely comprehensible revelations, young Catherine had crept away and hidden inside her wardrobe. She knew that her parents rarely seemed happy together, but not that her father had betrayed her mother with Lady Harvey, and likely many other women, for so long. The talk of legal separation was frightening. What would become of her and Jemima?

Still, in the end, the separation had never happened. A few months later, Lady Sedgehall had caught a fever and died suddenly while her husband was in London, presumably with his mistress. The physician said that the fever had weakened Lady Sedgehall’s heart, but Catherine knew that her mother’s heart had already been broken.

Catherine had never forgiven her father for his actions, and never forgotten that men could not be trusted. She was determined that no man would ever be given the chance to hurt and humiliate her as her father had done to her mother. But in a marriage to the Duke of Redbridge, could she protect herself?

“What is it, Catherine?” Jemima asked, growing concerned by her sister’s long silence and introspection.

“I miss Mother,” Catherine said. Which was true, although it was no real explanation for her anger towards her father nor her contradictory attitude to her betrothal.

As intended, Jemima nodded sympathetically and allowed her to redirect the conversation to shared and innocent memories of their mother.

“Catherine, this is ridiculous.” Lord Sedgehall put down his cutlery on the dinner table later that evening.

“Italy is beautiful in the summertime,” Catherine argued rather desperately. “June would be the perfect time to set off. We could be settled in the hills somewhere before the August heat arrives.”

Her father only looked baffled and exasperated at this explanation. “It’s beyond ridiculous. First, you tell me this afternoon that you have accepted the Duke of Redbridge’s offer, and you even call him by his Christian name. Then, you tell me that you don’t wish to marry this young Hugh, after all, but feel you have no choice. Now, you’re suggesting that I immediately take you and Jemima to Italy despite all our plans for the Season.”

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