“Please stop using that word.”
“Which word?” Mariana’s eyes shone with mischief. “Love?”
“That’s the one.”
“But, why, my dear? You’re deep in it.”
Hortense opened her mouth to lodge a protest.
Mariana held up a silencing hand. “I know all the signs. A particular lethargy. Dark circles beneath your eyes. Clothes hanging loose on the body from pounds shed. Love of the unrequited variety is its own particular sort of grief.”
“You cannot possibly know what is in my heart,” Hortense said, anger peeking through, along with a bit of desperation. She needed Mariana to stop talking.
“I may not know all the particulars of thewhat, but I do knowwho.”
Hortense swallowed with some difficulty. “He is a marquess. My sort is naught more than an exotic lark for the likes of him.”
Mariana lifted a single eyebrow. “Did he tell you that?”
Hortense shifted uneasily in her chair. “Well, no.”
“I didn’t think so.” Mariana crossed her arms, quite irritatingly smug.
“Why is that?” Oh, why was she encouraging the woman?
A smile curled about Mariana’s mouth. Definitely smug. “Because I’ve seen him, and he, too, has all the signs.”
“They will pass.” Just like hers would…someday.
Mariana shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way when it’s true.”
Hortense had a question to ask of Mariana, one she’d kept to herself, but now needed airing. “How did you keep faith all those years that you and Nick were estranged?”
“I didn’t keep faith. I used every distraction I could think of to dislodge it—I even considered taking a lover—but it wouldn’t budge. It was simply a constant.”
“Perhaps constants exist for you,” Hortense said. “But not for me.”
Mariana’s gaze fell to the little dog curled on the rug between them. “And what of Sir Bacon?”
“What of him?”
“Doesn’t he have faith that you will feed him and take him outside? Aren’t you a constant in his life?”
“I am.”
“Then why can’t someone be that for you?”
Had Mariana compared her to a dog? She could laugh at the absurdity. Or cry at its possible accuracy. Or both. “I am perfectly capable of feeding and taking myself outside.”
Mariana’s mouth quirked. “A person needs more than self-sufficiency.Youneed more than that.”
“He asked me to leave,” Hortense said with an amount of composure that did her credit. For the admission, spoken aloud, gutted her anew. In all these weeks, its sharpness hadn’t dulled a hair.
“Nick thought Jamie would break your heart, while I suspected it would be the other way around. But it seems you’ve done it to each other.”
“Hearts weren’t involved.” The words sounded as hollow as they felt.
“Weren’t they?” Mariana asked, gently. “Have you asked yourself why he asked you to leave?”
