Page 38 of The Seductive Love of a Lady
Drew did not deny it.
‘I hate you, when you’re like this,’ she had said earlier.
Everything Peter said was endorsed by the words Mary and her aunt had thrown at him earlier.
‘I am well aware of the mess I have made of things,’ Drew said. ‘I was sitting here mulling it over when you arrived.’
Silence was equal to violence. Had he been that dreadful? But it was true.
Drew drank his glass of wine.
Peter reached for the decanter, filled his glass and retook his seat. ‘Anyway, I have said my piece, but to be clear, I am not surprised Mary is thinking of deserting you.’
Drew smiled, his lips stiff. ‘Yet you have never deserted me.’
‘There are times I have thought about it.’ He smiled. ‘Your stubbornness would test any friendship.’
Drew laughed.
‘I saw Caro the other night,’ Peter said.
‘I am buying her a house,’ Drew told him. ‘I hope to smuggle her away in secret next week. At least it means some good will have come from my marriage, if Mary’s money means Caro is safely settled.’
17
The sound of Drew’s laughter woke Mary. He was in the sitting room.
She opened her eyes and sat up. Her limbs felt shaky but the headache was better.
The bedchamber was dark, apart from a line of light from a crack where the door had been left ajar.
‘I saw Caro the other night.’ Lord Brooke was here. Andrew must have reconciled with his friend.
‘I am buying her a house,’ Drew told him. ‘I hope to smuggle her away in secret next week. At least it means some good will have come from my marriage, if Mary’s money means Caro is safely settled.’
It is true! He has a mistress!Mary’s empty stomach roiled. She pressed a palm to her mouth and lay back down, afraid of being sick.
She did not cry. The well of her sorrow was dry. She could not continue crying for him forever – nor trying for him.
I will leave.
She could not stay.
Tomorrow, when he rode in the morning, she would leave and this would all be over.
18
Drew held the open door.
‘Goodnight. Your wife will come about,’ Peter said. ‘Do not ignore her, hold your temper and there you have it.’
Drew smiled. ‘Goodnight.’
‘May Cupid be with you,’ Peter said, raising a hand, before walking away.
Drew shut the door, thinking about the day before her father had found them in the inn. That had been a good day, the two of them in harmony. He was still the first few footprints in the snow of her life. He was the only man Mary had known.
He thought of Caro, when they were young, lying in the snow making angel shapes using her arms and legs, making him laugh.
