Page 17 of The Dove
“But, I am not angry with you,” she told him—and it was the truth. “I am not angry, or sad, or, really, anything at all when it comes to you, Bertram. I am simply … done.”
Gesturing around her simple but elegant drawing room, he snorted. “Obviously, you are, if it pleases you to live in the lap of luxury while Father and I are practically starving.”
Pursing her lips, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Starving, Bertie? Nowyouare the one who’s being dramatic. I seem to recall the pair of you receiving the substantial sum of ten thousand pounds—”
“Not nearly enough for men of means to live off of,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes.
His flippant dismissal made her blood boil, her palms burning with the need to slap him. “It was enough to pay for the loss of my maidenhead!”
He gestured toward her with one hand, then once again indicated the room they stood in. “Apparently, the man very much enjoyed what he sampled, given your sudden financial independence.”
Despite knowing he’d meant to anger her with that little jibe, she couldn’t help but grin. “What bothers you more, Bertram—that he paid me at all, or that I earned several times more the amount he paid you?”
His face fell, disbelief flickering in his eyes. “How much more?”
Brushing past him, she stomped toward the window, needing to occupy herself, to keep from bashing him over the head with the nearest vase. She stared out at the street, watching as carriages and people on foot came and went. Narrowing her eyes, she spotted what she thought might be a familiar figure.
Large, broad, masculine. Not Adam … someone else with the same proportions and build.
Niall.
“That is none of your affair,” she snapped, trying to keep her voice even and not let on that Adam’s butler appeared to be loitering across the street.
“None of my affair?” Bertram blustered. “Has your self-righteousness caused you to forget familial loyalty? Every family of thetonhas secrets, Daphne, many of them far more scandalous than ours.”
Glaring at him over her shoulder, she shook her head. “Do the secrets of other families weigh upon your conscience? I can tell you … yours, Father’s, Uncle William’s … they weighed upon me every day that I spent at Dunnottar. They consume me still.”
He made the mistake of approaching her again, reaching out to take her arm. “And now thathe’shere, what will you do? Will you go on letting him use you to tarnish our family name and make us look like fools?”
Her nostrils flared as she reached the limit of her patience. She fairly shook with rage when she thought of the things she’d endured for his sake.
“Hartmoor’s presence in London does not frighten me nearly as much as it seems to have terrified you,” she lied, even as her stomach twisted at the mention of his name.
I came for you, little dove.
“My involvement in his little vendetta has come to an end, and so has my association with you—both public and private,” she added. “If you wish to know what he might be up to, might I suggest taking it up with him yourself?”
Bertram blanched, as if even the mere notion made his blood run cold. As well it should.
“You disappoint me, Daphne,” he murmured, releasing her arm. “I had hoped you might at least wish to help restore our reputation, as mine and Father’s are directly linked to yours. Do you not understand? If we are social outcasts, then so are you.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I have always been different, and we both know it. I was never a part of their world.”
“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “But we all have to live in it.”
Turning to leave, he muttered curses under his breath, and something that sounded vaguely like ‘spoiled, ungrateful little bitch.’ If he still held any power over her, she might have allowed herself to react to that, to rage and cry and scream. But as she took in his haggard appearance, she realized that in the end, she had truly won. She had gained her freedom, and it was far more valuable to her than the naiveté she’d once hidden behind.
Pausing in the doorway, he glanced back at her. “By the way … Robert is in town. He arrived not long before Hartmoor, but of course, a mere baron’s son does not garner quite as much attention from the papers.”
Her mouth went dry, her pulse fluttering as she thought of the man she had almost married—the first man she’d ever loved. However misguided, her feelings for him had been real … though not strong enough for her to wed him, to allow herself to settle for a mediocre and passionless marriage. Oh, Robert had awakened her sexual cravings and taught her a woman’s pleasure … but he could never be the sort of man who satisfied her, who read the truth in her eyes and unlocked the deepest of her secret desires. He just did not have it in him.
“Oh?” she replied, keeping her voice light.
“He called upon Father and me and asked that I deliver this,” he said, retrieving an envelope from his coat pocket and holding it up for her to see. “I do think he’s still in love with you, Daff … enough that the scandal will not deter him from pursuing you. My advice might not mean much these days, but you ought to consider it. He is respectable enough to salvage at least your own reputation.”
He placed the letter on a small decorative table near the door and turned away once more.
Before he could leave, she took a step toward him, a sudden need compelling her.
