The perfect debutante, p.1
The Perfect Debutante, page 1
THE PERFECT DEBUTANTE
Annabelle Anders
The Perfect Debutante
Annabelle Anders
Copyright © 2019 Annabelle Anders
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
An important note from the author
1. The Darkness
2. For her Mother’s sake
3. A Proposal
4. Home again
5. A drive
6. The mine
7. The Apology
8. The meaning of honor
9. Mothers
10. Betrothed
11. A wedding to plan
12. The day of the ball
13. Ruined slippers
14. Preparations
15. I do
16. The prelude
17. Consummation
18. Intrusion
19. Running away
20. Foundlings
21. An offering
22. The honeymoon
23. Home
24. A household in mourning
25. Four small boys
26. Adjusting
27. Understanding
28. Confessions
29. Love
Epilogue: Hosting a ball
Read More by Annabelle Anders
Acknowledgements
A special thank you to those who’ve shared their experiences with me so that I could better understand the phenomenon of cutting. You know who you are.
To Tracy Seybold, Kay Springsteen and Mary Ellen Blackwood for helping me bring this book to life. To Rebecca Jenshak, for pushing me each day.
To all my readers for keeping me motivated with their encouragement.
And to my husband Russ, for the unwavering support you’ve given me throughout the years.
An important note from the author
I feel it my responsibility to issue a trigger warning for this story.
I never wanted to know so much about the very alarming practice known as cutting. When you discover somebody near and dear to you, however, suffering from an addiction, you absolutely must learn as much about it as possible.
It is often misunderstood, mimicked, and criticized, but I’ve learned that for those who are truly compelled into self-harm, they cannot control it any more than an alcoholic or overeater.
Even more alarming, the more a cutter dwells on it, the greater the compulsion.
For that reason, I find it necessary to recommend that anyone with cutting compulsions NOT read THE PERFECT DEBUTANTE.
I’ve done my best to write an accurate depiction of a young woman who struggles with cutting and the most realistic means she has to overcome it. Although cutting has been referred to by different names throughout history, the compulsion is nothing new.
Know that cutters rarely are suicidal and most leave off the practice in their twenties.
I am not a psychologist, nor an expert in any way. THE PERFECT DEBUTANTE has been written based solely upon my own personally conducted interviews, research, and experience.
And so, I give you…
CHAPTER ONE
The Darkness
Miss Louella Rose Redfield huddled on the floor on the far side of the large canopied bed taking up most of her chamber. If her mother took it upon herself to peek in, she would believe the room to be empty and leave.
Which was exactly what Louella wanted—what she needed.
It wasn’t as though she were a child! She was a lady now. She had every right to be left alone. She glanced toward the closed door.
Mama would not come now anyhow. Mama and Papa knew she was not at all pleased with them. Not after Papa had told her his decision and given her no choice but to consent to the betrothal he’d arranged for her with their neighbor’s son.
And they expected her to be grateful! Of all things!
Anger. Frustration. Disappointment. The hopelessness of this situation made her want to be invisible. Black crept into the edges of her vision.
How could her parents so easily dismiss her older sister Olivia? They couldn’t realize the cruelty of their actions. For this slight seemed worse than all the others. To betroth the younger daughter first.
Her.
Cowering behind the bed, Louella opened the bottom drawer of the nightstand and reverently withdrew the sewing basket.
The tattered straw and old cloth lining provided a modicum of comfort, in and of itself.
Her father’s words replayed in her head. “You are the beauty of this family, Louella. A perfect English Rose. This is your duty. And your mother assures me the marquess is quite handsome. You’ll be a duchess someday, gel. Now stop your blathering.” He’d meant to placate her.
A beauty! Perfect?
Louella knew what they saw.
A young girl with an unblemished complexion, shining chestnut hair, and eyes the color of the sky, framed with thick lashes.
But that was only her shell.
She was not perfect; she was not beautiful.
Dizziness gripped her.
Closing her eyes, Louella inhaled deeply before opening them again and unraveling the ribbon from around her wrist. She’d tied the silk loosely, but it managed to leave an imprint on the tender flesh, nonetheless.
She opened the basket and withdrew what she sought. Eyeing it critically, she frowned. The needle was becoming dull from too much use.
She could not access her abdomen during the daytime. Her stays prevented that.
Examining her arm, she located an unscarred section. With practiced precision, she compelled the needle downward. As the sharp point drew a short crimson line, she felt nothing.
She pressed harder the second time, and a thicker line of blood oozed onto her pale, almost translucent skin. A sting. And tingling. Ah, yes. I’m real.
And the berating voices swirling in her mind began to subside.
Blood is real.
The blood is mine.
I am real.
