Unconventional Suitors 02 - Her Unconventional Hero (12 page)

“It’s a long story,” he sighed, unwilling to divulge the details.

“You probably deserved it,” she snapped at him.

“You are correct.”

“You do have a penchant for doing foolish things. How could you, Griffin?” she asked him once more. He was still as confused by her question the second time around.

He stepped forward and reached for her, hoping to soften her anger, but she shook her head vehemently and stepped away. “I don’t understand you.”

Griffin threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Blast it all, woman. Quit skirting around the issue and tell me what I have done to cause your anger. I am at a total loss as to what I did wrong, and your vagueness is not helping matters.”

“Why did you ask me to marry you?” she enunciated each word slowly as if he were a half-wit.

Rubbing his hands over his face, he sighed irritably. “I thought we had moved on from that, that we had agreed to be friends. Why the sudden anger now?”

“You don’t love me.”

His heart softened at her admission. “Sweetheart, is that what this is all about? Do you want a declaration of love from me? If I confess that I love you, will you accept my proposal?”

Her face softened for the briefest of moments before she quickly shook it off. Stalking towards him, she waved her finger angrily at him. “Your sister is the most miserable person I have ever met. Her marriage is unhappy, to say the least, and she has given up all hope of ever being loved. She told me just today how she is always warning you to marry for love, lest you end up in a situation similar to hers. Are you blind to her misery? Do you not see the pain she is forced to endure in her loveless marriage? Why do you wish that same fate upon yourself?”

“Are you comparing yourself to her husband? Do you think a union between us would result in the same misery and abuse? I am positive that you would never be as heartless as Lord Moncreif, and I assure you that I would never treat you the way that he treats my sister. Never. Do you believe that I would?”

Griffin was relieved when her anger momentarily abated. “No, I do not believe that of you. But you would be cheating yourself to marry without love. Why would you do that, why would you thwart your own chance for happiness, and mine?”

Griffin wasn’t sure how to answer her. He stalked past her, his back rigid as he stared out the window without seeing a blasted thing before him. Should he tell her the truth?

He struggled internally as he weighed the decision to tell Lady Adel the truth or not. It surprised him how intensely he desired to be honest with her, but it scared him to think that once she learned the truth she might hate him forever.

Turning from the window he met her eyes, though he didn’t draw closer. “I’m a horrible person,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I hope you can forgive what I am about to tell you, for it does not cast me in the best light.” Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to continue, knowing if he didn’t he’d lose his courage completely. “I proposed to you because I lost a bet.”

Adel felt her knees beginning to buckle at his admission. Thankfully she was close to the chair, which she promptly fell into. “You proposed to me because you lost a bet?” she asked, her voice shaking with unbelief.

Griffin cringed at the sadness behind her words. He took large steps to come before her, dropping to his knees in front of her as he clasped her hands. She flinched at his touch and tried to pull away but he held her firm. “Please hear me out. I feel as if I owe it to you to reveal everything.”

He took her silence as approval to continue. “When Benedict, whom you know as Lord Danford, returned to England I issued him a wager, merely for amusement purposes. Lord Dawkins, Mr. Graham, and I thought it would be highly entertaining to watch him parade around society disguised as an unfashionable buffoon. To make the wager even more diverting, we told him that he would have to get the lady of our choosing to fall in love with him and agree to wed him by the seasons end. We picked Lady Gillian, hoping that he would never be able to woo a diamond of the first water.”

Adel swallowed down her disgust as she listened to his words. “Lord Danford made a cake of himself at your request? Does his wife know that she was only the object of a bet, nothing more?”

“She knows everything now. But despite their obstacles, and our efforts to prevent it, the two truly did fall in love, utterly and completely.”

“I just cannot believe what I am hearing. Why would you do that to your friend? I do not find it amusing in the least that you would challenge a good friend to play with a lady’s heart in such a spiteful way. And why would you do that to me?”

