Cheryl Holt (38 page)

How he wished he could alter the past!

That last, hideous afternoon had been so terrible, when he’d planned for it to be so wonderful, and it eclipsed everything else that had occurred between them. Their decisive meeting should have been splendid, and it didn’t seem fair that the crucial encounter should overshadow all the merriment and joy.

She was still at Wakefield, he knew, because the estate agent had referred to her in a curt sentence, buried in a report. The news had been scant, pertaining exclusively to the fact that he was waiting for a suitable cottage to become available, and he hoped he could get the Fitzgerald family relocated before winter set in.

As it was the only information John had had of her since his departure, he’d reread that tidbit a thousand times, illogically checking for any hidden significance that might be concealed in the obscure comment.

Surely, she would have gotten in touch with him if she’d needed him! If her circumstances had plummeted, she’d have notified him, wouldn’t she?

Even as the absurd interrogatory popped into his mind, he shook it away. She’d never seek his help. He had to accept reality! She’d never wanted anything from him, and if he broke down, and stupidly offered her his aid, she’d reject it.

A proud man, he wasn’t about to beg her to let him
support her. He had to forget her, to move on, the problem being that he had no direction in which to travel.

Exhaling another heavy sigh, he stood and scooted around his retinue, escaping the box for the corridor. They’d assume he’d stepped out for a smoke or a drink, and that he’d be back shortly. It would be many minutes before they realized he’d sneaked off.

With minimal effort, he retrieved his coat and hat, then he ambled out into the cool autumn evening. It was drizzling, the air refreshing after being inside the stuffy theater, and he stalled under the portico, considering whether to stroll for a bit before hailing his carriage.

Distracted, he spun around to go, not paying attention, and he bumped into a cloaked lady. As he grasped her arm to apologize and steady her, her hood slid down, and he was face to face with Caroline. He was surprised to see her, having understood that—upon the rumors spreading as to her failed engagement—she’d taken an extended holiday to Italy.

“Hello, Caro,” he said affectionately. “How are you?”

“How I
am
is none of your business, Wakefield.” She jerked her arm away.

He wasn’t worth such an expenditure of animosity, and he couldn’t fathom why her upset persisted. “Don’t be angry.” She didn’t reply but stared down the street toward her escort who was tagging along behind, and he felt compelled to point out, “We would never have suited. Our split was for the best.”

“Absolutely!” she rabidly concurred. “I’m so relieved to be free of your dissipation and carousing. And your wanton strumpets!”

She’d had the audacity to mention his paramours! Her tongue was so loose that he conjectured as to whether she’d had a few too many glasses of sherry.

“I’m sorry if some of my actions embarrassed you.”

“No, you’re not. You thrived on humiliating me.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

She interrupted. “So who’s your current mistress? Are you still consorting with that horrid Georgina Howard?”

“Caro!”

“Or have you bought an apartment for your little friend from Wakefield?”

“My
friend
from Wakefield?” he repeated, sounding like a moron.

“Don’t deny it, John Clayton,” she seethed. “One of your dear London chums was kind enough to write me about her last summer.”

“You received a letter about me?” He was incredulous, and when she nodded tersely, he asked, “What did it say?”

“Oh, the usual.” The
usual
? “How that drab minister’s daughter had captured your fancy, and how you were about to make a fool of me all over again. That’s why I hastened to the country. I’d imagined I could stop you—ninny that I am.” Scathingly, she looked him up and down. “I pity the woman who winds up married to you, Wakefield. I truly, truly do. I’m so glad it won’t be me!”

My oh my!
She was in a serious temper, and he couldn’t soothe her ruffled feminine feathers, yet he yearned for a smidgen of cordiality.

“Have you heard from Ian?” he politely queried, trusting he could whirl the conversation to a less quarrelsome subject than his dearth of integrity.

There’d been no communication with his brother. During the interval John had been in Yorkshire, no message had been delivered to the town house. Rutherford had relayed various inquiries among his colleagues who
were in service, but they hadn’t unearthed his whereabouts.

“Why would I have been contacted by that vile animal?”

“I thought you two were . . . were . . .” What were they exactly? He couldn’t describe what he’d observed that night in his library.

