A Duke and A Damsel

A Duke and A Damsel--Chapter 21

“This is Miss Wisteria Pinkleberry. She has recently arrived in the ton.”

Then he turned to Miss Pinkleberry, who still hadn’t noticed the captain as she was too busy trying to pull Blake closer to her.

“Miss Pinkleberry, let me introduce you to Captain Sebastian Sharpe, recently returned from America. He and Emma have just become engaged.”

Miss Pinkleberry suddenly pulled away from him. She had gasped sharply when Blake had said Captain Sharpe’s name. Likewise, Sebastian was eyeing Wisteria strangely. It seemed painful somehow, mixed with confusion. In fact, Sebastian appeared to be quite uncomfortable in her presence.

How intriguing, Blake thought.

“We ran into each other. Miss Pinkleberry was lost in the trees and needed help finding her way back.” Blake offered, not really knowing what else to say.

Sebastian nodded stiffly and gave a tight smile. Miss Pinkleberry bristled next to him, nervously fidgeting with her hands.

“Lord Devonshire, if you don’t mind, I would like to be getting home. Please tell Arjun I apologize for standing him up. I'm suddenly not feeling so well,” she said, addressing Blake. She then looked at both Sebastian and Emma, “Congratulations on your engagement.” She said the word engagement as if it were a nasty thing. “I would love to talk longer, but I really must be going.”

Emma offered a polite smile, looking like she was glad to see Miss Pinkleberry depart, and then gave Blake a look that he couldn’t comprehend.

-----

Charlotte Sarah Rhodes-Townson could not wait to get out of there. She had imagined meeting Sebastian again thousands of times in her head, but she had never thought that the next time she would see him she would be widowed and pretending to be in love with someone else, and he would be engaged.

It had been three years since she'd seen him, and their last meeting had been incredibly unpleasant. Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Rochester had been present, and there had been lots of yelling and crying. Her father had made it very clear that no amount of begging or pleading would change his mind. She would marry the Marquess of Engleburg like he'd dictated, and she was not to marry anyone of her choosing or under her rank, especially not a lowly merchant. No matter that he was in charge of a growing shipping company and that Sebastian was well respected in the ton.

Thus, when pleading with her father had failed, she had begged Sebastian to run away with her, elope to Scotland where they could get married without posting any bans. They could live out the rest of their lives there and be happy together. Sebastian had refused, saying that he wouldn't be able to provide her with the lifestyle she was accustomed to just yet and that she deserved better. He had also told her that he knew how important her family was to her, and he could never separate her from that.

“Plus,” he'd added, “I really need to concentrate on building Sharpe Shipping since it will someday be my legacy. I can't focus on that and you; it's got to be one or the other. I need to get my priorities straight, and right now that means I need to choose Sharpe Shipping. I want to go to America, expand, learn, grow. I can't do that with you in tow. I may want you in my life, but I don't really need you. I don't need anyone. I'm sorry.”

Stung by his rejection and hurt that he had picked his company over her, she had agreed to marry the Earl. They had had an elaborate marriage with hundreds of guests and moved to Engleburg. She and Martin had lived a relatively comfortable life together. After two years of marriage, she had even grown to love him a little bit, and then tragedy had struck.

They had been traveling to meet her parents to give them the happy news that she was expecting a child. However, unbeknownst to them, their driver had just received news of his wife's affair and decided to drink himself into oblivion right before their departure. His son had somehow managed to rouse him for long enough to get him to take control of the reigns, but in a particularly tricky part of the forest less than a mile from their destination, he'd lost control of the carriage, and the whole thing had gone tumbling into a ditch. The driver had come out unharmed, but Charlotte had lost the baby and Martin had gotten a huge gash on his leg. They had eventually made it to her parents house on foot, but it was too late. Martin's gash had become severely infected and he never recovered from the fever.

After that, her father had insisted that she stay at home. She had done so, not wanting to return to Engleburg where she would be haunted by memories of Martin. The doctor had confined her to bed rest for the first month, but even after that, her father had enforced strictly that she was not to leave the house, not even for a walk on the grounds. After more than three months of being cooped up in the house, she couldn't take it anymore and had run away.

Knowing that she needed to find a way to support herself so her father wouldn't be able to find her so easily, she had tried to find work in a playhouse using her middle name and her mother's maiden name. However, no one wanted her since she had no prior acting experience. For the past two months she had wandered the streets of London, seeking shelter in a church during the night and looking for work during the day. It had been a stroke of luck that Arjun had come and asked her to play the part of Wisteria Pinkleberry when he had because she had begun to give up hope that she could make it on her own without her family.

It was ironic that Sebastian hadn't wanted her to give up her entire lifestyle for him yet she had ended up doing just that under different circumstances. It was even more ironic that she had run into him again so soon after she had done so. True, she had wanted to ever since coming back to London and reading in the papers that he had been successful in building his company. She had even gone so far as to wonder whether they could be together again now that she was widowed, and he had established himself. This meeting must have been fate. Still, fate may have thrown them together again, but fate also kept ensuring that things would never work out between them.

-----

Emma stood at her doorway, stalling to go inside. She knew she had to tell her mother what had just happened in the park, but she didn't want to. Her mother would be ecstatic, her father thrilled, but Emma's mind was consumed of thoughts of Blake and that horrid Wisteria Pinkleberry.

She still couldn't understand how it was possible to dislike someone she didn't know so much. Well, actually, she could. She was sure Wisteria was actually quite a lovely person, but she couldn't stand the way that woman acted around Blake. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she would detest any woman who behaved like that around Blake. The only explanation would be that she—but of course it wasn't possible that she was in lo—

“Emma?” Sebastian asked hesitantly, interrupting her thoughts. “Is everything all right? Is there a reason we're standing outside your front door and not going inside? Did you forget your key?”

Trying not to sigh, Emma replied, “No, sorry. I was just thinking about how happy my parents will be and got lost in my thoughts.”

She opened the door for both of them and walked inside.

“Mother!” she called out. “Mother, where are you? And where's father? I ran into Sebastian, I mean Captain Sharpe, in the park. He said he would like to call upon father so I brought him along with me.”

Mrs. Sheridan entered the foyer and smiled at their guest.

“Good afternoon, Captain Sharpe. It is a pleasure to meet you again. My husband is in his study, I believe. If you wait here a moment, I shall call Alfred to escort you there. Emmy, won't you join me in the parlor for tea?”