Page 14 of The Viscount's Diamond Bride
“I believe you’ll find that you have, my girl,” Mrs. Winter said sharply. “And atmyhouse, no less. Oh, Bless my soul, here is Lord and Lady Farendale. You must not pass back through the ballroom, Lady Ursula. It’ll cause more of a scandal than is already inevitable.”
Ursula glanced desperately from face to face, longing for somebody to show her even a little bit of sympathy. Charlotte would not meet her eye. Mr. Winter was staring above her head,with a mildly disgusted expression on his face. Mrs. Winter was staring her with open contempt.
Georgie’s face was harder to read. Shelookedappalled, but Ursula could not understand what had gone wrong. If Georgie knew that Ursula was being attacked and how could she have known it? Why cause a scene? Why not simply enlist a discreet friend, like Charlotte, to help?
“Did you find your dance card, Georgie?” Ursula heard herself say aloud.
Reddening slightly, her cousin glanced away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ursula. Do you feel faint? Perhaps you ought to sit down.”
Voices drifted across the green again, and Ursula glanced over to see her parents hurrying towards her, their faces deathly pale in the moonlight.
Mrs. Sanderson-Peters and Mrs. Jest followed, naturally, along with a little cluster of other gawkers. Ursula closed her eyes in despair.
This is it, then. I am ruined. It’s all over. Nobody will have me in their houses. No eligible men will wed me. I am… I am ruined.
We all are.
Mama reached the pitiful little scene first, gasping for breath. She glanced around at the silent spectators, pausingto glare balefully at Lord Sinclair, then tossed a shawl around Ursula’s shoulders.
“What have you done?” she hissed, her voice trembling with fear and rage. “You foolish, foolish girl!”
“I believe it would be best for Lady Ursula to return home,” Mrs. Winter said coolly. “Perhaps she has overindulged in champagne.”
Ursula, who had not touched a sip of alcohol, felt all the keenness of this insult. There was no time to reply, however, because at that moment Papa reached her. Grabbing her wrist, he turned on his heel and dragged her away without another word.
Chapter Five
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.” – Othello,Shakespeare
The Following Morning
“Diamond Falls from Grace,” Papa read aloud, his voice thundering through the otherwise silent drawing room. “Lady Ursula Caught In Scandalous Tryst.Appalling Scene at the Winter Ball.These are just some of the titles I have read in the newspapers and scandal sheets this morning, Ursula. Some are even more unsavoury than this. Caricatures have been drawn depicting the scene, not that I would sully my eyes with looking at them. London can talk of nothing but your disgrace. Do you have any idea what you have done?”
Ursula stood in the centre of the drawing room; her hands folded in front of herself. She had not been invited to sit. Mama sat on a sofa, her back ramrod straight and her gaze fixed ahead of herself. She did not speak.
There was a silence going through the house, almost as if somebody had died and the whole place had been plunged into mourning.
In a way, I suppose it has,Ursula thought dully.We are mourning my honour and my reputation.
My future.
Every single one of the popular scandal sheets and newspapers had reported on the matter. Some details were exaggerated or just merely wrong, but the facts were all the same. Ursula, the Diamond of the Season, was found dishevelled, with torn clothes, alone in a secluded tree glade with Lord Sinclair and the unconscious Sir Roderick Black, London’s most notorious rake.
Simply conversing with the man would be enough to shed doubt on a woman’s reputation. Being alone with him under any circumstances might ruin her. But being alone with him, with her clothes torn and her hair falling down, in a dark forest? Oh, there would be no recovery from this. It was all over.
Not a single bouquet of flowers or calling card had arrived today. Not even Charlotte had written a note, although Ursula was desperate to believe that it was Charlotte’s parents who had prevented her, and that her friend had not turned her back on her.
Papa snatched up a handful of the newspapers, dashing them into the fireplace in a fury. There was a fire there, but it was a frail one, and the pile of newspapers quickly put it out. Smoke began to seep into the room.
“You areruined, Ursula, ruined!” he bellowed. “Nobody will take you now. See, here, this column speculates which womanLord Ashford will move onto next. And I can assure you that hewillmove on. He’ll never take you now, not in a thousand years!”
Ursula opened her mouth, desperate to say something,anything, in her own defence.
Nothing came to mind. There was nothingtosay. Shewasruined. She would not be invited to any more parties. The invitations she had already accepted would be hastily and clumsily rescinded – Mama had received several notes that very morning to that effect. She would receive no visitors, and if she tried to pay calls on anybody, they would be conveniently ‘not at home’.
It's over. My first Season has barely begun and already it is over. My glittering future has vanished, just likethat.
