“Tom was not sniffing.” Her tone was nettled. Defensive. “You make him sound as if he is a hound.”
“Heisa hound,” he clipped. “I ought to break his nose all over again.”
“He has been a perfect gentleman,” she defended.
He clenched his jaw with so much force, his teeth ached. “Do not dare to sing his praises to me, madam. You are a married woman.”
“A married woman intent upon divorcing her unwanted husband so she might marry another.” Her voice was tart, her spine rigid.
That quickly, all hope and promise alive within him dissipated.
Anger returned, dark and bitter. Threatening to consume.
“Pray tell me why you are so quick to see the best in another man when you were so hasty to think the worst of me,” he bit out.
She glanced back at him. “Because Isawyou, Jack.”
Bloody, fucking hell.
“You saw a soused woman who mistakenly found herself in the wrong bed at a house party. It was not the first time it ever happened, and neither, I imagine, shall it be the last. House parties are notorious for such goings on, and Lady Billingsley was on her way to Sandhurst’s chamber when she mistakenly found mine.” He forced himself to take a deep breath, tamping down the frustration and the hurt he had been doing his damnedest to keep at bay.
“I could have understood such a circumstance had you not been kissing her, and had she not had her hand beneath the bedclothes,” Nell snapped.
“I wish to God I never touched a drop of spirits that night,” he told her tightly. “However, I cannot alter the past. I can only alter the future.”
And his future had her in it.
Or he had no future at all.
“I do not know why I agreed to come riding with you.” She shook her head. “This discussion is going nowhere.”
“Because you refuse to allow it to go anywhere,” he pointed out.
“Tom has never betrayed me,” she said quietly. “You have. For some time now, he has been wonderfully patient, waiting for me to be certain he was the one I wanted. For all this time, I have allowed him nothing more than kisses, and he has been contented. He has been respectful and sweet and kind.”
She had kissed Sidmouth?
“I will tear him limb from limb,” he vowed.
“No more violence, Jack.”
“Then call off your hound,” he shot back.
A violent crack of thunder burst overhead, interrupting their heated exchange. Just what they needed: a storm. He glanced over his shoulder and made two instant realizations. The first was that the sky behind them was an ominous dark gray. The second was that the storm was going to overtake them before they could return to Needham Hall.
“The sky looks furious,” Nell observed, soothing her mount with a gloved hand.
They had been so caught up in each other and the awful memories of the past that they had not realized the sky was about to unleash a torrent upon them. Lightning arced between a pair of dark clouds. Another roll of thunder crashed.
“We are too far from Needham Hall to make it back before the storm is upon us,” he told her. “We have no choice but to seek shelter now and wait until it passes through.”
“No,” she denied instantly, her eyes wide upon his. “The only place we could seek shelter this far from the main house is…”
“The folly,” he finished for her.
“Not there,” she said. “Anywhere but there.”
He knew the reason for her protest. The folly had been built in the last century by the seventh Marquess of Needham. It was meant to look like the ruins of a medieval castle, but it was far enough from the main house that it also possessed a small stable. It was a place they had gone often when they were in residence. They would ride and slip into the charmed little world of the folly to make love.
