Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(14)

Abigail glanced down at her feet. Some rumor or another about her scandalous past would eventually find its way into London drawing rooms. She’d allowed herself to hope, foolishly, that the distance would protect her.

Her uncle was relentless. “Do you aspire to a family?”

Abigail blinked, momentarily taken aback by the unexpectedness of the question. In spite of Alexander’s treachery, she still longed for a family of her own.

“Your silence is your answer, Abigail.”

Geoffrey’s image flitted through her mind. “I’ll not trap a gentleman into marriage.”

Her uncle leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his broad chest. “I’m not asking you to trap a gentleman. You come from noble origins. You are a strong, courageous woman. Not many would brave a long, ocean voyage alone, as you did.”

She managed a smile. “I grew up on the water, Uncle.”

A wistful smile tipped his lips up at the corner. “Yes. I do forget that. My sister lived a whole life without me knowing any part of it.”

The former Duke of Somerset had cut Abigail’s mother, Lady Margaret, out of the fabric of the family as neatly as snipping the thread off a garment. Abigail’s parents had made a life for themselves in America, with Papa ultimately becoming a prosperous, and very successful shipping magnate. Her family had only been welcomed back into the folds of their English family after grandfather had died.

Her uncle spoke, interrupting her ponderings. “Your father asked that I give you this.” He reached into the front pocket of his coat and withdrew a folded parchment emblazoned with her father’s wax seal.

She’d expected it would take more than a month for her family to get word to her across the ocean.

“The ship’s captain carried it over, and your father asked that I pass it to you when I felt you were ready to read the contents of the note.”

Abigail accepted the thick parchment with tremulous fingers. Nearly every day in this foreign land, she’d longed for some word from home. At her most rational times, she realized that their disappointment in her had surely killed all affection. In her most optimistic times, she’d hoped they had forgiven her enough to at least write.

“Thank you, Uncle,” she murmured.

She waited until he took his leave, and then shifted her focus to the letter. Abigail tore into the note with the same enthusiasm she had in tearing into Cook’s confectionary treats.

Her eyes scanned the single sheet of parchment.

My dear daughter,

By this time, you are safely and comfortably settled in London. It is mine and your mother’s greatest wish that you at last find happiness. As much as we’d wished for you to have a marriage based off love, we realize your comfort and happiness requires you to find a suitable gentleman who will properly care for you.

Please understand, my wishes for you stem from the life I myself knew. I hope you can someday understand that.

It was signed simply.

Your Father

Abigail frowned, turning the note over in her hands. Disappointment stabbed at her breast. After sending her away he’d penned a mere…she jabbed her finger at the paper, one, two, three, four, five sentences? She fisted the parchment into a ball, and tossed it on the table in front of her.

Her father, her uncle, and mother, everyone’s greatest concern was her marital state. What she’d done, so very shameful and wrong of a lady, had resulted in her exile. Was that penance not enough that she should now turn her life over to the hands of a gentleman to save her reputation?

As Abigail sat there, she considered the urging of her father and uncle. They wanted her to make a speedy match, and she would honor their wishes in at least entertaining an honorable gentleman’s suit.

Her uncle had been clear—Abigail needed to make a match before word of her scandal found its way to England.

However, Abigail rather feared the only man who'd stirred her interest since she'd arrived in London, was the highly proper Lord Redbrooke.





A gentleman is obligated to make the most advantageous match with a proper, respectable young lady.

4th Viscount Redbrooke





6





Geoffrey tugged back the curtains and peered out at the passing London streets as his mother prattled on and on. Since the carriage had departed his townhouse, bearing them to Lord and Lady Essex’s ball, his mother had filled the silence, it seemed, not taking a moment to so much as breathe. One of the great travesties in honoring ones obligations as a nobleman was the constant barrage of inane amusements a gentleman was forced to attend.

“Attending another ball,” his mother said on a laugh.

After Lord Hughes’s soirée last evening, Geoffrey would be glad to never step foot in another crowded ballroom.

“Which of course can only indicate your interest in making a respectable match…”

He sighed.

“…with a proper lady.”

He’d consider it a very fine day when he was wed, and freed from attending another blasted ball.

Only, a winsome American beauty flitted through his silent musings.

“It is the Lady Beatrice!”

Geoffrey’ flinched as his mother’s high-pitched cry filled the confines of the black lacquer carriage.

He dropped the curtain back into place, and frowned. “Mother, remember yourself.”