She drew another line, this one longer and just the tiniest bit deeper than the first two. The needle stung. It hurt even.
Her racing heart slowed.
It would be okay. Olivia would understand.
She could now feel the floor beneath her and the frame of the bed digging into her back.
The last cut was shallow, barely a scratch, really.
Her vision cleared.
As she watched blood flow and begin to congeal, her breathing slowed as her muscles relaxed. Sleep called to her, the sensation of melting into the floor overcoming all her senses. Still caressing the needle between her fingers, she dropped her hand to the carpet and tilted her head back, resting it on the side of the bed.
She could do this. She didn’t want to, but she could. Papa would insist.
After what may have been a few seconds, or several moments, Louella roused herself from the blessed lethargy enough to clean the needle and replace it in the sewing basket.
She then washed her wrist in the wash basin, dried it, rewrapped the silk ribbon, and tied it snugly.
Using her teeth, she managed a fairly decent bow.
Louella had done this before.
The devil didn’t dwell inside her.
It was just… her.
“You wish me to marry little Louella Rose?”
Captain Cameron Samuel Benjamin Denning, Marquess of Stanton, barely remembered the girl.
She’d been a child when he left, gallivanting about her father’s estate and often his father’s property as well.
He vaguely remembered the older sister… blonde, she’d been on the verge of womanhood, sweet and pretty. But he’d been an arrogant bastard at the time. All he’d noticed was that the gel had been cockeyed.
And the younger girl? Louella Rose? She had been all skin and bones, brilliant blue eyes too large for her face, dirt on her dresses, and ah, yes, stringy brown hair. She would have been most unmemorable but for her flashing eyes and violent temper. She’d lobbed an apple at his head on one occasion.
He scratched his chin. If memory served him correctly, he’d done something to provoke the attack. He’d been an ass that summer. Hating his father. Hating his father’s new family. Hating pretty much everybody, including himself.
“She’s not a child anymore,” his father said without glancing up from the papers on his desk.
What had the sister’s name been? Olive? No, Olivia, Miss Olivia Redfield, oldest daughter of the Viscount Hallewell. She’d been closer to him in age.
“Truth be told,” his stepmother, the duchess, piped in, “Miss Louella Rose is one of the comeliest debutantes in all of England.”
Cameron wasn’t certain he could believe that. The hoyden had been something of a tomboy, trespassing with her sister almost daily. They’d met with better luck fishing on the ducal lands than their own.
And Cameron had not treated them k indly. Ah, yes, he’d teased the older girl mercilessly for her eye. He winced at the memory.
At the time, he’d barely reached his majority; he’d been an irresponsible youth, willing to do anything to escape his father and all of his ducal expectations.
“What of the older daughter?” Cameron stared out the window, contemplating his past wrongs.
Again, his stepmother supplied the answer. “Something of a spinster. Doesn’t move in Society, as I understand. Hallewell keeps her well under wraps. I doubt they’ve brought her with them to London for the Season. If I were to take a guess, I’d say she’s probably simple.”
His father grunted.
Cameron knew neither of the girls were what attracted his father to such an alliance. The Hallewell estate sat just south of Ashton Acres. Nestled in the low lands, unkempt and overrun with brush, it was aptly named Thistle Park.
But just inside of its borders sat the true prize.
An abandoned mine.
Abandoned, and branded as cursed by the current viscount’s father following a disastrous cave-in decades ago. But that wasn’t the end of it. No, the damn thing was rumored to be loaded with gold. A few of the men who’d managed to survive the collapse, but not their injuries, had spoken of a thick vein discovered just before the tragedy. Ancient tales warned that the cave-in had occurred because the treasure had been exposed.
Locals scoffed at the notion of the mine having anything of value. Never, in the history of the area, the entire region, really, had any precious metals been mined profitably.
Viscount Hallewell, like his father before him, believed the mine to be cursed. He’d adamantly refused to reopen it. Until now, apparently.
With pockets to let, and a comely daughter at that… Cameron guessed that Crawford, his own father, had finally discovered the bargaining chip to change Hallewell’s mind.
His son.
And, fiend seize it, upon departing a decade ago, Cameron had promised to marry upon his return. He’d not hated his birthright; he’d simply needed to sow his oats. Such a stupid promise to have made.
“Isn’t there a boy in the family as well?” Surely, the son would have something to say about all of this. It was his inheritance, after all.
“Not anymore. Died shortly after your departure.” Cameron’s father had no sympathy when it came to others’ misfortunes.
Raising his brows, Cam glanced toward the duchess. She would know more about the family.
“William, I believe they called him, was only five years old,” she replied helpfully. “His mother, the viscountess, was inconsolable for months. But the boy was always sickly. Nearly drowned but then took ill. I imagine he’d have died of some other malady if not for the accident.”
