have you try and prevent the outcome but to merely make you aware so you would not be taken by surprise in front of a ballroom full of Polite Society.” She came to a halt. “Accept your fate, my dear girl. It’s the only thing you can do.”
With that, Mathilda left the room.
A sick feeling rose inside Dalinda. She was being married off so her father wouldn’t have to worry about handling her anymore. Most likely, Ham was the one pushing for this decision. She hated that her father had turned his back on Mathilda when she was in such great need of family and comfort but it didn’t surprise her. The Bretton men—Dez being the exception—seemed to be coldhearted and unfeeling.
How could she escape what her father had planned for her?
A knock sounded at the door. She answered it, finding her older brother standing in the corridor.
“Father says you are to come downstairs. We’re leaving for the Gilford ball,” he informed her, a look of glee upon his face.
“Are you the one who persuaded Father to keep me in my room so long, Ham?”
“Don’t call me by that childish nickname,” he said angrily. “My name is Hamilton.”
“I will bloody well call you whatever I wish,” she told him.
His eyes narrowed. “It’s a good thing you will be gone soon.” With that, he turned and strode away.
Dalinda slipped a shawl about her shoulders and retrieved her reticule before going downstairs. Her aunt was nowhere in sight. She didn’t think Mathilda would be going to the ball. Polite Society—and her own family—had turned away from her long ago.
Her father awaited her in the foyer, his mouth set in grim determination.
“There you are. Come along,” he ordered, quickly spinning away and going through the front door.
She followed the earl and Ham out to the carriage. A footman assisted her inside the vehicle and she sat opposite the two men. She didn’t mention that she knew what would occur tonight. Until her father made the betrothal announcement, Dalinda would keep thinking on how to escape her fate.
Just before they arrived, the earl said, “I wish for you to dance with someone tonight. The Earl of Smothe.”
Suppressing the shudder that ran through her, she asked, “Why?”
Her father played his cards close to the vest, however. “Do not question me. Ever. Dance the first number with Smothe.”
“Yes, Father,” Dalinda said meekly, wishing she could tear his eyes out.
The Earl of Smothe was at least sixty. Probably older. He was bald. Fat. Disagreeable. He would be the last person she would ever choose to wed.
Except she didn’t have a choice. Women rarely did. Especially ones such as herself, who had done something the men in her family deemed terrible. Now, Dalinda was being punished for helping Dez and Anna, who were madly in love. She had only wanted to see the two people she cared for the most find lasting happiness. Now, all three of them were penalized. At least Dez wasn’t being made to marry some old hag. Of course, being parted from Anna would seem like death to her twin. Dalinda assumed when Anna wed, it would also be to an older man, one who would be thought to be able to control her.
Well, she wasn’t having any of it.
She went through the receiving line with her father and Ham. The Duke of Gilford and his son, the Marquess of Medford, welcomed them. The marquess looked to be close to her age. Both he and the duke had brown hair and brown eyes that looked like melted pools of chocolate. She heard Ham ask the marquess about school and the young man said that he would be off to university the next term. Once more, Dalinda thought men got to do all of the fun things in life. Go off to school and university and then a Grand Tour. Sow their wild oats. They were able to get out in the world and learn not only about it but who they were before they ever had to settle down. Meanwhile, women tried to look pretty and attract the right husband. It was wildly unfair.
Entering the ballroom, she accepted the programme from a footman, remembering her first dance was to be reserved for the Earl of Smothe. As if he had heard his name called, he suddenly appeared by her side.
“Ah, my dear Lady Dalinda, it is so good to see you. Your father said you have been rather ill.”
So that was the story going