Griffin had to look away from her face, feeling like the worst sort of cad. Looking down at their hands laying atop her skirts he said, “Warren, Marcus, and I lost the bet. Benedict and Gillian fell in love despite his appearance. When we issued the bet, Benedict made us agree to one stipulation—that if he won, he would be allowed to choose our wives in return.”

A strangled gasp escaped Adel’s throat. She pulled her hands angrily from his and this time he released them. Griffin gasped in surprise as her hand met his cheek with a resounding thwack. He knew he deserved it, but that didn’t take away the sting.

“Lord Danford chose me to be your wife,” she stated rather than asked. “I have been nothing more to you than a pawn in your sick game. Tell me, is my name listed in the betting books at White’s? Is every so called gentleman of the
ton
anxiously awaiting the results so they can collect? You have made a fool of me.”

“Adel, please. It’s not like that, I promise. No one is aware of it besides Benedict, Marcus, Warren and I.
“And Lady Danford?” she spat at him, her eyes scrunched together in angry slits.

“And Lady Danford,” he reluctantly admitted. “But it will not go any further than that, I assure you.”

“That’s where you are wrong, my lord, so completely and foolishly wrong.” She no longer spoke in the sad, shaky voice that had threatened to break his heart; instead her words were cold and calculated.

“What do you mean?” he asked with trepidation.

“Lord Straton, I too have secrets of my own. Have you ever read Mrs. Tiddlyswan’s gossip column in
The Morning Post
?”

Griffin startled, “Yes, but what does that have to do with any of this?”

Her back straightened, her chin tilted defiantly, and her eyes flashed with a hatred that seared his soul. “I am Mrs. Tiddlyswan. I have been penning that column since the season began. You can mark my words that I will be using it to expose your sly, underhanded ways. By the time I am done with you, you will feel even more foolish than I do right now.”

Griffin reeled back in shock. “No, that can’t be true.”

“I assure you that it is.”

“You were the one who wrote about Benedict’s guffaws? The one who exposed Lady Grace for blackmailing Lord Crestin?” Adel nodded. “How could you do that?”

Pushing him away, she rose from her chair, looking down at him as she hissed, “I suppose it’s no more heartless than what you have done, now is it?”

He looked at her stunned, still reeling from her admission and startled by her cold, unfeeling demeanor.

“Do not bother removing yourself from the floor. I will see myself out.”

“Adel, wait,” he called after her, making to rise. “Please, let’s not part like this.” But by the time he had risen and made his way to the door, she was already climbing into her carriage, not even bothering him a glance as he called after her.

Adel pulled the curtains closed the minute she got into the carriage, her anger giving away to humiliated tears as she thought back to the tender feelings she had begun to harbor for Lord Straton, but that was over now. Their friendship was ruined, and the thought of showing her face in society only deepened her humiliation. Had Lord Straton’s friends been watching her the last several weeks, laughing at his pathetic attempts to court her? And what of Lady Danford? She had thought her a friend of sorts, never once suspecting that she could have ulterior motives behind her politeness. Adel felt betrayed.

It took her several minutes to compose herself enough to alight from the carriage and enter the townhouse once she had arrived home. She said a silent prayer of gratitude when she learned that Aunt Tabitha and Katherine were not yet back from their shopping excursion.

She hurried to her room and quickly dismissed her maid after letting her take her pelisse and bonnet, even going as far as to lock the door behind her to assure her privacy. Sitting down at her writing desk she noticed a blank white envelope. She broke the seal and slid her payment from the envelope before walking to the fireplace and throwing the letter into the low burning flames without even reading the note from Mr. Bell.

Returning to her desk, she took out a piece of parchment and wrote:

Rose,

I wanted to apologize for leaving without saying goodbye in person. Something unexpected has come up and I must return to Kent for a time. I wanted you to have this money and to know that I wish you the best. I will forever remember you and pray that one day your happiness will be realized.

Lady Adel

Adel took her final payment from Mr. Bell and combined it with the remainder of her pin money, stuffing the contents into the envelope before sealing it. By the time Rose received it, she would be long gone from London.

