Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(75)

“Did you hear me?” Addie called out again. “I asked why I couldn’t go to—”

“Because you can’t,” Hermione said for the tenth time that morning, and surely the fiftieth time since she’d informed Addie three days ago she would not be allowed to attend the hastily thrown together ceremony in the Duke of Mallen’s townhouse.

Addie pouted. “But now I’ll never see a wedding.” She hung her legs over the side of Hermione’s bed and kicked them back and forth in a distracted manner. “Hugh has already said I will never find a husband and that Elizabeth can never marry.” She stopped swinging her legs. “If I don’t attend at least your wedding, then I’ll never see one.”

Hermione turned to face her sister, managing her first smile in three days. “You’ll find a husband.” A small smile. But a smile, nonetheless for her sister’s grand flourish for the theatrics. In marrying Sebastian, Addie would have everything she deserved in life.

That should bring her some solace. Only, it didn’t. A swell of emotion clogged her throat. She’d sacrificed Sebastian’s happiness for the well-being of her sisters and brother. Her siblings would at last be protected and she? Her heart spasmed. Well, she’d lost the right to happiness.

Her sister hopped off the bed and skipped over. She tugged at Hermione’s arm, pulling her back from her despondent musings. “Do you love him?”

She managed a jerky nod as her throat worked. With everything I am. I do.

“Does he love you?”

A sob caught in her throat. She covered her lips in an attempt to disguise it as a cough. Perhaps he had. Once. But never again. The truth of that nearly cleaved her in two.

Alas, her sister was far more mature than most eleven-year-olds. Four lines of worry creased the girl’s brow. “Why aren’t you happy?”

Pain dug at her heart. “I did something bad, poppet,” she whispered. Something unforgivable.

Addie scratched her head. “To your duke.”

He’d never been hers. I was going to offer for you, madam…

Except, he almost had been. He’d almost cared enough, respected her enough to make a formal offer for her. In spite of her family’s lesser rank, when dukes married the daughters of other dukes and much more higher titled ladies than a mere baronet’s daughter, he would have wed her. A bitter laugh bubbled up past her lips. Instead, she’d forced his hand and in doing so had killed any affection he might have held for her.

Addie rocked back and forth on her feet. “Are you all right, Hermione?” Her lower lip trembled. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Fine, poppet.” Hermione sucked in a shuddery breath. “I’m just fine,” she lied and mustered a smile. She’d never be fine again.

Some of the tension went out of her sister’s plump cheeks. “What did you do?”

She couldn’t simply acknowledge to an inquisitive child that she’d done something wrong and expect the girl to let the matter rest. “I’d rather not discuss it, love.” The wrongs she’d committed were so great that Hermione could never dare sully her sister’s innocence with the truth.

Addie tugged her by the hand and pulled her over to the bed. She put her palms on Hermione’s shoulders and shoved her down. Hermione grunted as she landed on the mattress. Her sister planted herself in front of her path of escape. “Out with it.” Addie stared, an expectant look on her chubby face.

Hermione pressed her fingers to her temples. The girl’s innocence a paradox of her own mature darkness was too much. She shifted her gaze to the opened book atop her small desk. “Do you remember reading The Entrapped Earl,” she began, speaking in the only terms that might make sense to a young girl.

Addie nodded. “The earl fell hopelessly in love with a young lady after one meeting.”

Hermione nodded, and then reached for the volume. “But she wanted more.”

Her sister slid onto the spot alongside Hermione. The bed dipped under the slight addition of her weight. She wrinkled her nose. “She wanted money,” she said with a staggering maturity.

Is that how her sister and other readers had taken the heroine, Lady Louisa’s actions? Hermione frowned. “No,” she said slowly. “She wanted security.”

“Aren’t they the same?” Addie gave her a questioning look. She held her hands up on either side of her, mentally weighing each item she ticked off. “We have Partridge and servants and mayhap not new books, but we have old books and all of that is because of money. Are you sure they aren’t the same?”

“No.” Addie gave her a pointed look. “Yes. Well, perhaps a bit,” she said a touch defensively. She’d not wanted security for herself. She’d wanted it for those she loved. You wanted money, a voice jeered. She made an impatient sound and surged to her feet. I wanted him. “Regardless, he loved her…” And the security that would come in being wed to him. “And Lady Louisa loved him, but she needed him for security and…” And she’d robbed him of choice. Where was the love in that? Oh, God.

“Money,” Addie repeated, pressing the knife of guilt deeper. “She wanted money.” She hopped to her feet. “The earl could not ever truly love a woman who’d wed him for that reason.”