Connie (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 3) by Mary Kingswood

not!” Dulcie said. “She should disinherit him at once! That is what I should do, for being so disobliging. Who is Jess Drummond to be marrying a Marquess, I should like to know? She has not a farthing to her name, and although her family may be respectable in Scotland, she is nobody here. I never liked her, never. Did I not say there was something sly about her?”
    “Poor Connie,” said Hope, wrapping her sister in a warm hug. “Now you will have to start all over again.”
    “There is always Lord Reginald,” Grace said. “Would that answer, do you suppose?”
    “What, and have Miss Constance Allamont of Allamont Hall give precedence to the likes of Jess Drummond?” Dulcie said hotly. “Never!”
    “Well, it is done,” Belle said. “So we must all learn to curtsy to Jess Drummond now.”
    Lady Harriet arrived very soon afterwards, all indignation and outrage. “I despair of Dev, truly I do,” she said, eyes sparkling with anger. “Such a fool, to be taken in by a pretty face and winning ways, when he could have had—” She glanced at Connie, but clamped her lips tightly shut.
    “Connie does not want him, I am sure,” Dulcie said stoutly.
    “Oh. Is that so? That is good, for I had supposed…” Again she trailed off, eyeing Connie speculatively.
    “It is quite all right, my lady,” Connie said quietly. “There was no attachment on my side.” It was not quite true, and now that all possibility of the match was lost, she felt sure that the Marquess would have suited her admirably. Still, if he was so devoid of taste that he preferred Jess Drummond to herself, there was no hope for him, and she would not repine. There was still Lord Reginald, after all, and had she not liked him right from the start? Yes, upon reflection, she was sure that she had felt an attraction from the first moment she had seen him. Such a pleasant man, and so thoughtful.
    “Thank goodness!” Lady Harriet said. “For I was worried… Well, no harm done, then. But still, it is not a sensible match, however one looks at it, and Great-aunt Augusta was very displeased to be woken to such news. Smelling salts were called for, I hear, and she was positively shouting at Dev, and Great-aunt never raises her voice. She whisked him away to her sitting room, and he had been closeted away with her for an hour or more when I came away. The house was in uproar, as you may imagine.”
    She rattled on in like manner for some time, requiring no response, for which Connie was very thankful. Although she was quite certain that she was not broken-hearted, yet, in some way she could not quite explain, the idea of the Marquess married to someone else caused her surprising pain. She had begun to consider him as her rightful property, and that had been foolish of her, she could now see. After all, he had been drawn to Jess from the very first, and although his manner to Connie herself had been all that was charming and amiable, he had never distinguished her in any particular way. Latterly, she had spent more time with Lord Reginald, if truth be told.
    She could not decide whether it was the loss of the Marquess himself that distressed her, or whether it were merely the idea of Jess Drummond stealing him from under her nose. Eventually, she settled in her own mind that it was the humiliation that hurt her the most. Even though there had been nothing between her and the Marquess, there had been speculation surrounding them. The coincidence of his arrival just at the point when she might be expected to be looking for a husband was bound to attract comment. It was a natural pairing, after all, and even Lady Harriet had wondered about it. Now that the possibility had been lost, she was exposed to the scrutiny of the world as a woman who had been… not jilted, that was too strong a term, but unsuccessful in securing him. Yes, she would be thought to have failed, indeed, she must consider herself to have failed, for had she not set out to entice him to