She rested her elbows on her desk and propped her head in her hands. She felt weary from the crying and from the anger, but more than anything, her heart was breaking. She thought back to the tender kisses she and Griffin had exchanged and her heart literally ached. He had been an expert at the game he had been playing with her, drawing her in with the conversations about his mother and tricking her with his kisses. She had felt something stir within in her breast, her very soul, as he had pressed his lips to hers. Had he not felt it too?

Adel groaned. It would do her well not to contemplate such things, for it only served to make her more miserable.

She had no idea how long she sat with her head in her hands until footsteps in the hall alerted her that Katherine must be home. She stood, walking to her looking glass to glance at her appearance. She looked nearly as wretched as she felt, but perhaps that would work to her advantage. Taking a steadying breath, she turned the key in her lock and left her room.

She didn’t have long to gather her courage before finding Aunt Tabitha and Katherine in Katherine’s bedchamber, instructing the servants where to place several hatboxes. It appeared as if their shopping trip had been quite successful.

Amidst the hustle and bustle, no one noticed her as she entered the room. She waited patiently for the servants to finish up their tasks and leave before making her presence known. “Aunt Tabitha, I need to speak with you.”

Aunt Tabitha and Katherine turned to look at her, surprised by the intrusion. “My dear child, you gave me a fright,” Aunt Tabitha laughed as she put one hand over her heart. Stepping closer, she eyed Adel shrewdly. “Whatever is wrong? You do not look well.”

Katherine rushed to her side, taking her hand in hers. “Adel, whatever is the matter?”

Their concern made her emotional. Swallowing beyond the lump that was forming in her throat she managed to squeak out, “I am not feeling well. I have been doing some thinking, and I wish to return home.”

“Oh bother,” Aunt Tabitha felt her forehead, then her cheeks. “Shall I send for the physician?”

Adel shook her hands away. “No, that will not be necessary. I fear that part of my problem is that I am missing mother so much, and father. I just want to go home and see him.” Her voice broke on the last part.

Katherine gathered her into her arms. “Dearest sister, I thought that you were doing better. You have not been coming to my chambers in the wee hours of morning, so I had very much hoped that that meant you were sleeping better.”

It was true, she had been for a time, but she knew she wouldn’t be now. “I want to go home,” she pleaded with Katherine, hoping she would understand.

“I have an idea,” Aunt Tabitha interrupted. “Why don’t we send a missive to your father summoning him to come to Town for the remainder of the Season. Surely he would be delighted to see you both and to partake of the end of season entertainments. That way he can travel with us back to Terrace Manor when we are ready to return home.”

Still looking at Katherine, in hopes of evoking her sympathy, Adel said, “I don’t want father to come here. I do not feel well enough to parade around Town pretending to feel well. Surely you understand.”

“Oh Adel, I do understand. But what of Lord Straton and Rose?”

Adel bristled as she closed her eyes in annoyance. “What of them?”

“I thought they were your friends. Do you truly wish to leave them?”

“I hardly know Rose, and Griffin is no longer my friend.” She knew she sounded shrewish, but she was afraid if she didn’t let some of her anger through, too much of her sadness would show.

Katherine and Aunt Tabitha exchanged a strange look. “Griffin?” Aunt Tabitha questioned. “Is that Lord Straton’s Christian name?”

Adel wanted to kick herself for her mistake. “I do not wish to speak of Lord Straton. I simply came to tell you that I wish to go home. Can you make arrangements with the servants to ready my stuff and prepare a carriage? I’d like to leave posthaste.”

“We will go with you,” Katherine stated firmly.

“Oh no, you couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Aunt Tabitha questioned haughtily.

“Because it would cause a scandal. What would the
ton
think if the Desmond’s all disappeared before the season’s end? No, I do not wish to attach any scandal to our family name. I insist that you stay here with Katherine. Let her finish the season out. I will take my lady’s maid with me as a travel companion and if anyone is to ask, you can simply tell them that I have taken ill and have returned to Terrace Manor to be cared for.”

“Are you certain this is what you want, child?”

“I am positively certain,” she answered honestly.