A Matchmaking Mismatch (Romance Retold #3)

Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One

P hilip sat back in his chair, clasping his hands and frowning at the folded paper on the far edge of his desk. Aside from bringing it to his study after Finmore returned it to him, he hadn’t touched it. It was the source of too many conflicting emotions he didn’t feel ready yet to unravel.

It had been three days since the masquerade, and Philip was waiting for his emotions to achieve a more bearable balance. This pendulum, swinging from anger to pain and regret, was exhausting. The hurt had been poking its head through the fissures in the fury, and he thought that the anger was preferable.

A knock sounded, and Draper entered. “Mrs. Barham is here, my lord.”

Philip grimaced. He had wondered if she might show her face after the debacle at the Walthams’.

“Show her in. And have some tea brought.”

Draper bowed himself out, and moments later, Aunt Dorothea glided into the study. “Philip, my dear.”

Philip invited her to take the seat across from him. “I was wondering when you would come.”

“Yes, well”—she smoothed her skirts—“I thought I would give the Trent conceit some time to dissipate.”

Philip tried to control a smile. Aunt Dorothea had never been shy about what she thought of the family her sister had married into. “The conceit is something I come by from both my father and mother, I’m afraid.”

“Of course it is.” She looked around the room with bland curiosity. “My sister was unbearable. I confess I was glad for your sake when she died—may she rest in peace—for I was certain that, between her and your father, they would raise you to be some sort of monster.”

Philip hid his laugh behind a cough. “Pardon me,” he said. Somehow his aunt’s plainspokenness always caught him off guard. He had known that she and his mother had not been close, but he had never heard her speak so candidly about her opinion of her sister.

She nodded at the bank notes that peeked through the half-folded paper. “Is that Miss Hawthorn’s money?”

Philip’s smile faded.

“She sent it back, I take it.”

“She did.”

“Of course she did.”

Philip felt a flash of annoyance at the implication of his aunt’s words—as though the fact surprised her not at all. It had surprised Philip, and that sparked his guilt and his misgiving. He had hoped Ruth would take the money. It would have confirmed everything to him—it would have made it easier for him to hold onto his anger and reconfirmed that she was not for him—that he had misjudged her when he had taken her to be the goodhearted woman he’d come to think her.

But she had sent it back—and he knew how badly she needed it. A quick walk to his uncle’s had confirmed what he had suspected—she and her brother were already gone.

And then the worry had set in. How had they afforded the journey back to Marsbrooke? And what would they do once they were home?

“And you let her go.” Aunt Dorothea sat back in her chair, fixing her direct gaze on him.

He said nothing, feeling that words were unnecessary—and perhaps not wishing to confirm the low opinion his aunt obviously had of him in that moment.

“Well,” she said, rising from her chair. “Your mother would be proud of you.” She paused to stare him in the eye. “And that is not a compliment.”

Philip’s eyebrows snapped together. “What am I to take from that, if you please?”

Aunt Dorothea pursed her lips. “How am I to know what you take from it? Surely you are not so incapable and reliant upon others that you require me to tell you how to interpret every single comment made to you.” She lifted her chin and directed an expression of disappointment at him. “But if you are to base your actions upon what others think and expect of you, I will at least make my own opinion known. Here it is: I thought more of you, Philip. I hoped more of you. But I was wrong. You are a Trent through and through. That is all.” She moved toward the door.

“Wait, now.” Philip hurried to stop his aunt’s progress from the room, putting his hands out to stop her. “If you are expressing your opinion, then give it full rein, by all means—but do me the service of allowing a response rather than retreating before I can defend myself.”

She raised her brows. “Have you a defense, then?”

“Of course I do.”

She gave a smile of faux politeness, blinking as she waited for him to continue.

He shifted his weight, suddenly feeling foolish. “You cannot truly believe that Ruth—that Miss Hawthorn—is the person I should marry.”

Her brows rose even higher.

“Let us leave aside all of her deception—pretend that she had done nothing to give me a distaste for her company. She is precisely nobody. No money. No experience in Society—save a few weeks dressed as a man. And you are telling me that you think her fit to be the next Viscountess Oxley? To fill the shoes of my mother?”

Aunt Dorothea’s brows drew together. “Your mother’s shoes?” Her head shifted slowly from side to side in disbelief. “Listen well, Philip. I loved my sister—loved her because she was my sister. But I was not stupid enough to be fooled by the mask she wore in public. She may have filled the role of viscountess well, but it was the only thing she did well. She made your father miserable, but she was too busy pleasing herself and the rest of Society to care for such a thing. Miss Hawthorn is ten times the woman my sister was. And she may have deceived you or embarrassed you, but if the result is a bit of compelled humility on your part, then so much the better! Let me ask you this: who is more fit to hold the unimaginable honor of the title you offer? Someone skilled enough to appear as though the role fit her perfectly? Whose facade hides a selfish heart? Who bought the position with her wealth and then used it to appeal to her own vanity? Or someone like Miss Hawthorn, who is unassuming, selfless, and who seeks no such honors—indeed, who eschews them, but would take them on if it was what being with you required?”

