Page 59 of A Lady's Beloved Novelist
She chose her words carefully, aware that any one of them could ignite a fury in her father. To anger him would be to end the conversation without any real or productive ending to it.
“And you believe all that was told today by the two ‘gossipers’ of this estate?”
Andrea had not realised that her father knew of the two widow’s reputations. She had assumed he was above all of that, but she was now seeing how ridiculous that assumption had been. Of course, he knew who was staying on his estate, and of course, he knew of their reputations.
“It matches up with my own experience of Sir Cecil,” Andrea said.
“I feel that we should take these allegations into account,” her mother added. “It would be good to investigate some of these claims. Even if they are not all true, the fact that people are saying things like this to begin with is not exactly a good sign now, is it?”
Andrea was going to make sure she thanked her mother once they were out of the tense room because she was helping her case much more than she had been anticipating.
“Not you too,” her father groaned. “You women love to believe any gossip that is floating around, do you not?”
Andrea saw her mother roll her eyes and shake her head at his words.
“I am simply saying that we should exercise some caution. If we are to join ourselves to this family, we should at least make sure that we know what we are getting ourselves in for,” her mother continued.
“And what if the answer to that is that we should cut ties with them? We will then have a daughter who is one step closer to becoming a spinster. I am still not convinced that this is not just some elaborate plan for Andrea to not have to marry anyone.”
She could recognise the tone in her father, and she knew that they were slowly edging closer to the point of no return. His voice would reach a certain tone and then he would be unreachable to reason with.
“Father, it is not often that I come to you with such requests. But I am begging you to reconsider this,” Andrea spoke up after a heavy silence. “I really cannot go through with this marriage. I promise you that I will be married, but it cannot be to this pretence of a man.”
But it appeared that she had got her timing wrong. He was already unreachable, and so she was going to have to try again another time.
“I will not hear this,” he said and rose to his feet. “I want to talk to you about bringing the date of the wedding forward, not cancelling it altogether.”
Andrea cringed at his words. She could not think of anything she could want any less in the world than to be married to Cecil even sooner than was already confirmed. She did not dare to respond to him as he crossed the room and closed the door firmly behind him. It was not a slam, but it was still a forceful enough gesture to prove that he was not in a reasoning mood.
“This is all my fault,” Andrea admitted. She let her shoulders sag in defeat as soon as he was gone.
“You could not have known that Sir Cecil would be this way,” her mother said in an effort to try and soothe her pain.
“I was angry at James, I thought he had just stopped responding to me and was not going to give me a reason why. I thought he did not like me anymore. With his friend being so similar to him in the beginning, I thought…oh I have messed up so terribly!”
Her mother was quick to embrace her. Though they were standing, she still rocked her as though she were a babe once more.
“Men are good with their trickery, though it is something they credit a lot of women for. Sometimes men can play pretence right under your nose and you would be none the wiser. I do not think a man like Cecil would get very far if he was not a good liar. But he is. He is perhaps the best liar that I have ever seen. I fear that we have all become caught up in this web of lies, even your father.”
“Then what do we do?” Andrea asked. “It is hopeless if Father will have me marry him anyway.”
“I will try to talk some sense into him. You know that he just wants to see you married at the end of the day. He wants to close that channel of stress and focus on other things.”
All the years where Andrea had successfully managed to avoid suitors and courting and dates for arranged marriages, never had she ever anticipated it would come down to this. It felt as though all her hard efforts had been in vain if this was who she was going to end up married to in the end anyway.
“I just wish that he had been a little more understanding,” Andrea said followed by a heavy sigh. “I wish that he could step into my shoes and realise the unhappiness he would be condemning me to if he lets this all go through.”
“I can only try to talk to him,” her mother said. “But I will tell him this. He does care for your happiness, even if that is always not as apparent as one may want.”
Andrea found that she was just frustrated by the entire thing. Even when the evidence was so clear to her father, he was still willing to cast it all aside just so that he could get his daughter’s wedding over and done with.
“I will certainly not be bringing the wedding forward,” Andrea added quickly. Her admission caused her mother to chuckle despite the dark circumstances.
“I am fully behind you with that now. I understand that you had your reservations, to begin with. There was a reason that you put the wedding so far in advance, and I believe it was for a situation like this one. What we need right now is time to convince your father, time to prove that Cecil is the man that the rumours say he is.”
Andrea was in agreement with her mother, and she nodded her head along with her words. She was eager to do anything that would prove to her father that Cecil was not the man that he presented himself as.
“We need real evidence,” Andrea added. “Something that we can show Father. He does not care for hearsay or stories from the people in town. He wants to see the facts.”
