Page 65 of Unmasking a Wicked Marquess
“Ma, please –”
“Nothing will persuade me out of this thought, Jane.” The Duchess of Lantham held up her hands in the air, clearly refusing to listen to any further protests. “For I know something more that you do not know. That is, he has asked me for his grandmother’s wedding ring. Yes, that’s right. He has taken my mother’s own ring. You cannot say he does not mean to propose now when he has taken that, can you?”
Jane seemed quite confused. She sat down in a chair close to her mother’s, staring into the distance.
“No,” she whispered eventually. “I suppose I cannot argue the fact.”
“Oh, it will be wonderful! Clarissa and Edward!”
Juliet felt sick, so nauseated that she backed up from the door and didn’t bother to hide the sounds of her steps. She feared a few seconds later that someone from within the library might have heard her, but she could not turn back to find out as she ran away.
He is to marry Lady Clarissa!
Chapter 20
With her head feeling dizzy, Juliet didn’t make her way to the nursery after all. Quite willfully ignoring the note she had left for Edward, all she could think about was escape, about getting away from this place as fast as possible.
Clarissa, Clarissa … he is to marry her? What was I to him then?
She ended up running across the corridor. Gathering the skirt of her gown in her hands, she ran without thinking, only praying that no one else was around to see her. She crossed the house as quickly as she could and found refuge in her own chamber.
Flinging the door open, she slammed it behind her, regretting it a second later when she feared she had become a petulant teenager, slamming things in her despair. She teetered back on her heels away from the door, raising a hand to her mouth. Closing her eyes, she saw it all again, saw everything they had shared together.
She saw Edward above her, kissing her, his lips languid and heated across her skin. She saw him enter her with his fingers, pleasuring her, moaning sweet things in her ear, urging her to spread her legs wider for him, which she had gladly done.
“What have I done?” she murmured aloud, her eyes shooting open as she turned on the spot. She felt abruptly sick. She had made love to him, quite wantonly and with great desire, and all for what? For a brief moment of satisfaction, for she could certainly not share it again with him if he was now to marry another woman.
“I am the other woman,” she whispered in realization, backing up so far that she collided with her bedpost. Not looking what she was doing, she tripped and fell on the foot of the bed, scrambling at the sheets to prevent herself from falling any further.
Her eyes prickled with tears, the sensation growing by the second until it was an ache behind her eyes. She had wanted it, wanted everything, but deep down in her heart, she had wantedmorefrom Edward. She had mistakenly believed that it was not just lust they were indulging in together but love.
“What a fool I am.” She bent her head down to the bed sheets. She didn’t bother righting herself or even finding a handkerchief; she just let the tears come. They beaded fast in the corners of her eyes and leaked down her cheeks, uninhibited. She merely muffled the sound against her sheets as she remembered something that had once been said to her long ago by her father.
“That family cannot be trusted. I fear after so long of being in argument with one another, they could be capable of anything to cause hurt.”
Was that what this was?
The thought coursed through her suddenly. Was there a chance that Edward had done this all to hurt her before he married Lady Clarissa?
***
Edward picked up the note from under his door. Seeing Juliet’s handwriting scrawled across the paper made a smile leap to his lips in a second. She wanted to see him so badly that she had written this hurried note. Stuffing the paper into his pocket, he flung open the door and hurried out, determined to meet her in the nursery as she had requested.
Walking across the landing, he strode with purpose until he heard a floorboard creak behind him and looked around.
His father had just emerged from his bedchamber with his brow furrowed as it had been constantly over the last few days. He didn’t seem to notice Edward at first but was looking down at a race card in his hand. Edward presumed it was the card that listed the races for the next day.
“Father?” Edward called to him. Philip jerked his head up, lowering the card a little. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, perfectly.” Philip nodded. “It’s just …” Rather than saying any more, he crossed towards Edward, holding up the card for him to see. Edward took the card, his eyes shooting down the list of races.
“Ah.”
“Yes, ah,” Philip muttered, repeating the sound. “Our horse up against Robert’s, I mean –”
Edward lifted his chin in surprise. It was the first time in years he’d heard his father call the man by his Christian name.
“Lord Clarence?” Edward offered when his father seemed to struggle to find the title.
