A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 149 - Hundred And Forty Nine

"Ines?" Aunt Margery asked again, her voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper. She reached out and placed a warm, steadying hand on Ines’s arm. "Speak to me, child. What does the letter say? What did the duchess uncover?"

Ines slowly raised her head. She looked at Aunt Margery. Her dark eyes were wide, completely shadowed by the terrible truth she had just read. She swallowed hard, trying to force the dry lump of fear down her throat.

"Aunt," Ines started, her voice shaking so much she barely recognized it as her own. "The Duchess... she writes that she did not have any scandal on Celine’s debut. She missed most of the social events that season because of her pregnancy at that time."

Aunt Margery frowned, a flicker of disappointment crossing her wrinkled features. If the Duchess of Hastings did not know the secret, who would? "Then why did she write back so quickly?"

Ines took a deep, shaky breath. Her fingers tightened around the edges of the letter, slightly wrinkling the expensive parchment.

"Because," Ines continued, her voice dropping lower, forcing Aunt Margery to lean in to hear the dreadful words. "While she did not attend the balls, she has something else. She has a piece of information that relates directly to the Farrington family. Her husband’s estate manager heard it from a magistrate who was paid a very large sum of money to look the other way."

Aunt Margery’s eyes narrowed. "Paid to look away from what?"

Ines looked down at the neat, elegant handwriting, wishing she could unread the words. She wished she could go back to worrying about floral arrangements and the color of the silk ribbons.

"Lord Farrington killed a man," Ines whispered.

The words hung in the air between them, sharp and deadly.

Aunt Margery froze. Her hand tightened painfully on Ines’s arm.

"He killed one of their stable boys," Ines read the exact details from the letter, her stomach turning with a violent, rolling nausea. "The young man was attempting to elope with Lady Celine. They were caught near the edge of the estate."

Ines looked back up at her aunt, her eyes shining with unshed tears. The thought of a father doing such a thing was incomprehensible to a woman who had grown up in the warm, loving embrace of the Hamilton family.

"He was killed grotesquely, Aunt Margery," Ines said, her voice breaking completely. "Lord Farrington did not simply banish the boy. He did not challenge him to a proper duel. He shot him. Multiple times. He shot him in the dirt like a rabid dog, right in front of Celine."

Gasp.

Aunt Margery let out a sharp, horrified gasp. The sound was violently torn from her throat. She instantly let go of Ines’s arm and brought both of her hands up to cover her mouth. Her eyes widened in absolute raw shock.

The wooden pointing stick she had been using to direct the florists slipped from her fingers. It hit the polished wooden floor with a loud clatter, rolling away under a nearby table.

Neither of them noticed the sound.

"My goodness," Aunt Margery breathed out into her hands. Her gray curls shook as she trembled. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the terrible, bloody image Ines had just painted. "The poor child."

Aunt Margery thought of the pale, quiet, deeply terrified girl who had sat in their drawing room just days ago. She thought of Lady Celine’s thick white face powder, her constant flinching, and the way she stared blankly at the floor. It all made a terrible, devastating sense now. Celine was not simply shy. Celine was completely broken.

She had watched the man she loved be brutally murdered by her own father.

Ines slowly folded the letter. She could not bear to look at the words any longer. She clutched the folded parchment tightly against her bodice, right over her heart.

"That should be why she was sent to France," Ines replied, her voice filled with a heavy, profound sadness. She looked out the tall glass windows, staring blindly at the busy servants outside. "To avoid a rumor. To hide her grief. Lord Farrington buried the boy, paid off the local magistrate, and locked his daughter away in a foreign convent until she learned how to stay quiet. Until another opportunity arose for them."

Aunt Margery slowly lowered her hands from her face. She reached out and gripped the high, carved back of a wooden dining chair to steady herself. Her knees felt incredibly weak.

Aunt Margery looked at Ines, and the two women shared the exact same, overwhelming sympathy for Celine.

In their world, arranged marriages were common. Fathers often forced their daughters to marry for land or titles. But murder? The brutal, calculated slaughter of a young man simply for falling in love? That was the work of a monster. A proper duel would have been enough. That was the most honorable thing he could have done but Lord Farrington wasn’t an honorable man.

"She warned me," Ines whispered, a single tear escaping her eye and rolling down her cheek. "When she hugged me before they left... she whispered in my ear. She begged me to tell Rowan not to sign the contract. She was trying to save my brother from her own father."

"Because she knows exactly what her father is capable of," Aunt Margery added softly. Her voice lacked its usual cheerful volume. It sounded old, and incredibly tired. "She knows he will destroy Rowan if he does not get what he wants."

The grand ballroom continued to bustle around them. The maids laughed near the chandeliers, completely unaware of the dark, terrible tragedy unfolding in the quiet corner of the room.

Ines began to pace. She took three short, agitated steps to the right, her skirts swishing against the floor, and then turned back. Her sharp, calculating mind, usually her greatest asset, was struggling to process the information and find a safe path forward.

They needed a scandal to break the marriage contract. Rowan had explicitly said that a hidden scandal could be used under the ’good faith’ clause to void the agreement without paying the massive penalty.

They had found their scandal. But the price of using it was entirely too high.