No Duke Will Do - Eva Devon Page 0,25

could sense his disappointment, but also his understanding.

This was to have been their moment, and it was gone in one quick decision. Her father’s not waking up, ’twas changing the course of their direction. It seemed impossible to believe their adventure had ended so quickly.

But here it was.

“I want to see you again in the city,” she blurted.

He nodded, even as he seemed to retreat inwardly.

“Will you see me?” she asked.

“If it is what you wish, Mary,” he said quietly as he shrugged on his tailored coat. “I will see you.”

“I-I could not bear to lose you now that I’ve found you.”

“You will always have me to help you,” he said, though his face was all but readable.

“When you need me,” he added. “I will be there.”

She needed him now, and she had a feeling she would need him always.

But life had taken over, and life would dictate her course now.

Chapter 10

Mary strode up the steps to a townhouse that felt completely foreign to her.

It was where she’d spent a significant portion of her life, mostly in terror, but now, that terror was gone. After all, the source of that terror was now dead.

Even from the limestone steps, the house was blanketed in misery.

It permeated every wall, every surface, every floor, but now, at least, that which had been the epicenter of it was gone.

The butler took her cloak, and she hurried into the long salon, faded with the lack of funds to keep it up, at the front of the house.

She spotted her mother, that glorious woman who had once been so beautiful and so full of sparkling life. She sat alone and quiet. Her shoulders hunched, her head bowed, holding a sheaf of papers.

“Mama,” Mary announced. “I am returned.”

Her mother did not respond at first, but after a long moment, she lifted world-weary eyes to her daughter, eyes that were dry, not a single tear filling them. “We are ruined,” her mother said.

No, Mary thought. They were free.

“Mama, we are not ruined,” she gritted.

“We are,” her mother protested, holding up the sheets of paper, shaking them. “Your father has lost everything. There is nothing left. Even worse. . . The amounts owed. . . Dear God, your poor brother.”

It was true.

Undoubtedly, her father had lived rashly, spending every penny, leaving them with nothing. The gowns she wore were three years out of date. Her mother’s own gown had been turned, a great family reduced to nothing, but now, Mary was certain they could rebuild out of the ashes, and she would help her mother do it.

“Mama, you must not worry,” she insisted, determined to lift her mother up from her misery. “We can find a way.”

Her mother raised her worn face, once the envy of the ton, and spoke with brittle reality, “My darling girl, you will be completely lost unless you can find a good marriage.”

There it was. The truth. A fact.

Without a good marriage, she would be impoverished.

She fought a sigh. For she was no fool. It would be an insult to people like Heath to romanticize poverty.

If she could not find funds, she would have a life of poverty, pain, agony. As would her mother.

Marriage.

She wished it was not so, but there was no other course for a young woman like herself. She had no skills. There was no work which would maintain her above crippling poverty for years and years of deprivation until she had worn herself out.

Marriage.

Just hours before, she had contemplated taking a lover and had nearly done so. She had been ready to walk out of this life and never look back, but now, staring at her mother, she knew she had to save her mother too.

So, she would do what had to be done.

Oh, she would not go back to the cloistered cages of her life, but somehow, she would find a way to lift her mother out of this misery as well.

Surely, she could find a way.

“Mama, I promise you all will be well.”

“You cannot promise such a thing,” her mother nearly shouted, breaking her usual composure, even in the face of disaster. “Look at the life around us. Look at what became of me. You must make a wiser choice than I, my darling.”

“Mama, I will,” she promised. “I promise you with every fiber of my being that I shall not choose poorly.”

It struck her as mad that she was saying such a thing, having been held in Richard Heath’s arms but a few hours before. Was the