Page 91 of Would I Lie to the Duke
Not this time. There was nothing to clutch tightly, no faint prospect that she might somehow recover things. It was a new world and she’d no idea how to survive in it.
First, she needed to return home. With any luck, there’d be a mail coach heading toward Wiltshire tonight.
She took a step and her foot connected with a stone. It careened across the yard and knocked against the stable wall.
“Bloody bad luck, getting sacked,” Lynch said as he emerged from the stables. His coat was gone and his waistcoat undone, and he held a book.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He waved off her comment. “No one but me and the horses, and we don’t mind a bit of to-do now and again.” Lynch’s mouth curved into a sardonic half smile. “Whenever us working folk try to step out of the box they’ve made for us, we get beaten back.”
“Foolish of me to attempt it.” She couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from her voice.
Lynch stepped closer. “We’ve got to try, otherwise everything stays the same. The gentry get what they want, and we’re left in the muck. Bunch of blackguards, the lot of ’em.”
“Not all of them are bad,” she said automatically. “Some try to do good with the power they’re given.”She dashed a knuckle across her eyes in a vain attempt to stem her tears.
“You’ll find a way back onto your feet. Can’t keep a good woman from rising up. Like the sun. Every morning she’s up in the east.”
“Thank you,” Jess said. “For telling me it’s all right to dream. It’s just...” She swallowed. “It’s terrible when those dreams break apart.”
“They’ll mend.” He shrugged. “Or they won’t. Life likes to kick us in the bollocks.”
“It does,” she said ruefully. She’d fought hard, but perhaps those efforts had been laughable. God knew, she’d been deluding herself to ever believe she could have Noel.
“I’ll take that.” He plucked the satchel from her hand and walked toward the stables. “I’m giving you a ride to the coaching yard.”
“Kind of you—but the mistress won’t like it.”
He said over his shoulder, “Nothing kind about it. I just like telling them abovestairs to kiss my arse.”
A laugh broke from her, like a bird startled from the scrub. “I’d say you were a good man, Lynch, but I’m not sure you are.”
“Then we’re a pair, ain’t we?” He set her bag inside the carriage. “Now get aboard while I hitch the horses, and we’ll get you the hell out of London.”
She climbed into the vehicle and waited. As she did, she fought to bring comforting images of home to mind, seeking solace in its familiarity of the house itself and the fields and all the places she loved best.But all she could imagine was the vast open spaces of her broken heart.
“Your Grace,” Beale said with barely suppressed horror as Noel stepped into the bedchamber. “What has become of your coat?”
At his valet’s exclamation, Noel glanced down at himself. His coat had begun the evening in a much more unsullied state, and now, after a night wandering the streets of London before finding himself at a dockside tavern, it was rumpled and stained. At least the blood on the sleeve wasn’t his. It had spurted from the mouth of a man who’d thought it a fine diversion to pick a fight with a toff.
The tooth Noel had knocked from his assailant’s mouth now lay upon the floor of the tavern, to be swept up—or not—by an unfortunate taproom wench.
“And your eye is atrocious,” Beale added.
Noel’s hand drifted up to the swelling spot beneath his left eye. The man who’d accosted him had managed to get in a single punch, but that lone blow had been enough. Noel would surely sport a bruise for a goodly while.
“Have you been to bed?” Noel rasped as he lowered himself into the chair by the fire. This was hardly the first time he’d kept his servants awake waiting for him, but tonight he carried the stink of the docks and cheap gin rather than the smell of expensive wine and a woman’s perfume.
Beale crossed the room and tugged on the bellpull. “I amused myself by playing craps and beating thefootmen out of sixpence.” A few moments went by, and Mrs. Hitcham, the housekeeper, appeared. “His Grace requires a bath immediately. And some beefsteak for his eye.”
“Yes, Mr. Beale.” The housekeeper curtsied before speeding away.
Noel leaned his head back and closed his eyes, weary beyond imagining but certain he’d never find rest again. He tried to put his pain in a neat container, labeling itBetrayaland setting it on the shelf. He wasn’t the first person to face treachery at the hands of a beloved. Others survived such grievous wounds. Surely he could do the same.
Try as he might, agony kept pushing its way out of its box. It wouldn’t be contained, wouldn’t be labeled. It simplywas, and thatwashad become all-encompassing, taking over everything. Stealing his breath and grabbing him by the throat.
Jess. His lovely, brilliant Jess. Another liar who had used him.
