Devlin merely nodded.
Mitchell huffed, apparently faintly offended by Devlin’s suggestion. “If it’s all the same to you, my lord, I’d rather not leave you to be forced to rest these beauties in some stablemaster’s care while you take a break. I’ll stick with you.”
Devlin faintly smiled. He’d expected as much, but had felt he should ask. Given he was driving his cherished bays, he would have to manage them over the distance. Under those circumstances, it would take at least eight hours to reach his country home.
But that was neither here nor there. He fully intended to be reunited with his wife before tomorrow dawned.
In their compartment in the third of the first-class carriages rattling northward along the rails, Therese leaned back against the squabs and tried to relax.
Spencer and Rupert sat opposite, on the rear-facing seat, with Spencer leaning forward alongside Rupert to press his nose to the window in a likely vain attempt to spot the usual landmarks the pair knew bordered the tracks as the train chuffed out of London.
Out of habit, Therese took visual stock of their small party. On the seat opposite, Nanny Sprockett’s comfortable bulk filled the spot beside Spencer, with Horry wedged between Nanny and Gillian, the slighter of the two nursemaids; Gillian was playing a quiet game involving fingers, which fascinated Horry and kept the little girl amused. Therese herself sat beside the window on the forward-facing seat with Parker beside her, and red-haired Patty, the other nursemaid, filling the spot closest to the compartment’s door.
Morton and Dennis had seats in the second-class carriage immediately behind the one in which Therese and the footmen’s other charges sat.
Feeling sluggish and dragged down, Therese shifted her gaze to the window and stared past her sons’ heads at the backs of houses, barely discernible in the darkening night. There were no lamps in the compartment—within the train, the only light came from tiny lamps in the corridor alongside—and the occasional gleam from a lantern or streetlight outside illuminated little of the drab scenery, leaving her with no distraction. Nothing to prevent her thoughts from turning inward, nothing to block awareness of her bruised and battered heart from rising and swamping her mind.
The pain—a dull, throbbing ache—was real. She’d always dismissed as a melodramatic metaphor the notion of one’s heart being physically hurt by emotional events, but she could now testify that heartache was a very real affliction.
The train clattered on, and the boys gave up peering into the night in favor of eating the bread, fruit, and cheese Cook had packed for their supper. While waiting for the train to arrive, they’d consumed the pies provided for their main meal. Grateful for the distraction, Therese took Horry onto her lap and, in the dim light, fed her daughter bits of bread, apple, and cheese. Once their stomachs were full, the children grew sleepy, and between them, Therese and Nanny Sprockett settled the three to nod and nap, with Rupert and Spencer curled up opposite Therese and Horry snuggled down on Nanny Sprockett’s ample lap.
Therese sat back. As the compartment quieted, she gazed unseeing at the darkness beyond the window, and inevitably, her inner tempest rose to the forefront of her brain.
It took some time and an effort of will to force her mind to focus on the happening—on the singular moment in time—that was the source of her anguish, her emotional turmoil. Every time she brought the image to the fore, her mind balked, and her wits skittered and tried to shy away; grimly, she tightened her mental grip and pushed herself to look again and see.
She forced herself to replay the brutal moment, to observe, recognize, and catalog all she’d seen. The beautiful, quietly voluptuous, dark-haired woman with her face lighting in joyous welcome at the sight of Devlin. She forced herself to note again the quality of the charming smile he’d bent on the lady in reply.
Ruthlessly, she forced herself to view it all, to examine and analyze every second, no matter how painful. It had happened. She’d seen it with her own eyes, and now, she had to find some way to deal with the outcome—to deal with all she felt.
She drew in a deep, unsteady breath.
She’d told Child the unvarnished truth—she wished Devlin had never claimed to love her. If he hadn’t told her that and made her believe it, learning what she had that day would still have been painful, but the damage would, relatively speaking, have been minor, nothing like the raw, gaping wound she currently bore.
If he hadn’t told her he loved her, the entire episode wouldn’t have been so emotionally catastrophic.
The train rattled and swayed while she dwelled on that…until a connected thought arose, one that made her inwardly frown.
Why had Devlin told her he loved her?
Why bother if he didn’t? Why make the effort that, looking back over recent weeks, she could see he had to spend more time with her, hours during which he’d encouraged her to draw closer and become more immersed in his life and, conversely, had seized every opportunity to draw closer to her?
Her frown materialized. That made no sense, yet above all, Devlin was a highly rational man.
He’d also never been a cruel man. She wouldn’t have said he had it in him.
So why tell her something he knew wasn’t true? Why tell her something he didn’t believe?
She blinked and raised her head as another thought rose above the miasma of hurt and misery fogging her faculties. He hadn’t simply told her he loved her; he’d shown her as well. And some of those incidents—such as him punching Child—had been as much a surprise to him as to her.
Was she reading too much into his behavior? In those incidents, large and small, had he been motivated by jealousy or merely by possessiveness? She was well aware that the latter didn’t necessarily stem from love, especially within the aristocracy.
Yet still…why, after five years of marital harmony, had he gone out of his way to rock their boat and change her understanding of the basis of their marriage?
As far as she could see, he’d had no reason to do so.
She still felt deeply hurt but, now, also puzzled and confused. She’d lived alongside Devlin for five and more years; she couldn’t have so completely misread his character over all that time. Could she?
Then she recalled their lovemaking of the previous night. She remembered the sense of increasing closeness, of escalating intimacy and deeper, more intense emotional connection. And the sure and certain feeling that he’d dispensed with some emotional shield.
She hadn’t imagined that. Hadn’t mistaken or misinterpreted what had been between them in those long, heady moments.
And then, to cap it all, he’d deliberately and with intent broken the habit he’d established and clung to for all the years of their marriage and remained by her side to wake her at dawn…with love. With an intense demonstration of his love for her and hers for him.
Why, why, why?
Nothing any longer made sense.
A horrendous squealing screech split the night, high-pitched and drawn out.
CRASH!
She was flung violently forward. Instinctively, she spread her arms to shield the children. The cases and small trunks they’d stored in the luggage racks rained down on her back and head.
A horrible grinding, groaning mingled with a succession of loud bangs and a series of shuddering, juddering thuds.