Page 54 of What a Scot Wants
Rising slowly, Imogen took the box between her thumb and forefinger and climbed the stairs to her chamber. She wanted to send the thing back to Silas, but she also did not want to provoke him into reacting. The other option was to throw it away, but Rory was right. The pearls were valuable, and Imogen had long learned the value of a pound. She would simply not respond to the gift or its sender and instead put the necklace to the best use.
She handed the box to Hilda. “Hide this. See if you can find a buyer, what we can get for it, and then we’ll donate the money to children in need.”
“Is that fromhim?” Hilda said, her mouth twisting when Imogen nodded. There was no need to explain. “A pox on that pig.”
“The pox is too good for him,” Imogen said bitterly.
“Well then, I pray he gets…he gets…cholera!”
Imogen shrugged. “If only God would listen—though men like him seem to escape more often than they are punished, and women like Belinda are forced to pay the price for their crimes.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” Hilda swore.
“If he does, it’s nearly eleven years late.”
Imogen put the necklace and Silas from her mind and got ready for her afternoon with her mother. As much as she would have liked to postpone the shopping trip, she knew it would only invite more questions. And another part of her didn’t want Silas to win by making her cower and hide. Or worse.
Because itcouldget worse.
Imogen swallowed as she recalled the gossip surrounding the Marquess of Paxton’s daughter, Lady Beatrice. It’d been by chance that she’d learned of it, when she’d overheard her father speaking to her mother over a brandy one evening. She’d caught the name Silas on her way to her father’s study before dinner and had stopped to listen. Even at eighteen, the name had made her blood turn to ice and the dread rise up from where she’d buried it deep.
“Silas is courting a girl, his letter says,” her father had said. “Paxton’s daughter is a beauty by all accounts.”
Imogen had felt her lungs burn. Was Silas keeping in touch with her father after all he’d done? What kind of lies had he been feeding him about leaving Edinburgh? Andwhowas Paxton’s girl? Her stomach had dropped at her mother’s words.
“Isn’t she rather young?” her mother had asked.
“She’s not quite of age, but I expect he plans for an extended betrothal. He’s not a complete scapegrace, my dear. Silas has made quite a name for himself in London. It’s a pity we lost him here, but I suppose caring for an ailing aunt was reason enough to leave.”
Imogen had wanted to scream the truth to the rafters, that theydidn’tknow the monster they called son and friend, but she’d done nothing. Said nothing. The lying bounder had no ailing aunt. He’d been run out of Scotland by McClintock’s men.
But the thought of another young woman being in Silas’s power had struck a chord of fear into her heart. A man like Silas wouldn’t wait. She’d even thought of writing to the young lady, but she hadn’t. The risk of exposure with her own parents had been too great.
The guilt consumed Imogen even now. She hadn’t said or done anything, and instead she’d scoured the newssheets for announcements of Silas’s betrothal. What had come next had shocked her to the core. It hadn’t been a betrothal announcement for Lady Beatrice, but an obituary. The girl had drowned in the Thames. Though nothing untoward had been said about the manner of the girl’s death, Imogen had suspected the worst. If Lady Beatrice had somehow discovered his true character, marriage to a man like Silas would have been a fate worse than death. In the girl’s place, she might have done the same.
And now, the fact that he claimed to want her back sickened her. She needed to get Silas out of her life, once and for all.
As Hilda was putting the finishing touches on her ensemble and hair, a knock came at the door.
“Lady Imogen,” a maid said. “Lady Kincaid is waiting in the morning salon.”
“Thank you.”
The next few hours passed in a blur as she accompanied her mother and Hilda to a dozen shops on Bond Street, letting the mindless activity soothe her churning brain. She nodded to questions, willing to let her mother make the decisions on color, style, cut, and fabric. The wedding was most likely not going to happen anyway, and if it did, Imogen wouldn’t care either way what she was wearing or how many layers of lace and tulle the dress had. Or whether she needed a dozen more day dresses and twice as many evening gowns. If Lady Kincaid noticed her preoccupation and monosyllabic answers, she did not comment on them.
When they finally stopped to have a lavender ice at Gunter’s Tea Shop, Imogen was grateful for the chance to sit in peace and quiet.
“Are you well, darling?” Lady Kincaid asked.
Imogen forced a smile to her face. “Yes, Mama.”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed your distraction all afternoon.” She spooned up some of her ice. “I assume you were thinking of your fiancé.”
She could see the worry on her mother’s face. The woman knew her too well, after all, and Imogen didn’t want to lie. She cleared her throat. “I’d rather not pretend when it’s just the two of us. Surely you can see that Dunrannoch and I are not at all suited. I know Papa is delighted with the match, but tell me the truth. What do you think?”
“Most aristocratic marriages are made between strangers, dear.”
“Yours and Papa’s wasn’t. You fell in love. Don’t you think I deserve that as well? To marry a husband who loves me?”
