A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin_The Debutante Files

Rosalie narrowed her eyes on her mother. “Why should you suddenly care?”

“Of course I care. Curb your tongue. I’m your mother, dearest. It is my duty. Everyone would expect me to usher you through the Season and guide your way on the marriage mart, not Declan. What does he know of young debutantes?”

Rosalie nodded slowly, understanding her mother’s motives. Expectations. That would weigh on her mother. That would matter. Enough, apparently, for Melisande to take a sudden interest in her.

“And you don’t know the first thing about men, either. You will need my help in wading through the waters of the ton, trust me. I won myself a duke for a husband, did I not? I can help you snare the perfect husband. We don’t want a miser who clings to every farthing and fails to understand our relationship.”

“Our relationship?” Rosalie echoed, shaking her head in some bewilderment.

Melisande finally selected a biscuit, nodding as she nibbled on the corner. “Hm-mm. You and I are a package, darling. Any man that chooses you gets me, too. That must be understood straight away.”

She blinked, a sick feeling twisting its way inside her as everything came together like pieces of a puzzle. Of course. Melisande wanted a son-in-law who would be agreeable to supporting his mother-in-law. Someone who wouldn’t mind her dipping into his pockets.

The door opened suddenly and Dec strode in, his face hard as stone.

Melisande seemed to freeze, her eyes widening with the biscuit halfway to her mouth.

Dec looked from Melisande to Rosalie and then back again, his eyes chips of ice. “I believe I told you that you were not welcome here that last time you called.”

Melisande recovered herself. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “You have my daughter. That gives me the right—”

“The daughter you conveniently forgot about for years?”

Rosalie flushed, not appreciating the reminder of how little her mother cared for her. It was one thing for this to be a known fact . . . and another thing to speak of it so boldly directly in front of her.

“I did what any mother would do and sent her to a proper school—”

“From which she completed her studies two years ago. You made it clear you have no wish to resume responsibility for Rosalie. Why attempt to act the role of doting mother now?”

Melisande flung the biscuit down on the tea service. “As though you give a bloody hell about her. You’ve only placed a dowry on her head to get rid of her. Like you got rid of me.”

“And yet here you sit.” His lip curled back like her very presence tainted the room.

“Oh, you act like such the moral prig, but we know the truth about you. All of Town hears of your deviant—”

“Enough!” Rosalie set her teacup down with a sharp click. She glared at the both of them. They were bickering children and she’d had enough of it. “I’ll go pack my things.” She turned for the doors. Really. What else could she do?

Dec stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Rosalie—”

She looked up at him, the sound of her name on his lips sending a shot of sensation directly down her spine. She waited. He merely stared, saying nothing, his eyes deep and dark, conveying some silent message that she was unable to comprehend.

What could he say? Her mother had come to fetch her. She had no valid reason to remain here.

She inhaled. “Thank you for your hospitality . . . thank you for everything.” Without him, she wouldn’t even have a hope for marriage. Now she would go home with her mother and finish out the Season—likely, hopefully, with a marriage proposal soon in hand.

She glanced at her mother’s smug expression. Melisande had won and she knew it. Rosalie did not relish going home with her but it was the thing to do. Perhaps the next time a gentleman made an offer, she would accept. Indeed, reflecting back on Strickland’s offer, he was not a poor prospect. He more than likely wouldn’t have bowed to her mother’s whims . . . and suddenly that became a new goal. She didn’t want to find a merely tolerable gentleman, but one who would stand firm against her mother and not let her run roughshod over him.

Dec slid his hand from her arm. He gazed down at her, his bearing stiff and correct as he tucked his hands behind his back. “No thanks necessary.”

She fled then, leaving them alone together. Hopefully the pair could remain in a room without murdering each other.

A lump rose in her throat that she could not credit as she hastened toward her chamber. She had worried about staying overly long beneath his roof. That he would eventually realize she was the one he kissed at Sodom’s. That she would give herself away in some small way.

She had worried that perhaps . . . she wanted him to remember.

Now she was leaving and there would be no chance of that.

Dec watched through the window of the upstairs drawing room as Rosalie’s last trunk was loaded onto the coach. Aurelia embraced Rosalie on the stoop as Melisande climbed inside the conveyance, no doubt impatient to be off. She’d gotten precisely what she wanted in coming here.

His jaw clenched.

“Are you mad?”

He turned to find his aunt directly behind him. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t even heard her approach.

“I’ve been accused of much, but that particular allegation? Never.”

She waved one thin arm toward the window. “You know why she came for Rosalie. She doesn’t give a fig about her daughter. Never has. Never will.” She snorted and adjusted her obscenely fat cat in her arms. The beast looked annoyed to be handled about and let out a low rumbling growl.

“Hush, Lady Snuggles,” his aunt said distractedly, looking beyond him to glare out the window. “All those years she left Rosalie to rot at that school, and suddenly she’s here. Pffft. It’s the dowry. Nothing more.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said evenly. He knew Melisande. He knew her perhaps better than anyone.

His aunt’s gaze yanked back to him. “You are? Then why are you allowing her to leave with that wretched woman?”

“Because it’s not my place to allow or disallow her to do anything. And because she’s Rosalie’s mother. Nor does it appear that Rosalie wishes to stay here. She left willingly.”

“Well, did you tell her she could remain here?”

His lips pressed flat at this.

Aunt Peregrine shook her turbaned head. “Of course you didn’t. Men never dare do something as foolish and weak as announce their thoughts or feelings.”

He squared his shoulders. “Need I remind you that I never wanted her here? She has a dowry now. Rosalie does. Not Melisande. It shall go to her husband upon her marriage—”

“And you know Melisande shall steer her toward less than ideal candidates that she can control with no thought to what is best for Rosalie.”

He shrugged, his hands still tight at his sides, belying the casual air he was struggling to affect. “The final decision rests with Rosalie—as she explained to me just yesterday when I dared to presume to accept a proposal on her behalf. If she’s foolish enough to let her mother choose her husband and rule her life, then so be it.”

“So be it?” Aunt Peregrine looked affronted.

Just then his cousin blasted into the room full force, her cheeks flushed and artfully arranged brown ringlets bouncing over her shoulders. “How could you have let her go?”

He sighed. “Why do the women in my family seem to think I have any right to keep her here? She chose to leave.” He waved at his aunt’s fat cat. “She’s not some pet to be lugged about without a by your leave!”