38Author's Note: This is what I've been working on for a long period of time. I'm sorry if it's been a while! I lost my touch for months and then when it came back, I thought I could write a new story with new characters. Oh, I did. But there are some characters that ring a bell in your ears. Next chapter shall be posted tomorrow. Consider this a teaser. (:
Prologue
Lady Margaret Cutting, Countess Lockley and dowager Duchess of Rossington, sat in her London drawing room, looking out the window, where she saw passersby and irritating cars that would not stop honking, practically turning her deaf.
She had been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes, and she told her butler to call the betrotheds to come to her at exactly three o'clock on the dot. But no, it seemed Harris failed to follow her teeny request. Either that or the three to-be-engaged couple were purposefully ignoring her low-hand command.
Was it so very difficult to follow her? Would they rather she strode toward them, barking each of their names? They certainly would not like that.
Sighing and rolling her cool blue eyes, she stood from her seat and, with a little help from her cane (her joints were starting to ache, for the love of God), walked determinedly to where Harris was.
She found him standing on the mezzanine landing, widening his eyes as he saw the dowager glare at him from below. "Harris!" she barked, as she usually did at everyone.
"Y-yes, madam?"
"Why have the couples not entered my drawing room as what I expected?" she demanded.
Harris was slightly panicking, but he tried so very hard to cover it. He didn't like it when the dowager started barking and losing her temper (which was almost all the time). "I - I am unable to find them in the vicinity, Lady Cutting."
Lady C squinted at him. Hard. "They are hiding from me, aren't they?" She could see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down on his fleshy throat. "Harris, you have been in my household for thirty years. You wouldn't want me to lose trust in you, would you?" she said in a low, dangerous voice, designed to manipulate and make a person unbearably guilty. "I certainly would not want a traitor in my home, but if you are going to continue this traitorous act, then I'd have no choice but to dismiss -"
"They are in the basement, hiding from you!" Harris blurted out. Realizing what he just did, he placed a hand on his mouth, squeaking. Butlers were not supposed to squeak, nor be intimidated. They were supposed to act very composed and…loyal to one's employer. He could feel his father, who used to be the family butler, roll in his grave. Dear God.
Lady Cutting grinned wickedly and patted Harris affectionately on the cheek. "Got you," she murmured, her eyes scintillating with triumph and amusement. "You've served well in this family. Why would I dismiss you of your services? Good heavens, that would be criminal."
With that, she strode toward halls and halls of the inside of the palatial house, and when she reached a tiny closet, her eyes locked on the latch and scooted (rather slowly, in her opinion) to move the rug with her hand, her finger locking around the circular latch. Quietly, she listened for voices of the teenagers. Sure enough, she could hear her grandson, Frederick, saying, "We're kididng ourselves, guys! You know Grandmama. She knows everything."
"Oh, be quiet," his cousin, Michael, snapped. "This is the last place she'll ever find us."
Emerson, Michael's twin sister, scoffed. "Like you don't know that old windbag. She's practically got a radar!"
"We're screwed," Keller moaned.
"We most definitely aren't scre -"
Lady C rolled her eyes and pulled on the latch, stepping rather gracefully down the steps of the remarkably dusty basement. "The lot of you did not come to me, so I thought I should rather come to you," she said offhandedly, waving a hand as a dust flew toward her face.
"I told you," Frederick muttered to no one in particular, looking guilty and moody all at once.
The others did not dare talk.
She looked at all of them, with indignant, sharp eyes. The Earl of Sterling, next in line for the duchy of Rossington, stood poised at the center, his calculating silver eyes rivaling her blue ones. His arms were crossed, then he looked at a beautiful young lady with such spunk that Lady Cutting loved so much about her. Keller Blakely was sitting on a old barrel, but when she held out a hand to him, he didn't think twice and simply held hers with his, sitting beside her, hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Her dear Frederick, Viscount Huntingdon - such a sweet, sweet boy - had an arm around his fiancée, Vivian Lennox. He looked defeated, but she was keeping him strong.
And Emerson, a girl who reminded Lady C of herself when she was younger, had her head securely tucked at the hollow of handsome Richard Wesley, Baron Cransell, her raven locks spilling like a dark waterfall. She had an odd suspicion that Richard loved sniffing her hair like a hound.
Good heavens. Lady C blinked at all of them. They did hide from her on purpose, but now that they'd been caught, they were sticking together - preferably with the ones they truly loved - like nothing could ever be wrong.
It reminded her of her darling Maxwell…
She was shocked that tears were starting to moisten her eyes and she started sniffing. Oh no. She'd never showed tears to anyone after Maxwell passed away fifteen years ago. And now here she was, trying so hard to stop those damn salty tears from streaming down her wrinkly face.
"Grandmama…?" Frederick began, shock evident in his voice.
"Are you crying?" Michael followed, blinking multiple times to check if he was dreaming or not.
Everyone in the room stared at her.
With a snort, she straightened her already stiff shoulders and waved her hand in irritation. "Don't be silly!" she scoffed. "I never cry. Now, if you don't want to have a sneezing fit, and if you most certainly don't want me to torture you here, I suggest you come up to the drawing room and have tea and cake with me." She turned around and started climbing up the steps. "I must tell you something important."
When she was gone, the six couples stared at one another.
"Well," Keller breathed out, "that was unexpected."
Unexpected, indeed.
"I have a story to tell all of you," Lady C announced as soon as the couples sat in the drawing room, grabbing a plate with red velvet cake as the specialty on it. "Before the six of you get married in three days, I want you to know a tale about a young countess and an earl."
"Is this like a Regency novel?" Viv asked in excitement, taking a bite of her cake afterwards.
"Lord, no!" Her eyebrows shot up. "Too racy, those books. A lot of…tension," she mumbled. Everyone in the room looked at each other knowingly. Clearing her throat, she continued. "As I was saying, it's about two people who never knew the true meaning of love, but once they found and got to know each other, everything changed. I say, the girl was very gorgeous and the guy handsome, but he could be a total idiot at times, but still -"
Michael's hand shot up, enjoying this. Lady C glared at him for interrupting her. "Is this a story of great-great Aunt Greta?"
"No," she bit off.
"Great-Grandmama, then?"
"No!" she ground out, tapping her cane. "It's about me and your Grandpapi!"
There. She said it. Out loud.
And, sweet heavens, they were stunned. They all looked at her, unblinking, mouths hanging open in a very unattractive way (no matter how attractive they were), forks in midair. One cake even toppled onto the insanely expensive Persian rug Lady C and Maxwell bought back in '54.
She glared at them, slicing each one with her eyes. "I see I've shocked all of you."
"You've never told us how you and Grandpapi met and fell in love," Emerson said in astonishment, her silver eyes finally blinking. "Never in my whole eighteen years of living and waiting for a year to get married."
"Someone knew half my life," Lady C stated slowly, her eyes skidding toward Keller, who swallowed. The chit found her diary a year ago, and she never knew it had still been in that old cottage built especially for her for nearly fifty years. "Since I forced you all to wait for at least a year to get married, till everyone's legal, instead of one year ago, I believe it is the right time to tell my tale. I know most of you don't want to hear this -"
The three girls practically bounced in their seat. "Oh, we do!"
The boys, well, they were eyeing her in shock. Lady C stared at Michael, who looked like the spitting image of his grandfather - more so than her son, his own father. For the first time that day, Michael gave his famous crooked smile (which so reminded her of Maxwell's own sly smile), and gave a tiny chuckle.
Closing her eyes, finally having the courage to tell her story for the first time, she let herself go, melding into her own tale of first hate and love.