Page 100 of The Duke's Rules Of Engagement
Jo convinced him not to do it. Mrs. Fineman would have liked such a gesture, of course, but she was also a proper English lady, and it would embarrass her greatly to be proposed to in such a setting. It would be a spectacle, and all her servants would likely be watching.
Instead, Jo convinced Mr. Pellegrini to propose more quietly,inMrs. Fineman’s drawing room. He still insisted he must play the mandolin for her, which Jo agreed would be perfectly appropriate in that situation.
After Mr. Pellegrini left, Jo went straight upstairs to her bedroom, where she kicked off her shoes before getting into bed, fully dressed, and curling up on her side with her knees tucked into her chest.
Moments later, her family gathered around her. Mrs. Ferguson propped her up on pillows. Lilly sat beside her on the bed, rubbing warmth into her cold hands. Mama sat in the armchair that Bess had pulled close to the bed, and Bess made her take sips of Mrs. Ferguson’s cheer-me-up tea.
“I tried, Lilly. I really did, but…” Turning to her friend, Jo drew in a great, shuddering breath, and squeezed Lilly’s hand in her own. “I’m so sorry.” Tears threatened again, and she couldn’t stop them. They pooled in her eyes and slipped down her cheeks.
“I knew it.” Lilly closed her eyes in a long blink. “While you were with Mr. Pellegrini, I kept thinking what it could be. It’s the duke, isn’t it?” she asked. “He’s not going to marry Harriet, is he?”
“No, Lil. He isn’t. I’m so sorry.”
Amid the soft groans andoh nos of the three other women in the room, Lilly finally opened her eyes. They shone but remained dry. “Why?”
“He found out…” Jo hesitated as it struck her with the force of an anvil—howhadhe found out?
“What do you mean?” Lilly breathed. “What did he find out?”
“That I schemed for him to marry Harriet so the Cherringtons would be financially and socially secure, and so that Charles would be free to marry you.”
“What?” Mama asked, her blond brows shooting toward her hairline. “You did?”
“I did.” Jo swallowed down the welling tears. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I only wanted Lilly to be happy—”
“Oh, Jo.” Mama sighed, and when Jo looked at her, she saw understanding in her mother’s blue eyes. She knew more than she was letting on about Jo’s feelings for the duke.
“But it’s not too great a sin, is it?” Bess asked, frowning. “If he’s fond of Miss Cherrington, then it really shouldn’t matter to him.”
Jo couldn’t look any of them in the eye. “It matters,” she said quietly. “He believes we—and the Cherringtons—manipulated him motivated solely by greed.”
“If that isn’t the motivation of the vast majority of theton, then I don’t know what is,” Jo’s mother said.
“Perhaps, but a woman attempted to ensnare him before. She seduced him, then gloated about how she had won a duke, along with his fortune. They were literally standing at the altar before he learned of it.”
“Fanny Fleming,” Mama said.
Jo nodded.
Mama pursed her lips. “Well. She was a dishonest and entitled creature.” Mama’s back straightened, her eyes narrowed, and her jaw went tight. Jo knew the look well—a mother bear, ready to claw out the eyes of anyone who would threaten her cub. “You are nothing like her. You, my dear, are honorable and humble and kind.”
“Thank you, Mama. But the Duke of Crestmont doesn’t see it that way. And I don’t blame him.” Blinking hard, she turned to Lilly. “I don’t understand how he found out.”
Lilly stared at her, all color drained from her face.
“Oh, Lord…” Jo’s breaths grew short and sharp. “Please don’t tell me you told Charles.”
“I did,” Lilly said. “I’m so sorry, Jo.”
“Lilly! You promised you wouldn’t tell a soul.”
“And I meant it…but he…he is—was—to be my husband. It felt wrong to keep anything from him.”
And that made Jo feel even worse. Not only had she lied to and deceived the duke, but she’d also encouraged Lilly to withhold the truth of the situation from her future husband.
Lilly started to cry. “Charles must have told him. I asked him not to, but even if he had, I wouldn’t have imagined this to happen.” She gathered Jo into her arms. “Don’t feel bad, Jo, dear. I know you tried. You did everything you could. It’s not your fault.”
But it was. The whole scheme was Jo’s fault, so it followed that the collapse of it was, too.
