The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,125
She would have stayed longer, but for her father’s response. She hoped he’d given it.
The instant her foot crossed her threshold, her footman ran up. “His lordship said you should come, madam,” Tom told her. “I would have come to tell you earlier but Mr. Rand said we’d cross paths and I was to stay here.”
She handed Tom her basket without a word, then immediately turned about and walked back into the street. She remembered her father’s address. It was a number burned into her brain like the quantity of her lovers or the price of her first dalliance.
Mayfair. A much longer walk than the distance to Nicholas’s house, but she’d expire of impatience before the carriage could be brought around. In the city, too, a carriage could be more of a hindrance than a help.
Her parents’ brick façade mansion took up half a block. She’d forgotten its massiveness. The ugly gargoyles serving as sentries on the gutters didn’t discompose her as they used to. She moved beneath them without pausing, determined to see her father without delay.
A butler she didn’t recognize led her from the entranceway to a small parlor directly off of the library. She hoped Mr. Victors had been pensioned off, and wasn’t kicking his heels on the other side of the Pearly Gates, instead. She tried not to notice the other changes here and there: a chair turned at the wrong angle, the new, puce paper covering her mother’s sitting room walls.
“Thank you,” she said as she entered the little room where she and her sisters used to pretend to be great ladies serving tea to valiant knights.
The butler nodded before exiting.
Her father entered the room. “Demanding to see me, and in my own house, no less. You’d better have a good reason for this.”
“I thought because you agreed, you approved.” She closed her eyes briefly. Being smart with Wyndham wasn’t going to help.
His white side-whiskers quivered with indignation. “You need to think less and mind convention more. Now, what is it? Your mother will be back from her shopping soon and I won’t have you here when she arrives.”
Elizabeth drew a deep breath. She’d have liked to have talked to her father more, but… She ought to know better. “It’s about Lord Constantine. But before I explain, I need to apologize. I was a thoughtless, headstrong girl. I see now how close my actions came to ruining our family. I—”
“Hold your tongue. I won’t be won over by sweet words said far too late. You’re here for your husband. Say that, then, for I don’t have time for nonsense.”
She stared at him in mute hurt. Her fists clenched. She jammed them under opposite arms, hugging herself, then realized she must look defensive. She dropped her hands to her sides, then changed her mind and made a jabbing, pointing motion with her finger toward her chest. “I am a lady. I won’t be addressed like a spoiled child.” She took a step toward him. She arched her finger to point it at him. “And you won’t turn your back on me again. I love you. I love Mother and Sarah and Ellen and Oliver.”
She drew a breath, savoring the look of astonishment on his face. Then she plunged ahead. “I know which one of us ran away. Me. You did your level best to keep my horrendous actions from ruining the rest of our family. I see that now. And I know exactly how I fared. Poorly. All the money and fame in the world cannot bring back my lost innocence. But I’m no longer that selfish, scared little girl who trusted the wrong men all of her life. I can imagine the unrelenting pain I must have caused you and Mother when I left. I see now that Sarah and Ellen were lucky to escape the scandal with their reputations intact. I know what it means to be a parent, because I have a child of my own. I’m deeply aware of the catastrophic mistake I made then because every day, I live with the repercussions. I lost all of you. Yes, you lost me, but the difference is that you weren’t worth losing, while I…was.”
She raised her hands in supplication. “I’ve learned. Twenty times over, I’ve learned. I have a husband now, and a son. You took both from me. Please. Leave me with something.” She took a step forward, reaching her hands halfway toward him. “Don’t take away everything I have.”