Page 41 of Her Beautiful Bastard
“Oh, Sinclair, darling!” she called out, sending every eye in the room skittering toward him. “I am so pleased you’ve returned home. You are just in time for tea.”
He unclenched his hands and unwound his jaw, forcing himself to appear at ease in front of his guests. “I am glad to see everyone has arrived. Welcome, all. My wife seems happy with my late arrival, though we all know that most of you care not a whit whether I am here when Dru is entertaining.”
Laughter rippled through the room, easing a bit of the strain thrumming through the air between himself and his wife. The only people in the room who did not smile or laugh were Charles and Lydia. The latter sat staring at him with a mournful expression pulling at the corners of her mouth and marring her forehead. Their gazes locked, and something heavy dropped into his gut, cold and twisting like a bundle of writhing snakes. The pity in her eyes washed over him, much like the look she’d given him when he had revealed his baseborn origins to her. And he knew without having to ask what had put such an expression her face.
Sheknew.
For some reason, that knowledge disturbed him more than anything else. It was one thing for her to have thought him a lecher at first, and perhaps a man of low moral standards. Perhaps she’d thought him a boor at times for his treatment of Drucilla, though living at Buckton, she also seemed to understand that it wasn’t ever unwarranted. But for her to also know what a fool his wife had made of him, for her to see the evidence of it and then pity him for it … it was more than he could bear.
He tore his gaze away, unable to look at her just now, his emotions too turbulent, his nerves rubbed raw. Around him, conversation resumed, as well as the clink of cups, saucers, and spoons. Forcing himself to move, he made his way through the room, wearing as good a smile as he could manage while he was greeted by one guest after another. After a few moments, he found it easier to don the mask he’d worn for so long, the one he displayed in order to hide the truth of his misery from the world. He had done it for so long that it came like second nature for him to smile and laugh and talk about tomorrow’s planned hunt when he stood a stone’s throw away from his wife and the man who had cuckolded him years ago … who might even find his way into Drucilla’s room later to do it him again.
That thought lingered in the back of his mind throughout the entire day. Even after tea had ended, after which many of the guests adjourned to different areas of the house to amuse themselves. A few of the women played at cards in one salon while others conversed in a quiet corner, and the men retreated outdoors with him for a tour of the grounds.
Even when they all dispersed to dress for dinner, he maintained his composure, his outward façade of aloofness. Yet, he did not forget the picture of Wortham standing behind that settee, hand on Drucilla’s shoulder, smiling down at his son. He did not forget the perfect picture of the three of them, handsome and beautiful and blond. He did not forget the anger he’d felt upon noticing just how much Henry resembled Wortham, wondering if he would be more a likeness of the viscount than Drucilla as he grew older, thinking about the sort of gossip that would inspire … how it would hurt the boy if he ever knew.
It put him on edge during dinner, where he sat sulking while everyone enjoyed the five-course meal Drucilla had planned. It drove him to drink more wine than he usually did, and once the men had broken away from the women for spirits and cigars, he went straight for the brandy bottle. While the other men made use of the chamber pots and fell into the sort of conversation they could not indulge in with women present, Sinclair retreated to a corner of the room and lit a cigar, hoping to hide behind a cloud of smoke.
No such luck.
Wortham seemed to be everywhere at once, as he had been all day—always within Sinclair’s line of sight during the tea, the tour, the dinner party where he had flirted shamelessly with Drucilla in full view of the entire gathering. These things would not have ordinarily irked him. He never cared what Drucilla did, not after she’d killed the last shred of his affection for her. Yet, it all seemed to hurt so freshly with Lydia looking on, seated farther down the table in a lovely, demure green silk gown, her pitying gaze flitting to him every few minutes, her mouth turned down. He adored her for caring, for being saddened on his behalf … but oh, how impotent it made him feel, to be forced to endure this, to have her look at him as if he were some wounded animal.