“Your brother is nothing to me,” she alleged. “He’s a wicked cad, from the lower classes, who forces himself on unsuspecting women, and certainly not the type with whom I’d keep company.”

She stuck up her nose, and peered over at her brother, Adam, who had espied John and was speeding toward them.

“Hello, Adam.” John struggled for amiability in the middle of the dreadful scene.

“Bugger off, Wakefield!” Adam seized Caro’s arm and whisked her inside.

Doleful, disturbed, John lingered long after they’d flounced off.

He’d been acquainted with Caro since she was a wee lass, but he didn’t actually know much about her. Clearly, she’d been attracted to Ian, as had Ian been to her. Now that she was ensconced in the bosom of her family, she needed to rationalize her lusty peccadillo by attributing her lapse to Ian’s base nature.

How sad that—the one and only instance she’d exercised some abandon—she’d had to justify her conduct by converting it into a painful memory.

He gave up on the idea of walking, and had an usher summon his coach. As he cloistered himself in the conveyance, his head swirled with questions: Who would have advised Caroline about his burgeoning amour with Emma? Who would be so vicious?

People adored Caro; she was too gentle and too passive
to have made any enemies. Who didn’t like her? Why would anyone want to hurt her? And who had been sufficiently familiar with his activities at Wakefield to be privy to such confidential matters?

Only Ian and Georgina. Ian would never have done such an appalling thing to Caro. Not to any female. Which left Georgina. But why would she? What was her goal?

They arrived at his town house, but instead of getting out, he ordered the driver to Georgina’s, and without delay, they rattled to a halt on her quiet street. He peeked out, pleased that a candle glowed in an upper bedroom. On the way over, he’d worried that she might have gone out. As he’d wanted a succinct discussion, he hadn’t relished the notion of chasing after her.

He requested that the driver wait, and he hustled through the gate and to the door, knocking. The hour was late so he wouldn’t barge in unannounced. He rapped twice more before footsteps were apparent. The butler answered the door, and on seeing who was loitering on the stoop, his brows rose in shock.

“Lord Wakefield! We weren’t expecting you!”

“I must speak with Georgina. I take it she’s up and will attend me?”

“Well, yes . . . that is she . . . I . . .” Nervously, he glanced up the stairs.

“We’ll confer in the parlor.” The man didn’t move a muscle, so he added, “Immediately.”

“Yes, milord. I’ll tell her.”

He started off, but so slowly that John was irritated. “I’m in a hurry. I’ll go up.”

“But Lord Wakefield . . . she’s . . . why don’t you let me . . . could I . . .”

John was already climbing, and the servant bustled along behind, babbling incoherently. When he couldn’t
deter John, he commenced shouting, “Miss Georgina! Lord Wakefield is
here
! He’s coming up.
Now!
I just thought you might like to
know
!”

John disregarded him, suddenly eager for the pending confrontation. In the carriage, he hadn’t been precisely sure of what he would say, but his intent had gradually crystallized: He was tired of Georgina. He wasn’t the same person he’d been when he’d established his agreement with her, and she no longer fit in his life.

As he ascended, the butler fussed behind him, and he recalled his previous fateful visit when he’d nearly fornicated with her and her sister. Just mulling what he might have done caused an involuntary shudder to ripple through him, another sign of how much he’d changed.

Her door was ajar, and he pushed it open . . . only to find Georgina naked and in the throes of a sexual tryst. She was in a panic, lurching out of bed, and chaotically jamming her arms into a robe. Her Romeo—a man whom he didn’t recognize—was scrambling off the other side of the mattress and frantically grabbing for his pants.

He was stocky, balding, with a paunch and a rapidly waning erection.

“John!” Georgina was trembling, distraught, and she raced around the bed to block his view of her paramour. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing.”

“I didn’t know you were back.”

“Obviously.”

Fidgeting, she yanked on the lapels of her robe. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really?” He chuckled. The spectacle was hilariously funny, and he was tickled to have stumbled upon it. “To me, it
looks
like you’ve been going at it with this hale fellow.” He glared at her swain, trying to appear
malevolent, when he could have cared less. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Lord Wakefield”—the man gulped—“I wasn’t cuckolding you. I never would! Don’t challenge me to a duel! You’ll kill me! I’m awful with pistols, and I—”

John rolled his eyes. As if he’d duel to the death over Georgina!

