Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
How had his mother known of Townsend’s love, when none of the rest of them had? Probably because she attended the society balls they didn’t deign to appear at.
“Please, what does she look like?” His voice gained urgency, enough to capture his parents’ notice.
“Do you believe you’ve seen her?” his mother asked.
“She is petite in stature, I believe, with pale coloring. But she would have been in costume last night,” said his father. “She is blonde, isn’t she, dear?” he asked his wife. “Quite blonde, like her mother?”
“She has elegant, smooth blonde hair,” Hazel chimed in, proud to know something her parents didn’t. “My friend Fiona saw her at a ball and said she had long, white-blonde plaits upon her head like a crown, light and shining like a princess. She’s pale and tiny as a china doll, and has pretty blue eyes. She also said Townsend asked her to dance at five different balls before he got a place on her card.”
“That’s gossip,” Elizabeth said, frowning at her sister.
Meanwhile, Wescott tried to shove down rising panic. Why, half the women in England were blonde with blue eyes. But with smooth, white-blonde hair? Tiny like a doll?
Lost outside the theater in a fire?
“I think…” His voice trailed off with the weight of what he had to admit, the weight of what he’d done the previous night. “I think…”
“You think what, darling?” his mother prompted.
“I think I may have seen Lady Ophelia outside the theater. But something awful has happened. A terrible mistake has been made.”
His parents exchanged shocked looks. “What do you mean?” asked his father. “What sort of mistake?”
He couldn’t speak for the enormity of the situation. Lady Ophelia, making her debut in the opera. The inn, his seduction…
By God, the blood on his cock. His hands curled into fists. She hadn’t been on her courses. He’d seduced away her virginity thinking she was some willing trollop, then dropped her off on the edge of a park in a goddamned opera costume and wig.
“Darling?” his mother said in a soft voice. “What has happened to Lady Ophelia? You must tell us.”
He gave a pointed look at his sisters. “Perhaps…in private.”
“Must we go to the kitchens again?” Elizabeth asked, not at all happy.
“I think that might be best. We haven’t eaten all morning, from worrying about your brother. Ask cook for a delicious pie,” their mother said, shooing them to their feet.
As his sisters left, Wescott sat with his head in his hands, wondering how to begin his confession. He had a reputation as a rake, yes, but this was several steps beyond.
“The good news…” He sighed, lifting his head to meet their concerned stares. “The good news is that I’m quite certain Lady Ophelia wasn’t harmed in the fire.”
The bad news was that he’d harmed her another way, and would pay the price for his undisciplined behavior. He’d had no business seducing her, whether actress or lady or both.
Chapter Four
Necessary Arrangements
An hour later, Wescott sat across from his parents in his father’s ducal carriage, freshly bathed, groomed, and attired in his finest embroidered coat and whitest, most starched cravat. His unfashionably long hair was pulled back in a neat queue, and he wore the diamond tiepin and solid gold rings he always took care to remove before a rollicking night at Pearl’s.
He and his parents didn’t speak to one another as they rode toward Grosvenor Square. What was there to say? He’d told them everything, from Lady Ophelia’s rescue to his misconceptions about her state in life, to the fact that he’d done an “unforgivable thing” during their stay at the inn, which his parents understood without him going into detail.
They were embarrassed, he was ashamed, and now things must be put right, no matter how delicate and humiliating a situation it was. It showed the depth of their parental love, that they accompanied him on this errand to the Earl of Halsey’s, where he must offer to marry the daughter he’d disgraced. He’d seduced away Lady Ophelia’s virtue with the greatest pleasure. Now he must put up with a great deal of pain.
And this pain would not stop with him, or his parents. No, the pain and embarrassment would extend to Lady Ophelia and her well-respected family, and to Lady June, whom he could no longer marry, when he’d given her every expectation he would. It would extend to Townsend, who’d nursed a deep tendre for Ophelia for months now. All of this, because she’d looked so lovely and needful after her nightmare. A sigh escaped his lips.
His mother looked up at him. “You mustn’t seem reluctant to do your duty, dear,” she said quietly. “No matter the circumstances.”
“Yes,” his father agreed. “Don’t be a churl.”
“I’m only…” He cast about for the right word to describe his feelings. “Beside myself. I’m so sorry for what I did.”