Page 46 of A Fake Courtship with the Duke
Susan beamed at her, embracing her tightly.
“It doesn’t matter that the two of you started out pretending to court,” she said. “Sometimes, love forms under the oddest of circumstance. There’s no reason why a relationship that began as a ruse can’t develop into something real, something that leadsto a happy, shared life where the both of you truly love each other.”
Susan’s words were meant to offer comfort, and perhaps, they would have. But Anne’s focus was suddenly disrupted by a rustling from the hedges. Her heart raced, and she felt a prickling of unease. Had a conversation that was meant to remain private been overheard? The very thought sent a shiver down her spine and intensified her already heightened emotions.
Anne’s eyes darted towards the source of the disturbance, which at first was nothing but more of the rustling that had startled her. Susan and she exchanged puzzled glances, and for a moment, Anne thought she had been frightened by a bird or a squirrel. She was just getting ready to laugh at herself when a different noise came from behind the bush that was moving. A moment later, the world fell out from beneath Anne, and she wished that oblivion would swallow her whole.
“Well, well,” Sebastian Gray said, his face appearing around the corner with the most sinister of smiles spreading across it. “This is the juiciest gossip yet. I can’t wait to tell everyone here. And you can believe that I’m going to do just that.”
Anne wanted to move, but she was frozen with fear and shame. She knew Sebastian meant what he said. And the second he told everyone, both the duke and she would be ruined in society. What was she to do?
Chapter Twenty-four: Richard
Richard found it physically painful to pull himself away from Miss Huxley after their dance had ended. So much so that, as soon as he had spoken with his sister to see if she was enjoying her birthday, he set out in search of her. The feelings he had for her were far surpassing those of the nature of their relationship. And he didn’t care. The only time anything made any sense to him was when Miss Huxley was by his side.
He was aware of the implications and complexity of his thoughts. After all, at first, the ruse had been merely a way to divert gossip and scandal, to protect Miss Huxley’s future, as well as his own. Yet, as the night wore on at Vauxhall Gardens, the magic of the night continued to weave a secret spell on Richard. Every beat of his heart seemed to call out to hers, and with every step he took was a cry from his soul to hear her voice.What is happening to me?
It took him a few minutes to clue into the stares and whispers pointed in his direction as he searched for Miss Huxley. He had grown so accustomed to the sneers and rumors that he hardly paid them any heed lately. But something had changed. Now, the whispers grew louder, and the glances cast his way had turned accusatory, laden with judgment. It was as if he had just done some terrible thing for the world to see, and everyone had already labeled him some kind of monster. Every muted conversation he overheard, and every sly smirk his eyes caught deepened his apprehension.
Momentarily distracted, Richard headed toward the center of the rotunda, where the majority of people seemed to be gathered. Something must have happened, and perhaps, if he uncovered what it was, he might find Miss Huxley, or at least figure out where she had gone. But as he made his way through the crowd, his blood froze in his veins, and it was with sheer willpower alone that he was able to keep his feet moving.
“How pathetic you must be to fake a courtship,” one woman said to Richard’s left. He glanced over to see the woman giving him a look of disgust mixed with smugness.
“And I thought he was such a respectable man,” said another woman who Richard vaguely recognized. She was a young lady he had rejected during the previous London Season, and her eyes were ablaze with judgment and distaste. Richard looked away quickly, his heart leaping into his throat. How had thisnews been discovered? Who could have known? And who could have spread the word in a mere matter of minutes?
Scanning the sea of faces, Richard looked frantically for Miss Huxley. If she were still anywhere nearby, there was no telling what torture she was experiencing. His gaze first caught sight of two women in the distance, and his stomach churned. Their self-satisfied expressions filled Richard with cold certainty that they were the instigators of this chaos. But that still didn’t explain how they had heard in the first place. There wasn’t a chance that Miss Huxley herself would have told them. Was there?
The puzzle pieces began to fall into place when he spotted Sebastian Gray. Richard wanted to march up to him and demand answers, but the full gravity of the situation settled upon Richard at last. Everyone knew about their little ruse. Everyone including the very people they had sought to avoid marrying. And now, the news had created a scandal the likes of which they could likely never escape. His heart dropped back where it belonged, but it was beating fiercely against his ribs as though it meant to break them. They were caught, and there was no denying it.
Memories flooded Richard’s mind of the past few days. He recalled the very moment his sister had mentioned her crazy plan to fake a courtship to him, as well as how quickly he had agreed when he had seen Miss Huxley sobbing her heart out in their parlor the following day. He thought about the feisty determination he had seen in her eyes as she blatantly ignored the whispers each time they were out in public together. He thought about their shared dances, the things he experienced when their hands touched, and the thoughts he had just been having, about how he needed to find her so that he could feel whole again.
And suddenly, as he stood in the midst of the Vauxhall Gardens, under the haughty, disdainful gazes of a society whospent more time shunning people than tending to their own messes, he faced an undeniable truth. He had fallen for Miss Huxley. And not just as part of their charade, but for real, and irreversibly. It was a truth he could no longer deny, one which threatened to consume and liberate him all at once. He was in love with her. And now, the beautiful bond they had created was being destroyed by the toxin that was the opinion of the ton.
Amidst the fresh, disdainful buzzing of the Vauxhall Gardens patrons, Richard was abruptly pulled from his thoughts as he saw Thomas approach. But Thomas’s usually jovial face was twisted into a seriousness that was almost eerie on his kind face and filled Richard with abject dread. Even without words, he sensed that Thomas had heard the rampant gossip that now swirled through the rotunda like a cyclone over his pretend courtship with Miss Huxley.
“Are you all right?” Thomas asked, his voice so low that Richard barely heard him with all the noise around them.
Richard gave Thomas a pointed look to convey that he was not.
“Where is she?” he asked, praying that Thomas had seen Miss Huxley.
Thomas shrugged, glancing around briefly before looking back at Richard.
“It seems that everyone knows,” he said, raising his eyebrows to convey his unspoken message to Richard.
Richard sighed. He had been sure that was what he’d heard people saying. But some foolish part of him had hoped he had simply misheard or was imagining things because of his own turmoil over the matter.
“I feared as much,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “It wasn’t received well.”
Thomas snorted, but it lacked any humor.
“On the contrary, my friend,” he said. “And that’s the trouble. Everyone seems rather pleased with such news. These people are true vultures, and they are reveling in light of it all.”
Richard appreciated that Thomas never said aloud what it was they were discussing. But it was clear that it no longer mattered. Everyone certainly knew about his secret with Miss Huxley. What he didn’t know was what rumors might stem from such new leaking. He also didn’t know how Sebastian Gray could have gotten the information in the first place.
“How could he know?” Richard murmured, not meaning to voice the question aloud, but earning a head shake from Thomas, nonetheless.
“I don’t suspect that Miss Huxley told him herself,” he said. “My guess is that he either bluffed her and she gave him cause to think he was right, or he overheard her talking to someone, like Susan or her maid, about it, and ran with his little morsel of gossip.”
