She could not think when he did. Could scarcely muddle a modicum of sanity in this man’s presence.
“I promise you that I have not seen her. I sent her a note this morning, informing her our arrangement is officially at an end, but it has been over from the moment you trespassed in my library. I would have given her the courtesy of informing her earlier, but to be honest, I had scarcely spared her a thought. Since you have returned, my life has changed unalterably, and I am glad for it. I have devoted myself to being a father to Emily and to being your husband.”
She could not argue. He had proven himself an excellent father to their daughter, a doting and loving one, the flower-eating incident aside. And she could not deny their marriage had become easier in recent days. They had almost returned to the friendship they had shared at Farnsworth Hall. But the past and all its secrets, lies, and hurts had remained between them.
They were still there, a jagged wall built high and firm and daunting.
The question was, did she want to dismantle it or leave it standing?
Leaving it standing would be safer. Easier for her heart, certainly. Better for her. Shelbourne could not disappoint her, wound her, or break her heart if she kept that wall standing.
She dashed at her tears with the back of her hand. “I…I need time, Shelbourne. Time to think. Time away from you.”
He jolted as if she had struck him. “Time away from me?”
“Yes.” She could not think with him here, so near, so handsome, so beloved. “I cannot help but to feel as if we are at a crossroads.”
“There is no crossroads, Julianna. We are married.”
Of course they were. Inextricably. That much would not change. However, now was the time to close her heart off to him for good. To make her future for herself, to find her freedom. He had hurt her, disappointed her.
But he had also told her she was perfect as she was. He had kissed her beneath a summer moon. He had given her Emily. He was the man who had told her, once upon a time, that if she found herself in trouble, he wanted it to be with him. And he was also the man who had said she was glorious and that all the world deserved to know.
She was terribly afraid of making the wrong choice.
“I am sorry, Shelbourne,” she managed to say around another assault of tears threatening to rain down her cheeks and choke her voice. “I need to go.”
She rushed past him, unseeing, still clutching the book.
“Where?” he called after her. “Damn you, Julianna, come back!”
But she did not turn around. And neither did she go back to him. Just as she had two years before, she ran.
Chapter 20
I loved Sidney then. I love him now. I never stopped loving him. He is my bright star. But the trouble with stars is that they burn out. They leave us bereft and wanting, beneath an endless blanket of night.
~from the journal of Julianna, Viscountess Shelbourne, 1885
“Tell me everything, and if he has done anything to hurt you, I will blacken his eye myself.”
Julianna blew her nose into her handkerchief in as ladylike fashion as she could manage. Which was not terribly ladylike at all. But she was a hideous, crying mess, and her sole audience was her dearest friend, Hellie, who had graciously received her at Wickley House in the crimson drawing room. This time, when she had run, Julianna had not gone far.
Not across an ocean. Merely over a few streets.
“His mistress arrived at breakfast and threw my plate at the wall,” she announced, dabbing surreptitiously at her nose.
It was terribly stuffed up from all the weeping she had done on the carriage ride here. Her eyes felt swollen and scratchy. The tears had inevitably dried, but she was suffering the aftereffects. As was her heart.
“Mrs. Edwards, the actress?” Hellie frowned. “I thought he had thrown her over some time ago.”
“If he had, he neglected to inform Mrs. Edwards herself until this morning in a note,” she said wryly. “Apparently she did not take kindly to her dismissal.”
“Never say he invited her to breakfast!” Hellie’s golden brows rose. “Surely that would be beyond the pale, even by Shelbourne’s disreputable standards.”
The urge to come to her husband’s defense was sudden, strong, and…strange. Certainly, she did not owe him a defense. Did she?
I kept Emily from him, she thought.
