Page 7 of Mad Duke March

“I think you look quite handsome,” Reggie said as he strode inside the room. At eleven years old, he was the youngest sibling.

“Thank you,” Emily said with a tender smile.

“Now your hair is shorter than mine!” he said proudly, immediately wiping the smile off Emily’s face. He wasn’t wrong.

“Reggie, go back to your studies,” Sophie admonished.

“But I am already done!”

As the pair continued to bicker, Harry sat beside Emily and took her hand. “Perhaps we can buy you a beautiful wig.”

Emily just sniffed. A quality wig would cost a fortune. And the Fitzwilliam family didn’t own a fortune. Not to mention that Emily had managed to lose the only money they had for accessories along with her dignity and her hair this morning. Their dire financial situation was one of the few reasons why Emily had packed up her family and came to London to force—no, force was too strong a word—compel Bernard to honor his promise and propose to her. Another one of the reasons was even more dire…

She didn’t want to even think about that now. Besides, she wasn’t certain that reason even existed. There were more pressing matters at the moment. Such as going to Bernard and telling him about what had transpired that morning, hoping that his family wouldn’t care about her hair ruining the ceremony and that the marriage would proceed as planned. Hoping, too, that the rumors about this morning’s unfortunate incident hadn’t reached his ears yet, because if they had, it could be distorted as much as cruel society wanted.

She would hate to ruin his honor by association if vicious rumors circulated. However, there was no other choice. He either married her, ruined reputation and all, or her family would be ruined even more.

There was a possibility that nobody had recognized her as the one involved in the incident this morning. She had never made a debut. Nobody truly knew who she was.

But Petticoat Lane had been crowded, and many people could have overheard as she introduced herself to the Earl of Sutton. And the earl himself, or one of his friends, could be the ones to spread the rumors, exaggerating the details. Emily was not privy to the ways of the ton, but in her little village, if a person sneezed, people would say that they had caused a wind storm. If London gossip spread anything similar to their village ways, she feared what the rumors would say about her accident.

She had been lying on her back, her ankles bared, with a man on top of her! No matter how innocent the situation, it wouldn’t seem that way to the onlookers.

Not every man would be able to look past such rumors. Bernard would, though. He would protect her and her family.

Now, more than ever, she had to believe in that.

“Let go of me!” Reggie shoved his sister, and Sophie barreled after him with a gasp.

“Enough!” their mother called from the threshold and everyone’s heads snapped back to look at her.

Their mother stood there, with her arm on the door jamb, her eyes puffy, her hair let down and gently laying against her shoulders.

“Mother!” Emily attempted to stand but immediately sat back on her chair with a wince as a piercing pain shot through her ankle. “Did we wake you?”

Her mother threw her a weak smile before turning her stern gaze to her other siblings. “Let your sister rest now. I think you’ve done enough.”

“We weren’t doing anything.” Sophie shrugged but filed out of the room, following her siblings under her mother’s compelling gaze.

Their mother let out a breath of relief when all of them turned the corner and continued their bickering on the way down the stairs. Then she turned her piercing gaze to Emily, and Emily hid her eyes. She knew that one look from her mother could make her confess all her sins.

“I am glad to see you on your feet. Your migraine is gone, then?” Emily asked, crimping the skirt of her gown.

Her mother hesitated. “I feel well enough to check on my daughter.”

Tears formed in the back of Emily’s eyes, and she was unable to face her mother lest those tears trickle down her cheeks and worry her.

Her mother walked up to Emily’s bed and sat beside her. Warm fingers touched Emily’s chin prompting her to meet her mother’s kind eyes. And that was all it took for Emily to break down. “I lost the money, Mama,” she whispered before tears trailed down her cheeks. She hadn’t told her siblings that, only that she was tackled and badly hurt. It wasn’t their cross to bear. But she couldn’t keep anything from her mother. She fisted her hands so hard that her palms hurt. “I am so sorry and so ashamed. But I ruined everything!”

Emily was the one responsible for the finances in their household. She was the one to buy food and keep the family clothed; she was even the one to pay their only servant. All their guardian did was distribute their allowance. He didn’t care about the family, and neither did he care about their tiny parcel of land. He was much more likely to squander everything away before Reggie reached his majority.

But today, Emily realized she’d made substantial mistakes, too. She had already spent a significant amount of the family’s money on this trip to London. Her family in tow, she’d risked it all in the hope of persuading Bernard to marry her. But she’d always been careful and she never carried large amounts of money with her.

Until this morning.

She needed money to purchase fabric, order outfits for the entire family, and buy accessories and shoes so they would look respectable in front of Bernard’s family and the wedding guests. She didn’t know how much she’d need to spend, so she’d taken almost all of it, only leaving behind enough for a rainy day.

A huge mistake.