Scandalous Love by Brenda Joyce Page B

was practically a stranger. She
didn't want to be married. She didn't want to be a wife—whose two primary
functions in life were to be a beautiful ornament and to give her husband sons.
She did not want to leave Dragmore. Panic filled her at the thought. She knew
instinctively that Percy would never let her rise with the sun and ride beside
him across his tenant farms. He would expect her to amuse herself with other
ladies and proper womanly pastimes, always to be properly dressed, to be
passive and obedient— to be, in short, the ideal woman. Terrible fear filled
Nicole. Her life was about to be changed irrevocably, forever.
    She could not go through
with it. The night before the wedding, she ran away. She had a note delivered
to Percy, begging his forgiveness, but she knew there was no reasonable
explanation she could offer to him or anyone else for her behavior. She left
another note for her parents. She did not run very far, for it wasn't
necessary. It was enough to be missing on the day of her wedding and to have
sent Percy the note. More than five hundred guests had been expected, and
although she hadn't left Percy literally standing at the altar as the gossips
later claimed, what she had done was ruinous enough. Percy never spoke to her
again, and six months later he married a proper Victorian miss.
    Her father did not speak
to her, either, for almost a month after the first brunt of his rage had spewed
forth. Nicole was desperately sorry that she had hurt Percy and she was just as
sorry she had upset her parents, but she was not sorry she had not
married Percy.
    She had only a short
week to recover from what she had done. In the following months, her parents
had gone out as usual, and Nicole had accompanied them everywhere. "You
will not hide at Dragmore," her father had said to her, the only words
he'd spoken to her in a week. "You will face what you have done."
    It had been awful, going
to one ball or "at-home" after another, being stared at, being
gossiped about the moment her back was turned. She knew her parents were
suffering as much as she was, and in a way, she hurt for them even more than
she hurt for herself. Nicole held her head high and acted as if nothing was
wrong, but inside she felt like some strange species of animal in a zoo. After
a few months her parents allowed her to do as she wished, but by then her
appearance was no longer an event, and the gossip-mongers had found new fodder
for their mills.
    Now, lying on her bed,
staring up at the gold pleats of the canopy overhead, she wanted to weep in a
way she had never wanted to before. Her life had been perfect until she had
turned eighteen and come out. Then it had been one disaster after another. She
should have learned her lesson. But no, naive to the end, she had looked at the
Duke, fallen in love, and stupidly thought him to be her knight in shining
armor. Never would she be such a fool again!
    She turned onto her
side, dry-eyed. He had thought her to be married. He had never had an honorable
intention towards her. Suddenly she clenched her fist, the beginnings of anger
sweeping over her. How despicable he was!
    That morning Nicole was
up with the sun, as usual. She had spent a restless night burning with newfound
anger. Her adrenaline gave her strength, and despite barely having slept, she
was not tired. She joined her father and brother for breakfast, dressed in her
breeches, determined to join them that day and continue her life as if nothing
had ever happened. As if the Duke of Clayborough did not exist.
    Both men looked at her.
"You look like hell," Chad said.
    Nicole ignored him,
sitting on her father's left, across from her brother. She poured herself tea,
feeling her father's regard upon her. "The headache lasted most of the
night."
    "I want you to see
a physician," the Earl said.
    "I'm fine now,
Father, really," Nicole said, but she could not summon up a smile for his
benefit.
    "You are never
ill," Nicholas Shelton said flatly. "I want