Cam rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. All of this seemed rather sudden, and yet, he’d known before returning that his father would expect him to marry and set up a nursery. And Cam had promised he’d do just that.
Despite the enmity he’d forever carry for the man purported to have sired him, Cam intended to keep his promise. Because, as backward as it seemed, the one thing he’d carried with him all those years serving his country had been the burden of guilt.
He’d known his stepmother and stepsisters worried endlessly about him.
Well, not him, per se. The male son. The heir.
For the Duke of Crawford had failed to produce a spare with his second wife. She’d given birth to three girls with her first husband but failed to conceive with Crawford.
Cameron was destined to forever be the older brother to three silly stepsisters.
His conscience had berated him to do his best to avoid being killed. He’d not wished to make their circumstances precarious.
But even more compelling had been the desire to thwart the duke by living.
Cameron shook his head, dismissing the passing thought.
Hell.
And as he had lived, and he had returned, he would marry the Redfield girl.
He could only hope the girl and her sister had little memory of him and his behavior.
Upon reaching his majority, Cam had been filled with angst. He’d returned from school to discover his father remarried. The new duchess had brought with her three small daughters.
Cam had countered by drinking, carousing, swiving whatever he was offered, and then ultimately threatening to enlist himself into the British Army.
Which would have been unheard of.
An unmitigated embarrassment to the duke.
Crawford had taken the threat literally, and to avoid the disgrace, he’d negotiated a bargain with him. With the understanding that when Cam reached the age of thirty, he would return home and marry the bride of his father’s choosing, the Duke of Crawford had purchased Cam an officer’s commission in the British Navy,
Thirty had seemed a lifetime away.
Cam brushed a hand through his hair.
Damn his twenty-one-year-old self.
“I’m to visit the youngest daughter tomorrow?” he asked. “And she is agreeable? How old is she now?”
He certainly wouldn’t force the poor girl to marry him if she was unwilling. He would make his offer, formally, dispassionately, but… pleasantly. He would not insist, however, and by God, he wouldn’t beg.
“She’s ten and nine. A most suitable age. We’ll visit their townhouse together. For tea,” his stepmother responded.
“Of course, she’s agreeable. Damned fool girl she’d be if she wasn’t,” Crawford barked.
The girl must be a social climber then.
Hell, perhaps she’d forgotten him completely!
“Tomorrow, then? At tea.” Speaking the words, he could almost hear the chains winding around his ankle.
“She’s a lovely girl.” The duchess patted the duke on the shoulder. “We’ll allow the two of you a few moments alone, so that you can be certain you’ll get on well together.”
Well, then.
Damn.
“Better yet, you may renew your acquaintance this afternoon at the Snodgrass Garden Party. I wouldn’t think the Redfields would miss it.”
Perhaps that would make tomorrow easier. Perhaps he could charm her into forgetting his actions before he’d gone off to war. His stupid and churlish behavior.
Might make for a less awkward proposal, anyhow.
CHAPTER TWO
For her Mother’s sake
Louella’s one and only London Season would be cut short. Her papa had informed her that as soon as her engagement was set, they’d return to Thistle Park. Why waste funds after she had a betrothal in place?
The duke and his family would return as well, according to her father. An expedited ceremony could have the mine reopened by early summer.
Louella bristled as her mother led her across the vast lawn behind Snodgrass Manor.
“Over there.” Her mother spoke in hushed tones, guiding Louella with sudden purpose. “That’s the Earl of Carlisle. Mrs. Pendleton told me he just inherited his title. He was a vicar or curate or something before. I don’t imagine he’s set his cap for anyone yet. You ought to be kind to him. In case this deal your father’s bartered with Crawford falls through.”
I’m a deal now.
Wonderful.
Inhaling deeply, she smiled for her mother’s sake. And for the fact that the gentleman standing before her was considerably handsome. Blond hair and blue eyes, he possessed the countenance of an angel.
The poor man didn’t stand a chance with Lady Hallewell in close pursuit. Louella kept her gaze down at first, embarrassed at her mother’s unfettered enthusiasm.
“Such an honor to meet you, my lord! This is my daughter, Miss Louella Rose. Louella dear, make your curtsey to the earl.”
“My lord.” She bent her leg and dipped daintily. She could have done it in her sleep, she’d practiced so much… and now, she’d miss the remainder of the Season.
“My pleasure, ladies.” When Lord Carlisle bowed a lock of golden hair fell across his face. He barely noticed, however, his gaze searching the lawn for escape.
“Such a beautiful day.” Her mother’s bosom bounced as she tilted her head back to look up at the sky. “Perfect day for a boat ride, don’t you think, Louella dear?”
