Despite everything, her parents had taught them to always rely and trust in each other. It had been one of the reasons their decision to marry her off without considering her opinion had shredded her heart so much and had seen her crying for several nights before deciding to rescue herself.
“You started the rumor,” her father repeated flatly, lowering his knife and fork.
Her lips trembled, and she bit the inside of her bottom lip to gather her composure. “Yes.”
“But you are blushing. If he did not ravish—” Her mother closed her eyes as if unable to finish the very thought.
Maryann clasped her fingers together on her lap. With admitting her part in her own scandal, hopefully they might send her to their country home in Hertfordshire for the next few months. That way she would have little chance of ever encountering the earl and any courtship on his part. Maryann reminded herself the most important part of her plan was for the rumor to be out in the ton.
“What could have possessed you to conduct yourself in such an odious manner?” her mother demanded sharply.
“I was desperate, Mama.”
“So desperate you invited this man to your chamber? Have you irrevocably lost all sense of who you are and your position within society?”
She almost groaned. “The scandal sheets reported a sighting of Lord Rothbury climbing from someone else’s windows. I…deliberately said within the earshot of a few ladies that it was my chamber he escaped from. There was no ravishment, Mama. No one climbed into my chamber at Lady Peregrine’s house party. I vow it.”
The varying degree of dawning shock indicated they finally believed her.
“Maryann,” her mother cried, her color heightened. “What a dreadful scheme!”
She was painfully aware of the cold disappointment emanating from her father and Crispin’s shock.
She lifted her chin. “A scheme I had to undertake because my family dismisses my hopes. I anticipated that Lord Stamford would hear the rumors and decide I would not do for his bride. I cannot conceive of anything worse than being his wife.”
“You silly, provoking girl,” her mother said, her eyes flashing with anger. “You are three and twenty and have had no offers! In a few months you will be four and twenty!”
“I would rather be called a spinster than Countess Stamford,” she replied firmly, a lump growing in her throat.
“I see,” her father said, his tone grave.
It was hard for her to hold his stare, but she stalwartly fought and did. “Papa, I tried to tell you several times. You ignored my hopes as if I were of little consequence to you. And you taught me I should always fight for the dreams in my heart.”
Her father regarded her curiously for a moment. “So it is my fault for being over-indulgent,” he said with a chilling bite.
“Papa—”
“It is my job to see that you do not end up an old spinster.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said softly.
Her mother sent her a swift glance of rebuke. One did not question the earl, but followed his orders, for as her mother often reiterated, he knew what was best for this family.
“I beg your pardon, young lady?” he demanded quietly.
Her father had that way about him. He did not shout or get angry. In truth, she could not ever recall him displaying an excess of emotions or even the bare minimum. It had always astonished her that Mama often said their courtship had been sweet and romantic.
“Papa, I am only three and twenty. Surely I can wait a few more years for marriage.”
“And if no one offered for you in the bloom of youth, who would come up to scratch for you this season or a few years from now? I did my duty, and you will be a countess.”
“An unhappy one?”
In a rare show of temper, he lowered his cup with a soft clink. “I’ve ensured someone will have you, and by God that will be the end of this obstinacy from you!”
Unexpectedly, she could not seem to catch her breath or stop the tears from burning her eyes. Her throat felt cramped, as though a noose were closing around it. “So it is because you pity me, Papa, that you’ve arranged my marriage to a man whom I do not know? A man I could not possibly grow to love? A man who would not value me or my opinions? I have no wish to marry Lord Stamford.”
In a rare show of discord, her mama lifted her chin and said, “Perhaps we should allow for—”
“Our daughter will marry the man who offered for her,” he said, reaching for the pressed newspaper.
“Why?” Maryann demanded, her voice raw. When her question was ignored as if she were an irritant, she curled her fist below the table. “I have no wish to marry, so why must I do so?” she stubbornly asked again. Mama shook her head, cautioning her, but Maryann did not want to hold her tongue, even if Papa were to punish her for challenging his authority. Her hands were shaking. “Papa, if you love me as you say you do, please consider my happiness.”
He lowered the paper and sent her a frown. Of course this would all be an oddity. She had been raised with the notion that his words were absolute law, and she had never challenged him. Not even her brother dared.
“I cannot marry a man who does not care for me and has only shown he is brutish and unkind, paying little regard to my thoughts and preferences.”
The silence felt painful and unnatural.
Her father’s stare grew curious, as if he saw her for the very first time in her three and twenty years. The last instance they had walked in the apple orchard as she regaled him with stories she had read had been years ago. Since her societal debut, they hadn’t been as close as during her childhood.
It was as if she turned sixteen and was no longer a daughter but had been handed over to her mother to be altered into a wife—someone who no longer greeted her father with hugs but polite curtsies, someone who could no longer steal into the apple tree on a branch and read, but must stay indoors and practice the elegances of ladylike walking. Their long conversations by the fire in the library had stopped, and he no longer took her for morning rides and archery as he did with Crispin. So many things had changed, and her life had become how to be a proper wife to whichever gentleman accorded her the honor.
Only Crispin had remained constant, and she loved him dearly for it.
But now their father stared at her in a searching manner he had not ever turned on her brother.
“And how has Lord Stamford ignored your preferences?” her father asked.
Tentative hope stirred inside, and Maryann tried to not stare at her mother’s flat and disapproving mouth.
“Well, young lady?”
She held her papa’s stare. Maryann couldn’t bear talking about what she’d witnessed. The mere memory alone was mortifying. “He…” Her face heated. “He attempted to kiss me when I did not want him to.” Still uncomfortable to speak about, but it seemed the lesser of the two humiliating encounters.