Clarity hit him in the form of a bruising weight being lifted from his chest. Sidney was going to go home and woo the hell out of his wife. Mayhap it was not too late for an attempt at happiness for the both of them.
Chapter 16
Dear Julianna,
You have returned. Two years ought to have taught me a lesson in pride, but it would seem they have not. Since Hellie gave me the news, quite without realizing how much you once meant to me, yesterday—curse you, how much you mean to me still—I have been able to think of precious little else. It seems you consume my every waking and sleeping hour. You are here, and you are not mine. You are here, and in all this time, no one has ever come close to replacing you in the scarred, tattered remnants of my heart. You are here, and I will do everything in my power to make certain our paths shall never cross.
Bitterly yours,
Sidney
Julianna blinked as she descended the stairs for dinner later that evening and paused mid-step. Surely she was mistaken, and the handsome, debonair figure dressed in formal evening attire awaiting her at the foot of the staircase was an illusion.
She hesitated, lingering where she was as his emerald gaze melded with hers. A jolt went through her, even from her height, despite the distance separating them. Her heart was beating fast, both from his presence and the heated remembrance from the night before raining over her.
He was here.
Just when she thought she could use her quiet dinner solitude to fortify her defenses.
Wrong, whispered that wicked voice.
“My lord,” she managed, wetting her suddenly dry lips. “I thought you would be taking dinner in your club again tonight.”
“Why would I take dinner in my club when I could be here with you?” he asked, raising a brow.
Oh yes, the devil she knew was proving himself to be, more and more, the devil she did not know at all. Julianna almost begged his pardon, but there were servants about. And she could not continue to hold their conversation while she was on the stairs. With a deep breath for fortification, she resumed her descent.
“I am gratified you will be joining me,” she forced out as she reached the last stair and stood before him at last.
His intoxicating scent—bay, musk,Sidney—invaded her senses.
“Liar,” he said softly, but the accusation lacked heat.
She blinked, confusion reigning. “I beg your pardon?”
“You hardly appear pleased your husband is joining you for dinner,chérie.” That stare swept over her like a caress. “For one, you are abusing your lip in cruel fashion once more. For another, you are looking at me as if I have given one of your favorite gowns to the chimney sweep.”
“Why would a chimney sweep require one of my gowns?” she asked instead of agreeing with him.
“I would hardly know.” He grinned. “I am not a chimney sweep.”
Odd, irritating, vexing, charming man.
“That makes no sense.”
“I often do not. Ask my sister.”
“Hellie said you had been beastly to her recently, favoring her marriage to that dreadful Lord Hamish White.” It was true; however, that conversation had happened weeks ago, and well before Hellie’s marriage to Huntingdon. Mayhap it was churlish of her to bring it up now, but it had bothered her ever since Hellie’s revelations.
And she needed to cling to reasons to distrust and dislike this man. He had an unwanted way of skating ever nearer to her heart. Her heart couldn’t trust him, but it was too foolish to know that. The sooner she returned to New York City, the better.
“I had been…distracted recently, and I did not champion her with our father as I ought to have done,” he admitted, his expression contrite. “There are a great deal of things I have not done properly, it would seem. I would like to rectify that. Beginning with dinner.”
He swept into a belated-but-elegant bow.
She barely dipped in a curtsy. “You are being terribly formal, Shelbourne.”
He winked, extending his arm to her. “And here I was, thinking myself charming. May I escort you to dinner, wife?”
