Her voice broke on the last sentence, but she refused to cry before him. She clenched her fists at her sides, feeling dreadfully impotent. He tried to come to her, take her in his arms, but she pushed at his chest, refusing to be embraced. His face said everything she needed to know. It was true. All of it. He’d deceived her over and over again.I promise. I love you.Dear God, and he’d never meant a single word. The anguish was almost too much for her to bear.
“Victoria, I can explain.” He held up a placating hand.
“No you can’t. I don’t want to hear any more of your falsehoods.”
“I came here for the wrong reasons,” he said, gripping her arms to force her into stillness. “But I stayed for the right ones. I love you, more than I ever thought possible.”
“You only love your own selfish gain,” she snapped. “Unhand me.”
“Calm down, love,” he commanded. “By God, you’ve got to listen to reason.”
Victoria tore herself from his grasp. “No. I won’t listen to you. Get out now, or I’ll scream and bring all the servants down upon us.”
“You wouldn’t.” He reached for her again, this time taking her icy hands in his. “I should have told you myself, and for that I apologize. Surely one misunderstanding can’t erase all that’s happened between us.”
“It wasn’t a misunderstanding, Pembroke.” She searched his gaze, trying to comprehend. “You deceived me from the first moment you came here. You said you were here because you’d been remiss as a husband. You said you missed me. I even asked you if you were here because the duke cut you off, and you denied it.”
“What was I meant to say, Victoria? It’s true that the duke cut me off. It’s true that I returned here with the intention of bedding you and going back to London at the first opportunity. I had no choice when I wed you. I had no choice when I returned here. At least, that’s what I bloody well thought, and I resented you for it. But I see now that I’ve always had a choice. My choice is you.”
“Your choice is my marriage settlement. It always has been, and it always will be.” She balled her fists into her skirts to keep him from seeing how badly they shook. “There was one reason for your return, and it was so you could keep living your wastrel life. God, I can’t believe how foolish I was to believe you after everything.”
His grip on her tightened. “I don’t give a damn about my old life. All of this, all of what we’ve shared, has been real, Victoria. This last fortnight has been the best of my life. Don’t toss it away now over this, I beg you.”
“It’s you who has tossed it away.” Bitterness laced her voice. She hadn’t thought it possible to feel the depth of pain slicing through her now. He had promised not to hurt her again, but he had, and worse than ever before. “I trusted you, did everything a proper wife ought to. I ran your household, loved you, believed you when you told me Signora Rosignoli’s arrival was a mistake. Even when I caught her in your arms, I still allowed you to persuade me it was all innocent. What a fool I was. Did you go to her after we made love?”
“Good Christ, of course not,” he denied. “You’re the only woman I want in my bed and you know it.”
“No.” She shook her head, tears streaming shamelessly down her cheeks. “I don’t know anything any longer, for everything I thought I knew was a farce.”
He released her, seemingly defeated. “I haven’t been a good husband to you. I’m sorry. Sorrier than you know. I don’t blame you if you hate me, Victoria. All I ask is that you not leave me. I can’t bear that.”
She stared at him, refusing to make a promise she couldn’t keep, unlike him. Leaving him was exactly what she must do for her own sake. “Please vacate my chamber. I don’t want you here.”
“Very well.” He offered her an abbreviated bow. “I won’t linger where I’m not wanted. But listen to what I’ve said. I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world.”
“I wish I could believe that,” she whispered, as much to herself as to him, watching as he walked away, leaving her well and truly alone.
Early the next morning, it came to Pembroke’s attention that there was a vast assemblage of trunks being loaded onto his carriage. Still shaken from his confrontation with Victoria the night before, he stalked out into the grayish dawn light to determine what was in the works.
Footmen tramped in and out of the house bearing wieldy valises. His wife was overseeing the packing along with Mrs. Morton. Victoria was dressed to perfection, as usual, wearing a plum-and-black silk dress buttoned up to the neck, adorned with dyed lace and jet beads. His little American had blossomed into a true beauty to rival any English lady, and he didn’t deserve her. He’d never deserved her, just aspetite sourishad never been a fitting description of her. She was fierce and kind and giving and trusting. All of the bloody things he wasn’t.
Her gaze caught his. She didn’t bother to offer any deference. Instead, she excused herself from the housekeeper and crunched to him across the stone drive. Her dashing hat made her seem taller. He affixed his stare to the plume of ostrich feathers pointing to the heavens. Christ. This couldn’t be what he thought it was.
“I’m leaving you, Pembroke.”
Or perhaps it could be after all. Bloody hell.
The wind blew ever so gently. Orris root. Her mere scent affected him. His jaw clenched, his eyes dropping to hers. Her expression was tight, her lips drawn into the imperious frown he knew so well. She was leaving him. Forever. His gut clenched, as if he’d just woken from a bout of all-night whisky drinking and he needed to cast up his accounts.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m returning to New York.”
New York was an ocean away. He couldn’t speak as the implications of her announcement became clear to him. She didn’t plan on coming back to England. She no longer wanted to be his wife. Jesus, the thought left him cold.
“Then you shall be free to live life without the encumbrance of a wife,” she said, interrupting his troubled musings. “Your family will, of course, keep everything. I’m only taking my trousseau. You may inspect the trunks if you like.”
He didn’t want to inspect the bloody trunks. He wanted to have them hauled back into his home, damn it. “What are you on about, Victoria? You cannot simply run off to New York.”
