“Why not?” Ridgely asked, sounding curious.
“It is the nature of my occupation, I suppose,” Theo said smoothly.
“Yes, I can see that,” her brother agreed. “Tierney never did tell me where he found you. There’s a hint of the foreign in your accent.”
Theo smiled coolly, and Pamela knew he wouldn’t reveal so much as a hint to Ridgely. “A man must have his secrets.”
And no one had more than Theo.
Doubt and dread settled in her belly, heavy as stones. He had told her he loved her, had he not? But what if loving her wasn’t enough to make him long for anything more?
“You are astonishingly quiet again, Pamela,” Ridgely said then, giving her a questioning look. “After all the tongue lashings you’ve delivered these last few weeks, I thought you would have something more to say. Or an ink well to smash. Surely even the smallest of harangues?”
Her brother didn’t know what her temper had cost her that long-ago day. He hadn’t referred to the ink well incident as anything other than a jest. And yet, she couldn’t help but to think of the vase. How it had broken into so many jagged pieces, the flowers within it ruined, water everywhere. And later, the blood seeping from her body.
Beneath the table, she felt Theo’s hand creep to her knee, comforting her.
He knew.
He understood.
She summoned a smile for her brother’s benefit. “If you would care for a harangue, I would be more than happy to offer you one. I’m certain your wife could find any number of reasons for me to do so. Is that not right, Virtue?”
Virtue returned her smile, looking relieved at the confirmation she had someone on her side. Pamela recalled what it was like as a new bride, finding her footing in a strange and daunting territory. So many times, she had slipped. Bertie’s family had never liked her, and when he had died, they had been only too happy to wish her well and send her from her home.
“I can think of at least half a dozen different reasons right now,” Virtue drawled.
Her response earned a delighted laugh from Ridgely, and the remainder of the wedding breakfast resumed with a lighter air.
And through it all, Theo’s hand remained, a steady, reassuring weight on her knee beneath the table.
CHAPTER17
He was going to lose her.
Theo knew it with an awful, sickening sense of understanding that curdled in his gut like spoiled milk.
The wedding breakfast had disbanded, with the Duke of Ridgely and his new duchess excusing themselves to prepare for their ride on Rotten Row. Theo arranged for two of his guards to follow the newly married couple on their excursion at an inobtrusive pace.
And then he went in search of Pamela.
She had been distraught at the wedding breakfast, and he didn’t think the sole reason for her upset had been her brother the duke’s good-natured taunts. Theo suspectedhewas part of the reason. And there was also the memory of the miscarriage she had suffered, haunting her still. But there was something more that had been needling him all through the polite wedding breakfast and the fulfillment of his duties where protecting the duke and his duchess were concerned.
He had to tell Pamela the truth about who he was. He had kept it from her for far too long, not knowing how to confess. But every day that passed was another one that took him closer to the day Stasia’s betrothal would be announced. Another day nearer to him having to make his decision about returning to Boritania and facing their uncle.
She was in the gardens, seated on the bench she often occupied whenever she sketched. Whenever she was in need of distraction, he’d discovered. For Theo, losing himself in tasks had always been an excellent means of banishing the demons. But for Pamela, it was shopping, society, and drawing.
She had shown him her sketches, including the rendering of him, and even if he hadn’t fallen hopelessly in love with her, he still would have seen the undeniability of her natural talent. She drew with the same eye she turned to the world, seeing the best in everyone and everything, making even the mundane appear majestic and the unworthy laudable.
Theo made no effort to hide his approach, and at the crunch of his boots on the gravel, she glanced up from the sketch she had been frowning over, a small smile curving her lips.
“You’ve found me,” she said softly, as if she had known he would.
“What are you drawing?” he asked, settling himself on the bench at her side, near enough that his thigh brushed hers through the morning gown she still wore.
“The duke and his new duchess,” Pamela replied, opening her folio and holding it toward him like an offering.
And there indeed upon the page was the Duke of Ridgely and his new wife as they had stood together, speaking their vows to each other. It had been a sacred moment, one he hadn’t expected to affect him as deeply as it had. Nor had he been prepared for the longing it incited within him, the thought that in a perfect world, it would have been himself and Pamela marrying instead. But the world was far from perfect, and so was he.
