A new wave of confusion washed over her. She felt as if she were a dinghy cast adrift in open seas, continuously at risk of overturning and sinking to a watery grave.
“What if I am never free of you, Nell?” Tom asked then, his voice hoarse with repressed emotion. “What if you are the only woman I have ever loved, the only woman I will ever love?”
He was as bleak as she had ever seen him.
But she made another grim realization in that moment. She was not responsible for Tom’s happiness. Continuing with him would not bring her happiness, and nor would it bring him any in the end. True contentedness could not be forced. Nor could true love or true passion.
“I am sorry, Tom,” she said simply. “Sorrier than my words can convey. You are a good man, and I never meant to hurt you.”
“Get out,” he gritted, his tone going venomous. “Get out and do not dare come back. Not even when he throws you over for his next slattern. I will not be waiting, Nell. Do you understand? I will not be your fool any longer.”
She nodded, swallowing down a fresh knot of emotion as she removed the emerald-and-diamond ring he had given her before holding it out to him. “I understand. I wish you only the best, Tom. I wish you happiness and a future wife worthy of your love. I am sorry it could not be me. I wanted it to be me. Truly, I did. But the heart…it cannot be controlled.”
“No,” he agreed bitterly, taking the ring from her. “It cannot. I wish to God it could.”
It was a sentiment she understood all too well.
She curtsied to him, and then she took her leave without once looking back. Hurting Tom, seeing his pain, had been difficult. But she knew deep in her heart that she had made the right decision.
And she had one more yet to make.
The greatest decision of all.
Chapter Twenty
NELL PRAYEDLORDand Lady Sandhurst were in town while she waited in their formidable entry hall. It had been a gamble, coming here without prior notice. Simon and Maggie could be in the country, or anywhere else for that matter. She had not seen either of her friends in several months. Not since their joyful reconciliation.
But she needed friends more than ever now.
The butler returned and guided Nell to Maggie’s sitting room. Her friend was within, looking serene and maternal, holding her baby son in her arms. She smiled at Nell with genuine delight.
“Nell!” Maggie greeted. “I have missed you so. What a pleasant surprise this is.”
An American heiress, she had entered a marriage of convenience with Lord Sandhurst, which had turned into a love match. How it had unfolded—with the two unwittingly thrown together at one of Nell’s masked house parties—was still a source of pride for Nell.
“Forgive me for calling so suddenly,” she said, seating herself on the divan opposite Maggie. “I am relieved you are in London. I have missed you also, my dear friend. And look at how big your little lord has grown already. I can scarcely believe it!”
Maggie’s son had been born several months earlier, and Nell had attended her lying in. Seeing her friend hold her babe in her arms for the first time and watching the bond between mother and son had been what had convinced Nell to ask Jack for a divorce. She had wanted, so badly, to become a mother.
She felt that same maternal pull now, stronger than ever.
But this time, she was no longer thinking of Tom as the father of her future children, and that terrified her.
“Simon had some matters to attend to here in Town,” Maggie said easily, her American accent quite prominent. “I thought you were in the country at one of your house parties. That was the letter you sent me last, was it not? You and Tom were planning to celebrate Needham’s agreement that you should divorce and have your freedom.”
That seemed a lifetime ago now.
Nell swallowed. “That was to have been the plan, yes. However, it would seem I was precipitous in my celebrations. I misunderstood Needham’s response. He does not want a divorce.”
Maggie’s eyebrows rose. “He does not? What does he intend?”
“He wants to save our marriage.” Nell bit her lip as she paused, attempting to find the proper words. “He claims he is still in love with me.”
“Oh, Nell.” Maggie’s countenance softened with sympathy. “What will you do?”
“I…do not know,” she admitted, unable to stave off a rush of tears. Her eyes welled and she blinked as her vision suddenly went blurry. “He has returned from abroad, and I made a bargain with him. I was to give him a fortnight to win back my heart. But I could not go through with it, Maggie.”
Maggie’s son made a sound of discontent, and she gently patted his bottom to soothe him. “Why could you not?”
