Page 131 of A Gentleman's Wager
“For what am I being thanked?”
Joshua shrugged. “I’m as baffled as you are.”
-71-
Wakefield
The music wove a spell around him as Wakefield strode purposefully towards his reunion with Lousia. He had not the first idea what he would say to her, but that didn’t seem to matter so much as presenting himself and letting her know that he was here, and that whatever else was going on he cared about her and her welfare. It was not until he reached the threshold of the music room that his wits caught up with his compulsion and brought him to a standstill. He could not simply blunder in. He had a difficult apology to make, one that even now caused his insides to squirm. Lord dammit, but he missed her. He’d been rehearsing speeches to her for weeks, telling her in every conceivable way how sorry he was for his stupidity. That his night with Millicent had been foolish, that it had meant nothing, that he could not even precisely recall how it had come about. None of those orations seemed appropriate now.
She sat facing away from him. Her hair done up in an elaborate knot of curls. The back of her neck was bare. He closed his eyes imagining pressing his lips there, feeling the softness of her skin, breathing in her feminine scent. “Louisa.” He barely breathed her name, but she must have heard him, for her playing ceased. Cautiously, she peered over her shoulder.
Wakefield did his best to offer an apologetic smile but managed only a sheepish grin.
It wasn’t as if he expected a welcome. He’d envisioned tears, cold anger, boiling rage, but in all the scenarios he’d explored within his imagination she’d always allowed him his oration. Not so the woman before him. She snatched up her music file and headed straight for the other door.
“Louisa…Please…Wait.”
“I have nothing to say to you, Frederick Wakefield, nothing at all.”
That she had stilled long enough to bite out even those words was something. He gave chase, reaching out to grab her arm, which served only to spill her music scores in every direction.
While he knelt to retrieve them, she fled without a backward glance.
Wakefield stared dumbly at her retreating form, shredding the paper in his hand with his overtight grip. He let the music fall, pushed hard, propelling himself forward into a hard sprint. Louisa shrieked. She went for the stairs. He took them two at a time. On the top landing, he almost caught her, his fingers brushing the wool of her gown. Nimble and fleet she bolted away, flying to her chamber, then turning to slam the door shut.
Wakefield wedged his foot across the threshold. Agony exploded through his bones as the wood collided with his booted foot, turning his breath into a hiss of pain, but he refused to be locked out. Undeterred, he put his weight to the door and little by little inched it open. She was a slight thing, hardly a match for him in terms of brawn. With another shriek, she relinquished the struggle and retreated backward.
Wakefield barged in, kicking the door to behind him. “Louisa.” He had only one chance to fix this, to make it all right between them again. Even trembling with rage and exertion, she was still a goddess to him. “I’m sorry—”
“You’re sorry,” she spat. The liquid blue of her eyes blazed like a gas flame. “How dare you? You come charging back from town and chase me to my room to say you’re sorry. Is that it? Is that all you have to say to me? I’m ruined, Frederick. What little money I now possess is barely enough to pay off the servants and keep a roof over my aunt’s head, but all you have to say to me is sorry? Sorry for what exactly? That I’m destitute? That I will have to rely upon my friends not to go hungry, or perhaps you refer to the fact that you slept with a whore?”
“All—”
“Or is it that you’ve chased me to my bedchamber thus ensuring I am doubly ruined you are apologising for?”
It stung to be so thoroughly chastised, though there was no doubt that he deserved it. “For all of it,” he mumbled. “Every last part. That which is my fault and that which isn’t. I want only to help, Louisa. Pryce has—”
“What concern is it of yours, what Pryce has done? You wanted no part of my fortune as I recall. Why should the fate of it bother you now?”
“I can… I can help.” The way forward seemed all of a sudden crystal clear.
“How? What is it you imagine you can do?” Her knuckles bleached from the tightness of her fists, and she spat her words between rasping breaths. “When I wanted you to take care of me, were you here? When I offered you my love, were you? No, you were not. You were in town with your strumpet. It is where I bid you take yourself now. Go back to her, for I need you not.”
“That night was a mistake, Louisa. The foolish actions of a man who was too blind to realise that his own pride was the cause of his woe. I love you. I always did. That ought to have been enough, would that I’d realised it.”
Whippet fast, she slapped him hard across the face.
Well now, it could hardly get worse.
She made a guttural noise in the back of her throat, and turned her back on him, while he straightened his stinging face.
“I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it, and I shan’t ask for it, but Louisa, I do mean to be here for you, and to help in whatever way I can. I’m a soldier, I won’t run from this, and I’m prepared to dig in for a siege. You say that I cannot help, but I believe otherwise. I would give you a home, my love. Give you all I might own in this life and the next.”
She turned, eyed him cautiously.
“Louisa, I’m begging you.” He grasped her hand and dropped to his knees, holding fast when she tried to break free. “I love you. I never meant to hurt you.”
“You took another to your bed.”