Philip stood speechless, battered by his aunt’s words.

Her face softened as she looked at him, and she let out a sigh. “You must decide, Philip, if what you want is veneer or substance—appearance or essence. You may choose a viscountess who looks the part—who brings with her all the things Society applauds—or you can choose a woman you love and respect, and who loves and respects you in return. The former will please Society, and perhaps she will please you well enough, too. But the latter…that woman will enrich your life. She will challenge you and make you a better man—and a better viscount—than you otherwise would have been. To forgive Miss Hawthorn may cost your pride for a moment. But it will enlarge your soul for a lifetime.” She went up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “Good day, my boy.”

P hilip couldn’t stand to be in his lodgings for another minute. Restlessness and discontent were seeping into everything he did. Not even a meeting with his steward kept his mind from things for long.

It didn’t matter which room he chose to be in—invariably, he found Ruth there, even in rooms she had never ventured into. His father’s quizzing glass in the study brought to mind hideous horn-rimmed spectacles, and a quick and uncustomary escape into the kitchens brought his eyes to a basket of lemons. She was everywhere, and nowhere more present than in his mind, where her teasing smile would strike with no notice at all.

Nash helped him into his coat, and Philip hurried down the stairs and outside, directing the coachman to Brooks’.

More than anything, Aunt Dorothea’s words had been haunting him. The fact that both she and Finmore—two people with little in common besides their disregard for Society’s opinion—had called him a fool was not something he could simply ignore. He had no doubt that Ruth regretted what she had done. He had seen it in her eyes, and as he had run through the events of the masquerade, he had come to suspect that she had been on the verge of telling him the truth before he had insisted on removing her mask—and then he had been too eager to kiss her to think of anything else.

He frowned and brushed at his lips with a thumb, trying to recapture the brief moment in time when he had felt his future falling into place—when nothing had mattered but the woman in his arms. He had already made the decision then that Aunt Dorothea had spoken of—had decided that to love Ruth was more important to him than grasping for some impossible ideal that had made neither of his parents happy. He wanted to marry for love.

The revelation of her dishonesty had catapulted him backward, though, making him doubt everything and feel that perhaps he had been right about love after all—it was messy, hard, and unforgiving. It was never equally reciprocated, and it could never be relied upon.

And now that his anger was expiring, he felt rudderless. Confused. Lonely. And the minute he allowed himself to explore those feelings, a panda-shaped hole gaped back at him.

The rumbling carriage ride to his neglected club provided little distraction from the fact he was finding it harder and harder to ignore: he missed Ruth. Fiercely. He worried for her and wondered about her. He regretted speaking to her so harshly—regretted not allowing her to explain herself. He had felt justified in his anger—that he had every right to be angry—but the more he considered Ruth’s situation, the less his anger had sustained him and the less clear things had become.

He had hired the Swan to help him marry Miss Devenish, and one of the first things he had explained was that he cared little for a love match. It was practical. So why was he so angry that Ruth had kept from him what she knew about Miss Devenish being in love with her brother? Had she not asked him whether he was bothered by the rumors of Miss Devenish’s secret lover, and had he not dismissed them as irrelevant?

He stepped down from the carriage and into Brooks’, handing his hat to the doorman. He felt a stirring of nerves as he made his way toward the large drawing room. He had been humiliated at the Walthams’. How would it feel to face the people and their opinion of him now?

As expected, when he entered the main room, all eyes turned toward him, a few whispers breaking the sudden silence. He clenched his teeth and ignored the gawking, searching the room for Finmore. But Finmore wasn’t there.

Munroe approached him, his leering smile bringing pulsing blood into Philip’s neck.

“Didn’t think to see you venturing out in public so soon, Oxley.”

“If I had known it would mean seeing you, I assure you I would not have done so.”

“Oho!” Munroe said, laughing and turning toward the rest of the gentlemen in the room. “That is hardly the way to thank the man who saved you from the clutches of a scheming wench, is it?”

Philip reared back his right arm and sent his fist flying into Munroe’s face. The man tumbled back and landed flat on his back, unconscious. “It is becoming a dead bore having to plant you a facer every time I see you, Munroe.”

The room vibrated with stunned silence, and Philip gazed around at all the faces staring at him. There was nothing for him here. The faces were all familiar, but he found he couldn’t care less what they thought of him. If any of them raised their voices against Ruth, he would have no compunction in sending them to the same fate as Munroe.

He was done deciding his future based on what they might think. He didn’t need anyone else to tell him what he wanted. Or whom he wanted.