“Get out!” he commanded. The chap had managed to don his trousers, but not much more, and John scooped his coat and shoes off the floor, stuffing them into his outstretched arms. “Here! Go!”

The man scampered off, and they froze, listening, as the butler escorted him downstairs and shoved him out the door, then Georgina dashed over and coaxingly stroked the center of his chest.

“I can explain.”

“There’s no need.”

“I’ve been so lonely without you. I’ve been pining away, day after day, and I—”

“Desist!” He removed her hand.

“Don’t be angry, John,” she pleaded, mistaking his mood.

“I’m not.”

“I’ve never taken a lover before. Not in all the years we’ve been together. I swear he’s the first!”

“Well, that’s if we exclude the occasion you tried to suck off Ian at Wakefield, but since he refused you, I suppose it doesn’t count.”

She bristled over Ian’s tattling—she must have been positive that he wouldn’t!—then she nimbly masked her ire. Turning cunning, her mien growing sly, she strove to deduce how to emerge from the fiasco in the best possible light.

“I’ll make it up to you,” she crooned seductively.
“You’ve been traveling for an eternity. You’re exhausted. Let me relax you.”

She took a step forward, and he blanched, choking on the smell of her sweat, her stale perfume, the scent of sex hovering around her.

“I’m not fatigued. I’ve been in London for a week.”

“A week!” she fumed. “But no one—”

She mumbled a curse, realizing that she’d almost admitted a dangerous consequence, and he completed the sentence for her. “No one informed you?”

Affecting calm, she sauntered to a table and poured herself a stiff drink. Though she valiantly endeavored to seem poised and in control, the quaking of her fingers revealed her distress.

“Why would I have people
informing
me as to your comings and goings?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

Cautiously, she scrutinized him, striving to determine the most beneficial reply.

“I hardly need to spy on you,” she scoffed. “I’m closer to you than anyone. If I need to know where you’ll be, or what you’ll be doing, I’ll simply ask you.”

“So you wouldn’t stoop to poking your nose into my private affairs?”

“Definitely not. Who suggested I had? Tell me who it is, and I’ll call him a liar to his face!”

“You shouldn’t have written to Lady Caroline last summer.” He’d leapt directly to the truth; her gasp of affront gave her away. “Your behavior was so out of bounds, and I can’t figure out why you did it. What were you trying to accomplish?”

With his query, pretense was abandoned, and she shrugged, erroneously assuming that a dose of veracity would improve her position. “I was hoping she’d scurry to Wakefield and run off that pious hanger-on with
whom you were enamored.” She swilled her brandy in one swig. “But the silly twit couldn’t even do that much.”

“You wanted Caro to get rid of Miss Fitzgerald?” The concept of Georgina being jealous of Emma was so ludicrous that it was farcical, and he might have had a jolly laugh over it if he hadn’t been so irate.

“Stupid of me, I know, but there it is.” She dismissively waved her hand, as though her sins were forgiven because she’d confessed.

The shrew was a marvel. At conniving. At maneuvering. At artifice and intrigue. But scheming against Caro? And Emma?

“I’m glad I came here tonight,” he said.

“So am I, darling,” she gushed, deeming all was well, that she’d lied her way into absolution. “It’s been so long.”

“Not long enough,” he countered, inducing an unusual scowl to mar her perfect features. “I’m elated that I witnessed your shenanigans, because my decision is so much easier.”

“What decision?”

“We’re through.”

“No!” She rushed to him and clasped his arm. “You can’t be serious. Not after what we’ve meant to each other.”

“You’ve never
meant
anything to me. Nor I to you.”

“You’re wrong. I did everything for you! Just so you’d be happy! I love you! I . . . I . . .”

The word
love
was so foreign to her character that she could barely pronounce it, and he was disgusted that she’d fliply toss it out. The pathetic machination underscored his resolve to be shed of her.

“My secretary will contact you with a financial settlement to tide you over until you can procure other arrangements.
And I’ll give you three months to vacate the house, but don’t dawdle. I want you gone when the time is up.”