‘Your words do you credit,’ she said, glad that he could not see the smile on her face, for there was no way she could have explained it.
He must have caught some trace of her mood, for he said, a little puzzled, ‘You understand what this will mean to us?’ His voice was sad, but resolute. ‘This cannot go on. I must go home to her.’
‘I knew that what we shared could not last, as did you.’ She gathered his hand to her mouth and kissed it lightly, in the dark, glad that he could not know how happy she felt. ‘And I know that you love her. You cannot see it, of course. But on the day you showed me her picture, I knew. You have worn the paint away from the continual touching of it. You want to be with her. You know it is true.’
He gave a weak laugh. ‘More than I understood. More than I ever believed possible. I can deny it no longer. The woman is my home, and all I could have hoped for, had my life been different. I wronged her horribly by keeping the truth from her. And I have waited too long. Things have been lost that can never be regained.’
‘You will not know for sure until you speak to her,’ she urged.
‘I know it, true enough,’ he said. ‘About some things, there is nothing more that can be done. And now, I must make the best of what I have left.’
She touched his face again, wishing she could soothe his worries away and tell him how little the blindness mattered. ‘It will be all right. But you must go to her.’
He laughed again. ‘It is most unusual to accept advice from one’s mistress on what to do about the deep and unrequited feelings one might bear for one’s wife.’
‘Your feelings are not unrequited.’
‘How can you know?’
‘Because I know you. And as I love you, so will she. If you let her.’
He pulled his hand away and wrapped his arms around her again, holding her close to him as though he were afraid to lose her. ‘And then, what will become of you?’
‘I will find my husband again, just as I planned to from the first.’
‘He left you.’
‘And yet I have never stopped loving him.’
He held her even tighter. ‘I know it is wrong. And that I cannot have you. But I envy him even a portion of your affection, just as I long to be elsewhere. I am selfish and stupid, and I want to stay with you.’
‘It feels so good to hear those words from you. No matter what happens, I will remember them always. But you know what we must do.’ She kissed him then, letting the warmth of his love sink into her bones.
‘This could not last for ever,’ he whispered.
‘Perhaps, in a way, it shall,’ she whispered back.
‘We are happy now. And we shall be happy again. I am sure of it. But you need to do this one thing, to make it all right.’
When Adrian arrived back at his rooms it was well past breakfast, and he made no attempt to disguise his entry from Hendricks. The man was at the desk in the small sitting room, giving disapprovingly sharp rattles to the paper as he read, as though he could pretend that he had not been checking the clock and waiting for milord to come back from his whore.
Let him wait, said the irritable voice in Adrian’s head. What right does he have to complain about your behaviour, if he has been using your absence to put horns on you? Had it been just yesterday morning that he had convinced himself that the man was guiltless, and that David was clearly mistaken about Emily’s behaviour?
He struggled to calm himself, as he had lying awake in his lover’s arms. It did not matter what had happened, now that it was too late to change anything. The best he could hope for was to contain the damage. He could hardly blame Hendricks for loving the woman he wanted. And if she had true feelings in return, his attempting to slaughter Emily’s lover might break her heart. And nothing he did now would make him any less a cuckold.
He stared in the direction of the rattling paper and said in his most bland voice, ‘If you will give me a few moments to prepare myself, then I will be ready for the post and the paper.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
As the valet helped him to change, he could hear the sniff of disapproval at the condition of his cravat, and the ease with which the man had noticed that it had been tied by hands other than Adrian’s.
On any other day, he would have found it amusing. But today, a part of him wished that he could tell the man to take the razor and slice it up the back. After today, there was a chance that it was the only evidence he would have of the touch of her hands, anywhere in his life.
And his valet might as well follow the act by slitting his throat. He had lain there, after they had spoken of the future. And much as his mind had wanted to begin again, and to love her until he forgot what was to come, his body had found it impossible. He had done nothing but let her hold him. He had dozed as their last hours together ticked away, waiting to see the hazy glow of sunlight that was still allowed him.
And when he’d awakened enough to listen, he could tell by her breathing that she slept soundly, as though she had no fears. Perhaps her feelings had not been as she’d claimed. Faced with their inevitable parting, it had not caused so much as a bad dream for her. And when the sun was fully up, she’d woken, washed and dressed him, and sent him out of her life with a hearty breakfast and a kiss upon the cheek.
Halfway through his shave, Hendricks came into the room and went to the little table, bringing a cup of tea and lemon and forcing it into his hand.
Much as he wanted it, he said, ‘Pour this out and bring me another. Just the tea. No sugar. No lemon.’ Perhaps some day, when he felt himself starting to forget her. But not today.
‘Very good, my lord.’
Hendricks returned shortly with the corrected cup, and drew up a chair and his little writing desk, and began reading the mail. And Adrian allowed the ordinariness of it soothe his mind, pretending that nothing had changed between them.
After dispensing with a tailor’s bill and an invitation to a ball that Adrian had set aside as a possible peace offering to Emily, Hendricks said, ‘The next is from your cousin Rupert.’
Adrian took a sip from his cup. ‘Must we?’
‘Hmm.’ There was a pause as Hendricks scanned the letter. ‘If you will trust my opinion, my lord? No. It is more of the same, really. He saw you yesterday?’
‘At White’s,’ Adrian affirmed.
‘He wishes to see you again.’
‘How unfortunate for him.’
‘There is the matter of your wife …’
‘My response is the same as always,’ Adrian snapped. ‘Throw it on the fire.’
