Chapter Twenty-one
He didn’t come.
Allison woke up the next morning, blinking a combination of tears and sleep from her eyes. She’d spent a mostly sleepless night tossing and turning when she’d realized that Quinn was not going to come and see her.
He’d obviously spoken to Lucien yesterday morning, but whatever had happened between the two men must not have led to Lucien forcing Quinn to come and ask for her hand.
She’d been so worried her indiscretions were going to lead to a forced marriage, but now she feared Heather had been right. Perhaps what frightened her even more was that Quinn would gladly take whatever lifeboat Lucien had offered him and paddle as quickly as possible away from her and all the upheaval she’d brought into his well-ordered life.
For long moments, she laid there feeling sorry for herself, but then she sighed and got up, nibbling at her breakfast tray as she tried to decide what to do next. Should she force the issue by going to see Quinn this morning, or should she head to Lucien’s instead to see what he’d told Quinn yesterday?
After mulling it over for quite some time, she decided it would be best to go see her brother first. She went and soaked in her tub for a while, then rung for Heather to help her dress. She was just fastening her necklace when Jocelyn poked her head in the door.
“You have a visitor,” Jocelyn murmured, looking a bit frazzled.
“Is it Quinn?” Allison asked, her stomach clenching with excitement.
Jocelyn bit her lip and shook her head. “No, dear. I’m afraid it’s your mother.”
Allison just stared, disappointment washing through her. Well, this was certainly the last thing she needed right now. For a moment, she thought about simply having Jocelyn tell her mother that she wasn’t here, but in the end, she decided it was better to just get it over with.
Apparently, word of her scandal had already made its rounds through the ton.
Taking a deep breath, she stiffened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Her mother was the last person who had the right to take her to task for what she’d done.
When she entered the drawing room, she found her mother sitting primly on a stiffed-back chair in front of the fireplace, her white-blond hair in a flawless chignon, her lovely face cold as ice as she looked up at her only daughter.
“Good morning, Mother,” Allison murmured, coming to take the chair across from her.
“Would you like me to have some tea prepared?” Jocelyn asked from the door, her demeanor decidedly unwelcoming. Allison had the feeling her friend would send her mother away if she wanted her to, and the thought warmed her more than it should.
“No,” Allison replied quickly. She doubted this was a social visit. No point in drawing it out.
Her mother pursed her lips together, fine lines crinkling around them, which showed how truly outraged she was. Her face was so flawless because she never showed any emotion at all.
Once Jocelyn had shut the door behind her, her mother lifted her cold blue gaze to Allison’s. “My reputation has already been sullied because all three of your brothers married women far beneath them, but this is worse. Far worse, Allison! How could you do this to me? Our entire family has become the laughingstocks of the ton.”
Allison swallowed, stung despite herself at her mother’s disdain. She’d tried all her life to make this woman happy and never succeeded, but at least her mother had never been ashamed of her before. “I never meant to cause a scandal.”
“What did you think was going to happen when you decided to ruin yourself with a man like that? A police inspector, Allison? A common brute? I raised you better than this!” Her mother was so outraged, she was nearly foaming at the mouth.
“Quinn O’Brien is a good man!” Allison fired back, incensed that her mother would judge a man she’d never even met so harshly. “He is a far better man than any of the wastrels you’d rather sell me off to. I care about him deeply!”
“Well, you’d better, since you’ve left yourself no option but to marry him.” Her mother shook her head, the look of near hatred on her face so far from her usual expressionless mask that Allison hardly recognized her.
“Is that what Lucien is demanding?” Allison asked, her bluster withering.
“How would I know?” her mother snapped. “He still isn’t speaking to me. I am the one who is demanding this of you. My reputation cannot survive having an unwed trollop for a daughter!”
“I don’t give a fig about your reputation,” Allison replied, regaining some of her courage. “You’ve never cared about my brothers and me at all. I will do this to save my brothers’ reputations if I must, but not for you.”
“If you don’t marry, I will never speak to you again,” her mother promised coldly.
Allison felt a bubble of outraged laughter well up within her. “Do you think that I care? We hardly speak as it is. Ever since Roger took me to Paris, since Lucien and Serenity found each other and their son, you’ve cut me off as though I was to blame. I was still young. I needed you! I made my debut Season with my sisters-in-law by my side instead of my mother.”
Her mother turned up her nose. “They turned you against me and banished me to the country. What did you expect me to do?”
Be my mother!