He wanted to drink the poison. But not tonight.
“I suspect it is time I venture home,” he said reluctantly.
He had delayed the inevitable for long enough.
Chapter 10
Dear Julianna,
I will never post this letter to you, nor any of the dozens of others I’ve written since your defection. They serve no purpose save furthering my ignominy. Never was there a moment this was rendered more painfully apparent to me than today, when I chanced to approach your mother’s home and found you laughing with one of your beaux. Had I arrived minutes earlier, I would not have been hidden within my carriage, the humiliation mine alone to bear. I suppose I must be thankful for small mercies even when they are as cutting as any lance.
Yours in deepest regret,
Sidney
The nursery at Cagney House was incredibly well-appointed. All the furniture within was new and fine, polished and sleek. There was nary a hint of dust anywhere, and from the fresh carpets to the sweetly feminine wallcoverings, every last detail of the room was above reproach.
For the first few hours after Shelbourne—she could not yet seem to think of him as her husband—took his leave following their brief ceremony in the chapel, Julianna had busied herself by overseeing the unpacking of Emily’s cases along with Johnston, her daughter’s nurse.
But by the time Emily was sweetly sleeping for the evening, Julianna was left with nothing but time and the realization she would need to further investigate her own chamber. That was how she found herself standing in the center of the room connected to Shelbourne’s by an adjoining door and a shared dressing room and bathroom.
And that was when the enormity of what she had done today hit her.
Or perhaps it was when she noted the matched pictures of sparrows hanging on the damask-covered wall. The remainder of the decorative elements in the boudoir was spare. An ormolu clock on the mantel. A gilt-framed looking glass hung above the fireplace. The Axminster was thick and luxurious. Two overstuffed chairs were placed neatly by each other, as if to accommodate an intimate tête-à-tête.
Certainly not between herself and Shelbourne.
Their mutual enmity had not been hampered in the least by their marriage.
She wandered around the room, noting places in the carpets where divots suggested furniture pieces had been removed. She could not deny the spartan aesthetic of the chamber appealed to her. She had never been one to favor bric-à-brac and vignettes like so many ladies.
There were also faded shapes on the wall coverings—large rectangles and squares and ovals—accompanied by tiny holes piercing the damask. She could only suppose he had ordered a number of pictures removed. Why leave the sparrows? Or were they new additions?
A few more paces took her to the writing desk positioned carefully against a far wall, laden with paper and pen and a vase bearing red roses. Not unlike the almost wild clump of roses he had told her had been his grandmother’s favorite that long-ago day at Farnsworth Hall.
How his story of his grandparents’ love had touched her heart. She had supposed it had touched Shelbourne’s as well. But in time, she had realized just how wrong she had been about him. Just how wrong she had been about everything.
Likely, the roses had been placed there by a maid who would have had no knowledge of their significance, once upon a time. Mayhap the sparrow pictures as well. It would hardly surprise her to learn he had tasked a servant with the minutiae of preparing the chamber. Why would Shelbourne himself perform such a menial household task, and for a woman he so obviously scorned?
She was being foolish.
More foolish than she had been that fateful summer.
More foolish than when she had allowed herself to fall in love with a man who would never return that love.
She sighed. The sparrows meant nothing. The roses meant nothing. Andshemeant nothing to her new husband. Less than nothing, in fact. He had married her because he wanted to raise Emily as his daughter. Not because he had truly wished to have Julianna as his wife. His cruel response to her initial proposal was proof of that. As was his heartless treatment of her before, when she had traveled across a vast ocean to rid herself of him.
Only to later traverse that same ocean in search of him.
Her lips twisted at the bitter irony of the situation in which she now found herself. Not in America, where she had hoped to be and where her factory would be built. But in England, the place where she had fled. Married to the man who had broken her heart and given her the undeniable blessing of her daughter.
Life was strange. It worked in unpredictable, maddening ways. Julianna could not deny that marrying Shelbourne two years ago would have been easier. Perhaps even right, and to the devil with her own pride. However, she never would have realized her true purpose had she become his viscountess then. And in time, she had no doubt, she would have grown to resent him for his faithlessness.
This time, she knew what to expect.
Not fidelity. Not love. Notanything. She would build her fortune and her empire alone. She would be back in New York City soon, she had no doubt. Shelbourne would grow weary of this, of her. He would seek his diversions. She would be unnecessary as before. Why play papa when he could drown himself in drink and petticoats, after all? And she would raise her daughter as her own. At last.
That was what mattered. All that mattered.
