Page 12 of Captured By the Cold Duke
“Tell him what?” Aidan interrupted. “That there was another reason you were there? The real reason, perhaps? Would that be less scandalous?”
“No,” Lady Cherie said, reddening. “I thought perhaps you could incentivize him to keep quiet.”
Aidan sat back in his chair and gave her a hard look. “I won’t threaten the man.”
“I don’t mean threaten,” she said quickly. “You could offer him something…”
“Cherie, you don’t understand how real life works,” Aidan said, shaking his head. “Coming to Lord Breckenridge with some kind of bargain is risky. He might take it, but what if he doesn’t? My trying to shush things up could only make it more scandalous. He might feel that he is being threatened.”
“And he has probably already told people,” Thomas said. “There have been mutterings at my club.” He swallowed. He hadn’t wanted to have to tell Lady Cherie this. “Several gentlemen have asked me if we are courting. Which means they’ve heard something, if not the whole truth.”
Lady Cherie’s silvery eyes began to brim over with tears, and she turned helplessly to her brother.
“There must be something we can do!”
“There is!” Thomas answered for him. “You can marry me! Is that really so bad a fate?”
Lady Cherie looked at him, and Thomas felt the strong urge to reach out and take her hand. But then his father’s words filled his head,Not good enough, and he hardened his gaze.
“I suppose it is,” he snapped, and stood. “But I should warn you, this is the last time I will make this offer. After today, I will rescind it. I cannot keep trying to get you to see reason, Lady Cherie, when you are so stubbornly refusing to. Just know that it won’t be my reputation that is permanently scarred. Mine will suffer, but it will be yours that is impossible to salvage.”
He knew the words he was saying were cruel, but he couldn’t help it. It was too much to hear, from the lady, what he already knew to be true: that he was unworthy of her.
“He’s not wrong, you know,” her brother said after the duke was gone, and Cherie turned back around to face him. His expression was grave but sympathetic, and now that they were alone, she finally let the tears run down her cheeks. “If you do not marry, it will hurt you both, but only you will be permanently tainted. He will continue to lead his life with relative ease.”
“It’s so unfair,” Cherie whispered.
“I know,” Aidan agreed. He sighed heavily. “And I’m very sorry about all of this, Cherie. It’s my fault, really.”
“No, it’s not!” Cherie protested. “It’s Charles’s, for trying to force me to marry Lord Rochford.”
Aidan’s expression clouded, and his hand balled into a fist on the desk. “Well, yes, and he will answer for that. But I should have been here to protect you. I should have known Charles was untrustworthy.”
“It’s not your fault,” Cherie repeated, shaking her head. “It all became a mess so quickly. My friends tried to help, but they couldn’t have predicted this would happen. No one could have!”
Aidan hesitated, then folded his hands on the desk. “About your friends… have you thought what it would do to them should you become embroiled in scandal? I know they will stick by you. They are brave and loyal ladies. But if you were to be ostracized from the ton, they would be as well. Especially if they didn’t denounce you.”
Cherie gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth. She hadn’t thought about this. In her panic, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that her friends would be negatively impacted by the choice not to marry the duke.
She lowered her hand and blinked up at her brother.
“Thomas would be a good husband,” Aidan continued more gently. “He is a good man. Far better than the Earl of Rochford. Perhaps he has become more severe since inheriting his title, but I have known him for many years, and I know that his heart is in the right place. He would be loyal to you; generous; kind.”
“But I promised Mama,” she said. “I promised her I’d marry for love.”
Aidan sighed again. “Mama is dead, Cherie. And even if she were alive, she would tell you to marry the duke. She would want to protect you. As do I. As do your friends. And as does Wheaton, which is a credit to him.”
Silence filled the room. Somewhere else in the house, Cherie could hear her friends laughing. They had reached the end of the road, she knew. There was nothing else she could do.
Very slowly, she nodded. Her brother was right. She had to marry the Duke of Wheaton.
Five
“Are you ready to get married?” Cassandra asked, peering at Cherie underneath her veil.
Cherie, who was looking at herself in the looking glass above her vanity, just gritted her teeth. “Is a lady ever ready?” she asked grimly.
“Perhaps if she has the love match of her dreams,” Samantha said, from where she stood in the window, looking out over the London streets. “But even then, I think ladies are nervous before their weddings. After all, they are the ones that have everything to lose in a marriage.”
