"No."
The word was spoken so casually, like an experienced murderer going for the quick kill, that it took her more than a few moments to understand she had just been completely rebuffed. By then, a crowd of students had come between them, and Marigold had to force her way back to his side.
She reached him just as he was about to step out of the ancient chapel, and panicking that he would leave without saying yes, Marigold caught hold of his sleeve. Pretending she didn't notice the amount of time it took for him to look at her, she asked, "What do you think?"
He turned to her then, and she drew her breath in sharply. He looked bored – so patently bored that Marigold was pretty certain everyone else in the chapel – including the media, dammit – noticed that look, too.
Marigold was of a mind to scream at him, but she managed to control the urge, reminding herself that this was Rathe Wellesley. Painful as it was to admit, he was the kind of man that even girls like her had to work hard to run after.
"It will be fun," she told him, keeping her voice sweetly cajoling.
"I'm sorry, but no."
Bloody hell, how she wanted to kiss him and slap the arrogance out of him. If only he wasn't so bloody eligible and so bloody good at sex, Marigold would have given him a piece of her mind. How dare he act so high and mighty when everyone knew about the truth of his parentage?
"Are you planning to spend the holidays with your family?" Everyone knew of the rift between him and the duke, but if he was ditching her in favor of mending fences with his family, Marigold was all for it.
He answered briefly, "No."
She gazed up at him in consternation. "Then I don't understand why---"
His look had her shutting up. "I have no wish to spend time with your family anytime."
"---because I'd like to formally introduce you to my---" His bland reply finally sank in and Marigold gasped. The look of dismay on her face was almost comical, and unbeknownst to her, Ned the cameraman was able to take a close-up shot of it with his camera's high-powered lenses.
"Is anything wrong?" She did her best to keep her temper under control even though she was incensed at his treatment of her. Didn't he know how lucky he was to be dating someone like her? Unlike him, her lineage was impeccable, never tainted by commoners' blood.
His sigh made her flinch, the way it spoke of his immense boredom of the topic at hand. "It means I do not see any reason why I should spend the holidays with your family this year, or any year for that matter."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Face white, she hissed between bloodless lips, "I broke it off with Fergusson for you!"
He drawled, "I believe you mean to say he dumped you when he saw you without your clothes on the front page---"
Marigold moved to strike his face, her rage at being made a fool knowing no limits, but Rathe caught her hand in the air. "What's the matter?" His voice was silky with contempt, making her shudder even though she didn't want to. It reminded Marigold of that one night she had finally succumbed to her desires and let Rathe take her in her father's stables, just like a common slut.
"Haven't you always wondered what it would feel like to fuck a pedophile's son?"
****
Hours later, soft knocks landed on the door of Rathe's bedroom. They were easily identifiable, and he closed the book he was reading and returned it to its shelf. "Come in, Mother."
Alyssa Wellesley walked into his room, and one look at her pretty but unsmiling face told Rathe that she already knew everything. She might just be a housewife, and his father might be the head of a billion-dollar weaponry business, but in times like this it was clear whose network of information was more effective.
"Does father know?" he asked as he turned to face her. She was a tiny thing, with clouds of blond hair and angelic blue eyes. She had the kind of face that would always look young, which many considered a blessing but both Alyssa and Rathe privately considered a curse – even if they would never speak of such a thing out loud.
"What do you think?" she asked with a wry smile as she gestured for him to sit. He did so obediently. He tended to have head-butting quarrels with his father, but for Alyssa, Rathe would do anything.
"I'm guessing I have till tomorrow until I get a beating?"
"More or less," she acknowledged cheerfully.
"I shall report you one day, Mother. You can't sound that happy when your only son's about to be thrashed."
Laughing, she came to sit beside him. Looking up at Rathe, she marveled at how he was the perfect blend of herself and her husband. Her blue eyes, his father's commanding height, her stubbornness, and his father's pride. The combination was guaranteed to make him extremely difficult to handle for any girl.
He was far from perfect, this son of hers, but one thing no one could doubt was how protective he was of her – so much so that he had been defending her name ever since he was twelve.
She said with a sigh, "Why do you keep doing it, sweetheart? Even when your father and I have told you to let it go, why do you insist on doing things this way?"
Rathe only clenched his teeth in response.
Reaching up to stroke his hair, she murmured, "You know, I've always been meaning to ask you but I just kept delaying it because---"
"Mother---"
Making him look at her, she asked, "Do you believe them, Rathe?" When he did not answer, she looked at him, her heart twisting at the hardened look on his gorgeous face. When her son grew up, he would be beautiful – extremely so … and heartlessly so.
It was a pity his grandfather did not accept him. In his generation, Rathe was the one who most closely resembled their famous ancestor, the Iron Duke, inside and out. No matter how much she tried, she just could not make him unbend.
Warren had never stopped insisting it was because Rathe was British through and through, with a heart made of steel. He's not hurt by the taunts, Alyssa, Warren liked to say. He's angry, like a man.
She suppressed a sigh. Like a man indeed. It was because Warren was so typically like a man that he did not realize Rathe was far from immune to the ridicule and bullying that he had been subjected to since he was old enough to understand how everyone saw him – and his mother. Rathe might pretend to be unaffected, but he was. Alyssa was his mother, and she knew that underneath the arrogant exterior were wounds so raw Rathe would be broken if he acknowledged they existed at all.
When Rathe still hadn't spoken, she asked in a gentler tone, "What they're saying is not true and has never been true." She paused, hoping he would open up, but he did not. "I didn't marry him for his money and he did not marry me because he wanted a trophy wife. One day, you'll understand that age is never a factor when it comes to love. Your father may have been twenty-two years older than me when we married---"
"It's never been about you!"
The words took her by surprise. He had never expressed his thoughts about her marriage to Warren until now.
"What do you mean?"
"I never blamed you, Mother. He swept you off your feet. Even I know Father can be attractive, being rich and a duke's heir but … " His fists clenched. "Why couldn't he have waited? You were a teenager, barely older than I am now," Rathe pointed out bitterly. "Why couldn't he have just waited?"
"Please don't blame your father, Rathe. He didn't take advantage of me and I didn't take advantage of him. He loves me."
He did not speak.
He did not have to.
His eyes said it all.
Alyssa's heart shattered for her beloved son. "One day, sweetheart, you'll understand. The heart … it doesn't always listen to rhyme or reason. It just … loves and when it's found its mate, it will love forever and there's no stopping it."
Rathe said tonelessly, "I don't believe in love. I believe in what's right and wrong and what Father did … "
She said helplessly, "He loves me."
The words might have sounded sweetly poignant to others but in Rathe's mind, they were despicable and revolting. They made his skin crawl because he couldn't help thinking of the love between his father and mother as the love between a predator and its prey---
You're the pedophile's son---
Son of the marquis' whore-
Gold-digging blood runs through your veins---
"Rathe?"
The tremor in his mother's voice made him look at Alyssa, and the hurt on her face made Rathe strive for greater control. "I'm fine, Mother," he lied as he pulled her close for a comforting hug. After a moment's hesitation, she leaned her head against his chest and patted his hand.
Not a second passed when something made Rathe look up, and his gaze met his father's, who was quietly standing at the doorway. They might have their differences, but if there was one thing they did agree on, it was their love for Alyssa.