And so, when Wortham loped toward him from across the room, brandy tumbler in hand, smug smile fixed on his infuriating face, Sinclair had had just about enough. He stood on the edge of his control and forbearance. He could no longer hold his tongue.
Keeping his gaze on the other men in the room and discerning most stood out of earshot, he then turned a glare onto the viscount, who had helped himself to a cigar from the humidor.
“I say, Clayton,” the man remarked after taking his first puff from the cigar, sending fragrant smoke billowing around them. “The party is off to a good start.”
“So it is,” he ground out, fighting to keep his tone level. “Though, I suppose you ought to reserve your judgment until after you’ve availed yourself toallthat Drucilla’s hospitality has to offer.”
Wortham frowned, cigar in hand. “Come now, Clayton. It has been so long—”
“Not long enough for me to have forgotten how you befriended me, then proceeded to help yourself to my wife,” he snapped.
He sighed, turning to face Sinclair. “You judge me too harshly. Drucilla led me to believe—”
“Speak again, and I will put that cigar out in your eye,” he interjected, swiveling toward the viscount and taking a step closer and lowering his voice. “I do not care what she led you to believe, or what you thought, or what either of you wanted. What’s done is done, but Henry ismyson. You might have dipped your prick into his mother’s cunt, but that does not make you his father.Ihave claimed him, raised him, loved him.”
“Of course you have,” Wortham replied, despite Sinclair’s warning. “No one is disputing that he is yours, Sin.”
“Don’t call me that!” he spat, his voice rising and drawing the attention of a few of the other men.
Gritting his teeth, he swallowed the bile building in the back of his throat, his fingers clenching so hard around the cigar, he was surprised it did not snap in half. The other men went back to talking once they seemed to decide nothing of any interest was happening.
“I love her,” Wortham whispered.
“So did I,” Sinclair retorted, lowering his voice one more. “So does everyone. Do you think you are special because you managed to impregnate her? You’re an even greater fool than I thought.”
Downing what remained of his brandy, he slammed the glass onto a nearby side table.
“Help yourself to Drucilla all you wish … I have not cared for quite some time what man she’s giving her cunt to on any given week,” he ground out. “But if I find you anywhere near my son …”
He met the other man’s gaze, ensuring Wortham could see what he did not say. The viscount, apparently, deciphered the message. He simply nodded, lips pinched, gaze shuttered. With a curt nod of his own, Sinclair quit the room, not bothering to offer any explanations to his other guests. This late in the day, no one could fault him for leaving, especially when they were all accustomed to keeping country hours.
At some juncture, the men might rejoin the women in the neighboring salon for charades or cards or some other such thing, but he could not think of that. He could not look forward to being in the room with so many people again when he felt turned inside out, wrung dry, and exposed. He felt as if all the world could see him for a fool, a cuckold, a bastard who had dared to reach for a place in society that did not belong to him. With every slight he suffered, every embarrassment or bit of scorn, he was made to feel more and more like that boy who’d been brought to live with his father’s wealthy family after his mother’s death. He felt out of place, as if he wore someone else’s skin.
Yet, there was no escape. This was his life now, and while he’d had no control over his upbringing, this particular circumstance—his loneliness, his loveless marriage—were traps of his own making.Hehad built Drucilla up as some paragon of love and grace in his mind.Hehad spent years earning his way into her life and, he’d thought, into her heart.Hehad deluded himself into thinking she loved him back. And now, he must endure this, as there was not much else he could do short of murdering Drucilla and burying her body behind the cherry groves. Bad enough he was a bastard; there was no need to compound that by also becoming a killer.
He barreled down the corridor and toward the stairs, desperate for solitude lest he do something he might come to regret. He could not have his neighbors spreading gossip about his quick temper or irrational behavior—for to them, it would seem irrational, him erupting into a fit of rage, destroying everything he got his hands on before physically ejecting the viscount from his home and then wringing his wife’s neck. Oh, they would say, they’d always known Sinclair Clayton was barbaric. He was, after all, a bastard. Who would expect anything less?
