His footsteps were silent as he made his way from the ballroom, moving ever deeper into the house, silence growing around them. She realized with a jolt he was going to his study. She hung back, letting the space between them grow as she knew which way to go. When he did, indeed, enter his study, she paused.
Perhaps she had been wrong.
It could have been a message of urgent business, and Sheridan had requested his presence.
She moved to take a step back when her heel caught on a bit of fabric. She bent and picked up the white, starched bit of linen. It was a handkerchief. Her first inclination was to hold it to her nose to discover the telltale scent of perfume, but she paused. The handkerchief was plain and unadorned, not that of a lady’s at all.
It was at that moment that footsteps behind her had her swinging about. She pressed a hand to her jumping heart when she found George the footman coming down the corridor with a metal bucket used for cleaning the hearths.
“Your Grace,” he said upon seeing her.
She smiled. “George, would you please go let Henry out of my room? He’ll be able to find me, and I believe I shall need him. Do hurry please.”
George set down the bucket where he stood and with a wave took off in the direction of their personal quarters.
Clutching the handkerchief in her palm, she strode down the corridor and without hesitation entered her husband’s study.
Chapter 17
He had prepared for a backhanded attempt such as this, and so he wasn’t at all surprised when Stephens had appeared with the note from Bethany.
He’d read it quickly, even less surprised to find its contents rather appalling, and without hesitation had gone to put an end to the nonsense. He wasn’t sure how, as he was quite certain Bethany would not see reason or fact, but he had to stop her from meddling in his life.
It no longer mattered if she had hoped for a future that saw them together. It no longer mattered if her father had accepted another offer for her hand. It only mattered that he loved his wife. Eliza was right. He had had to let Bethany go if he were ever to love again, and he had. Only it had taken betraying the trust of his wife to realize it.
He was righting that wrong now, and he wanted nothing more to do with Bethany when he strode into his study.
He didn’t bother with a greeting as he shut the door behind him.
“Using threats of violence to get my attention,” he said, holding up the note she had sent him.
“It is only a threat against myself.” She was crying already, and her voice was wet with tears.
“I don’t believe you,” he said calmly. “You’ve never been one for expending unnecessary effort. What is it you really want?”
At some point in his walk from the ballroom, he’d come to realize Bethany could very well be playing this game now because she wanted something else. Perhaps it was to humiliate Eliza for taking the place she saw as rightfully hers. Or perhaps it was for something far more sinister. He had to remember that and keep the space between them.
This was something better thought in practice than in reality because she launched herself at him the first chance she got. He stood just inside the door with the clutter of the study between them. She took no notice, knocking into a side table and spilling the basket of odds and ends beneath it as she made her way over to him.
“Dax, you must listen to me. I can’t live like this. You must do something.”
He raised an eyebrow and took a step back. “I must do something? You married a marquess. Your life could not be all that miserable.”
She balked at his words, reeling back against the sofa.
“Ronald is not the man he once was.” Her voice had sobered somewhat and when she spoke Ronald’s name it took on an edge.
He crossed his arms. “You would have me believe that Ronald is mistreating you.”
He didn’t miss how her eyes slipped away from his and lingered on the carpet overlong.
“I never spoke such things, have I?” When she looked up at him, she moved only her eyes, keeping her chin down so as to give him a baleful look.
His suspicions raged hotter, and he dropped his arms, sauntering over to the cabinet where he kept his store of whiskey.
“So it’s just that you’re unhappy then, is that it?”
He heard her straighten behind him, the rustle of skirts and the soft screech of the leather on the sofa warning him of her approach. He straightened and sidestepped behind his desk with his glass of whiskey before she could reach her target.
She faltered against a chair, her hands digging into the cushions.
“You don’t know what it’s like, Dax. You don’t know what it’s like to know such coldness. Have you ever been so alone that you crave the company of the staff just to know you’re alive?”
He turned on her, the whiskey in his glass sloshing.
“I do actually. It was the night of the ball I had thrown in honor of our engagement, but you didn’t show.”
She paled at his words, and he knew he’d cut her.
“I already told you what happened—”
“Actually, you didn’t,” he cut her off. He swallowed the last of his drink and put his glass down with a hard thud on his desk. “You said your father accepted another offer for your hand, but you did not say where you were that night.”
She opened her mouth once without speaking and shut it again as if to consider her words. She seemed to come to a decision, and when she lifted her eyes, he saw more tears there. Only he also noticed her cheeks were suddenly pink with color as if she had to put forth considerable effort for those tears.
He stilled, knowing something wasn’t quite as it seemed.
“Oh Dax, it was just awful. I was on my way there when my father suddenly stopped me. He locked me in my rooms to keep me from going to you.”
“That must have been terrible. Being locked in your rooms on such a night. It was the end of the season after all, and as I recall the weather was particularly unbearable. It must have been stifling in your rooms.”
Her eyes widened as tears speckled her eyelashes. “Oh, it was!” Her words rushed together as she seemed to pick up interest in her story. “It was so hot and stuffy I almost couldn’t breathe. It was unimaginable, Dax. The suffering.”
She had lunged toward him with her last words, but he sidestepped again, putting the sofa between them.
“Yes, the suffering,” he said drolly. “Only it was April, in fact, and quite rainy and cold. Had you truly been locked in your rooms that night you would have remembered that.”
Her face cleared suddenly, and the tears that still streaked her face seemed ridiculous.
“Where were you, Bethany?” It would be the final time he would ask it.
For the first time since seeing her again, he thought he saw real honesty on her face. Her features relaxed into a semblance of the woman he once knew, and the woman he thought he once loved.
But it lasted only moments, and he might as well have imagined it for she stepped forward in a rush before he had time to react and threw herself into his arms, her lips colliding with his.
Eliza entered the study at the precise moment Bethany Danvers, the Marchioness of Isley, kissed her husband.
Again.
“This sort of thing grows rather dull. Wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.