A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 140 - Hundred And Forty

Slowly, the anger drained out of Lady Farrington. It was replaced by a strange, twisted sense of desperate justification. She dropped her hand that wanted to deliver the next slap. Her arm fell limply into her lap.

Lady Farrington let out a long, shaky breath. She looked down at her gloved hands, unable to meet her daughter’s broken gaze.

"You do not understand the world, Celine," Lady Farrington spoke. Her voice was no longer sharp. It was tired, and filled with the harsh, cold realities of the lives women were forced to lead.

"I am not doing this merely for your father’s approval," Lady Farrington said quietly. She lifted her head and looked at Celine. "I am trying to save you. I am trying to save you from marrying someone like your father."

Celine blinked, confused by the sudden shift in her mother’s tone.

"Your father is a cruel, unfeeling man," Lady Farrington confessed, a rare moment of terrible honesty hanging between them. "He takes what he wants and discards the rest. He will use you, and he will cast you aside."

Lady Farrington reached out, wanting to touch her daughter’s hand, but Celine quickly pulled her hands away. Lady Farrington let her hand fall back to her lap.

"The Duke of Ford is not like him," Lady Farrington continued, her voice turning firm again. "The Duke is an honorable man. He is a good man. I have watched him. He will take care of you, Celine. He will protect you, and he wouldn’t let you suffer any grievances. You will have money, you will have respect, and you will become a Duchess. No one will ever be able to hurt you again."

Celine stared at her mother. She could hear the twisted logic in her mother’s words. Lady Farrington truly believed that forcing her into this marriage was an act of protection.

But her mother’s protection was built entirely on a massive, unforgivable lie.

"A loveless marriage," Celine replied softly. Her voice was devoid of all hope. "He does not love me, Mama. He loves that matchmaker. I have seen the way he looks at her."

"Love is a foolish dream for servant girls and novels," Lady Farrington dismissed quickly. "Respect and power are what keep a woman safe. I have told you this before."

Celine shook her head slowly. She looked down at her hands. There was a terrible, dark secret she had carried inside her body for three years that only love can overlook.

"If he finds out I am not pure after marriage," Celine said. The words tasted like ash in her mouth. She forced herself to say it out loud. "When the wedding night comes... he will know. He will know I belonged to Edward."

A fresh tear rolled down her cheek at the mention of the murdered stable boy. She had given herself to Edward completely, in the soft hay of the stables, believing they were going to run away together.

"He is an honorable Duke," Celine whispered, looking back up at her mother with wide, terrified eyes. "And honorable men do not accept ruined brides. Without love, If he finds out, he will still divorce me. He will cast me out into the streets. The scandal will be a thousand times worse than before. Aren’t you all digging my grave already?"

She waited for her mother to realize the impossible danger of their plan. She waited for her mother to finally admit defeat and call everything off.

But Lady Farrington did not look panicked. She did not look defeated.

Instead, a completely cold, deeply chilling calm settled over Lady Farrington’s face.

"That has been settled," Lady Farrington replied smoothly. Her voice was as casual as if they were discussing the weather.

Celine frowned. "Settled? How?"

Lady Farrington reached for her heavy silk reticule resting beside her on the velvet seat. She patted the small bag gently.

"I bought a drug from the continent," Lady Farrington revealed. She looked directly into her daughter’s eyes, speaking of deception with absolute, unfeeling ease. "A very expensive, very specific powder. It is entirely safe, but highly effective."

Celine’s blood ran completely cold. She stared at the small silk bag as if a poisonous snake was hiding inside it.

"If you take it on the evening of your wedding," Lady Farrington instructed clinically, "just before you are about to consummate your marriage... it will cause a small, brief hemorrhage. You will bleed."

The carriage rattled loudly over a bump in the road, but Celine barely felt it. She felt completely numb.

"The Duke will see the blood on the sheets," Lady Farrington finished calmly. "He will believe he was the first. So he wouldn’t suspect anything. Your secret will be completely safe, and your title as Duchess will be secured forever."

Celine felt a violent, rolling wave of nausea hit her stomach.

She felt completely, utterly disgusted. The sheer horror of what her mother was suggesting—drugging her own body, faking her innocence, starting a lifelong marriage with a terrible, calculated lie—was too much to bear. Her mother did not see her as a human being with a soul. Her mother saw her as a broken doll that simply needed to be glued back together long enough to be sold.

Celine could not look at her mother’s face for another single second.

She turned her head away abruptly. She looked out the small glass window of the carriage. The gray, dirty buildings of London passed by in a blur of motion. She watched the rain begin to fall, sliding down the glass in long, wet streaks that looked exactly like tears.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her own waist, holding herself together. The tight corset bruised her ribs, and her cheek burned with a sharp, stinging pain from the slap. But the pain in her heart was far worse.

Celine closed her eyes against the cold glass. She let the darkness swallow her thoughts.

She thought to herself, her mind filled with a quiet, absolute despair.

"I hate you so much. I wish I never had a mother like you."