“Well, it’s not as though I would have been able to pursue a relationship with him anyway,” she muttered. “And he would have discovered the so-called truth about me eventually, I suppose. I just…”
George put his arm around her and pulled her against his side, offering comfort as always. “Don’t fret. Once we’ve put this debacle behind us you can start over wherever you wish. I’ll make certain of it.”
George intended to sell his furniture business and split the funds between them as soon as their divorce was final. Wilhelmina wasn’t the least bit comfortable with this decision. After all, George and Fiona would need the funds to start over in America. Wilhelmina would have to fight George on this issue, she reckoned – the man was often too kind for his own good.
“Of course,” she said, attempting to keep an optimistic façade for George’s sake.
“Hopefully when all of this is behind us, you’ll meet a man with whom you’ll know both love and passion,” George continued. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You deserve that, Mina, more than anyone else I’ve ever known.”
She appreciated the sentiment but doubted his wish would ever come true. Because once they got their divorce, she would be ruined beyond repair, and no man would want to shackle himself to that.
3
It was Friday, March 21, 1820, nineteen years to the day since Richard Hughes had been felled in battle. Joined by Colin and Grayson as had become tradition, James sat in a quiet corner of White’s and drank to the memory of his friend.
“He would have been four and forty years old by now, had he lived,” Colin muttered morosely. The scar he’d received during the war puckered his right cheek.
James took another long sip of his drink and savored the bite. The memory of the carnage he’d witnessed still haunted him to this day. Limbs had been blasted to smithereens by friendly fire and enemy cannons alike. It had been worse than hell, both bloody and gory, but at least Richard hadn’t been one of the wretched souls forced to writhe in the desert sand while he suffered. His death had been swift. One shot, and he’d been gone, like a flame snuffed out in an instant.
“Do you suppose he would have married?” Grayson asked.
James scoffed. “Only a fool would tie himself to a woman for any duration of time. You’re lucky you managed to avoid the parson’s mousetrap, Grayson. And at least you realized your mistake quick enough to get an annulment, Colin. I wish I’d been as wise.”
“You wouldn’t have Michael then,” Grayson pointed out.
“But you could have divorced your wife once you realized what she was up to,” Colin said, “as Mr. Hewitt is doing.”
James clutched his glass and clenched his jaw. It had been two years since he’d let himself get swept away by impossible notions of shared desire with a woman he’d known he could not have. He would never have done more than flirt with her once he found out she was married, but that hadn’t stopped him from enjoying their brief interaction.
To learn she was just as deceitful as Clara – that she would have welcomed a proposition from him – had twisted his opinion of her completely. Worst of all, it had filled him with an uncanny amount of rage, jealousy, and self-loathing, knowing she’d taken numerous lovers and that he would not be among them.
He’d always prided himself on being an excellent judge of character, but he’d been wrong about Clara, and he’d been wrong about Mrs. Hewitt too. His miscalculation where she was concerned was so unbelievably drastic it drew him to the courtroom in an effort to comprehend his error. For two years he’d followed those damned divorce proceedings, searching for some shred of the wonderful person he’d thought her to be.
In her place, he’d found a silent hauteur he did not recognize, denying him all attempts at justifying his initial opinion. And so, as the case progressed and he learned more about her misdeeds, his hatred for her increased alongside his own self-loathing.
To think he’d been so blindly snared by false charm yet again made him feel like the veriest fool.
“Divorce is a nasty business,” James told his friends grimly. “No one who values their privacy or their reputation would ever embark on such a thing. Unless the person they wished to be rid of was utterly abhorrent.”
“The papers did outline all of the lady’s affairs,” Grayson said. “I suppose Mr. Hewitt felt his wife made a laughingstock of him and decided to seek revenge.”
James couldn’t blame the man. He knew damn well what it felt like to learn the one person you thought you could trust was a traitor, a liar, and a cheat, with no regard for the vows spoken in church.
Poor bastard.
He’d seen the hard glare in Mr. Hewitt’s eyes during the trial and had watched his wife’s unrepentant expression while her lovers described their affairs in sordid detail.
Christ, how he loathed her.
It wasn’t just the adultery either, but also the deep disappointment he’d experienced as her true character came to light. Heaven help him, he’d liked her! If she’d not been taken, he would have encouraged additional meetings between them. And would have gotten himself unhappily trapped with yet another vile woman.
James winced and took a deep swallow from his glass. “The world could benefit greatly from men like Mr. Hewitt who are brave enough to face the repercussions in order to teach their wife a lesson.”
“It would certainly make a woman think twice about straying if the road to divorce were an easier one,” Colin said. “After all, they stand to lose a great deal more than we men.”
This was true. As humiliating as the proceedings might be for both parties, a man could win back his place in Society over time. The same could not be said of the woman, who would lose her right to her children, have the funds previously at her disposal reduced to a paltry sum just large enough for her to scrape by on, and be shunned forever.
“Let’s speak of something else,” James suggested. He was weary of contemplating Mrs. Hewitt and her husband, of the picture all the statements made against her had painted. “How is your ward, Juliana, faring, Grayson?”
“The last report I received informed me that her French is improving,” Grayson said without making eye contact.
“And?” Colin pressed when Grayson said nothing more.
Grayson frowned, took a deep breath, and slowly allowed his gaze to meet James’s. “She sacked her governess.”
Shocked laughter exploded from James and Colin simultaneously, forcing them both to choke on their drinks. Coughing fits followed while Grayson proceeded to glare at them. When James eventually managed to catch his breath, he said, “Please don’t tell me you gave her permission to do so?”
“Of course not,” Grayson said, his voice filled with undeniable annoyance. “There’s a good chance she did it to get my attention and force me back to Sutton Hall. I’ll have to give her a lecture and hire another governess. Damned nuisance.”
Sobering, James asked, “When did you see her last?”
Grayson knit his brow and stared into his glass, appearing to mull that over. “It was before Christmas, so…four months ago, perhaps a bit more.”