Page 87 of Counting on a Countess
“Greenwood was to be for them.” His voice was wooden. “Any man who could prove his past military service would be admitted for free.” He looked out over the property, which would always be an empty lot.
He glanced around with a stunned, devastated expression. She was the author of that devastation, and it shattered her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, misery heavy in her words.
“Yes, you’ve said.” Dazedly, he moved past her, heading toward the waiting carriage. “Well, that’s it. Just an empty plot of land. We can go home.”
He reached the carriage and got inside. She followed on legs made weighty by unhappiness. The footman helped her in, and when she settled she saw Kit staring sightlessly. When he didn’t move, she knocked on the roof, and in a moment, they were heading back across the river.
“Kit.” She reached out and tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away. It felt like a slap.
His silence gnawed at her, but in that quiet, her mind replayed the scene at the parcel of land. His eagerness, and how certain he had been that she would agree to finance the whole scheme. Why would he tell her about the pleasure garden today? Why hadn’t he mentioned it sooner? What had changed?
Her thoughts turned toward one conclusion—and every time they did, she wanted to reel away in horror.
Oh, please. No.
Yet it made sense. Horrible, agonizing sense.
“You knew how I felt about extravagant spending,” she said, her words cutting her like steel. “You knew I would refuse to fund Greenwood. So you set about ensuring that I wouldn’t say no.”
Please let me be wrong.
His gaze lifted to hers, and she saw in it the truth.
The heartbreak she had felt at denying him his happiness shifted into a new kind of pain. It leveled everything in its path, leaving her a devastated ruin. She fought the urge to curl in on herself and groan in agony.
“You believed I’d fall into your hand,” she said through lips that had gone numb from anger and hurt, “and play the nice, lovesick wife who throws money at you because you deigned to throw crumbs of attention in my direction.”
He had the grace to look away. “That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it?” She leaned closer to him. “Bring me to the theater, arrange for a tasting at Lord Marwood’s house, take me sailing. There’s the necklace, too. And,” she added, hurt outrage choking her words, “finagling me into your bed. All for your benefit, to make me pliant to your demands.”
“You make it sound as though I timed it,” he said tautly. “Fuck you, and then get my nine thousand pounds.”
“Isn’t that what happened?” she retorted.
“No.”
“How can I believe you, when you just admitted to wooing me for the sake of money?”
“It wasn’t about money,” he answered, but he still refused to gaze at her. “I’d dreamed of Greenwood. Hoping but never believing that it could ever be mine.” Finally, he looked at her, his eyes showing desperate yearning. “Lord Somerby’s fortune was going to change all that. It would chase the darkness away.”
“Did it never occur to you to simply ask me rather than go through this pantomime of affection?” she fired at him.
“Would you have said yes?” he shot back.
She had no answer.
His mouth twisted into something bitter and cold, and he spread his hands. “So here we are.”
Yes. Here we are. I believed you cared for me, and I have to deceive you. No one wins.
Her mind firmed on a resolution. She would get the smuggled goods to Mr. Jayne as soon as possible. “I have business to attend to tomorrow,” she said into the frigidness between her and Kit. “When that’s settled, I’m leaving for Cornwall.” Once back home, she’d buy Chei Owr and secure the village’s welfare. Lord Somerby had intended that money to be shared between them, but she couldn’t give it to Kit. She shoved away her aching conscience.
“We are still married,” he pointed out.
“I’m well aware of that,” she answered flatly. “Don’t worry, your lordship. I’ll return to London eventually, and we’ll get to the business of impregnating me. But without further sham displays of affection. You see,” she said with a hard little smile, “I’m finally learning the ways of you city aristocrats. I can be heartless, too.”
