The bitterness in her voice was, no doubt, down to her own disappointment over the nuptials that had never been between her eldest daughter and Torrie. Elizabeth ignored it and turned her attention to her mother-in-law, feeling by now as if she were dripping with the combined effect of her worries and the heat in the room.
“Have you seen Lord Torrington, my lady?” she asked the dowager. “I cannot seem to find him in the crush.”
“I’m not certain where he has gone,” her mother-in-law answered with an odd, high-pitched quality to her voice that was not ordinarily present.
Almost as if she were lying.
But why?
Elizabeth had her answer in the next moment, for Lady Althorp gave her a triumphant smile and pronounced, “The last I saw of his lordship, he was escorting the Countess of Worthing from the ballroom.”
And with that simple statement, all the fears that had been chasing her throughout these last few, happy weeks with Torrie finally caught her in their relentless, crushing grip.
* * *
Torrie’s throatburned from the whisky he had poured down his gullet the moment he had brought Eugenia to his study for a dreaded conversation. One that would be best conducted privately instead of before the watching eyes of hundreds of others.
Don’t say a word, he had warned her grimly before rushing to the stores he scarcely touched these days and taking a hearty swig.
Then another. And another. And another.
But when he finally wiped his dripping lips with the back of his gloved hand and turned around, Eugenia was still standing there with a victorious smile on her face, as if she had won a great battle. And he began to fear that she had, and that everything he had built with Bess these past few glorious weeks was about to come crashing down, like a priceless vase teetering on the edge of a table.
“Say it again,” he ground out harshly. “Tell me the truth, here where no one else shall overhear.”
“I’m carrying your babe,” Eugenia repeated, cradling her belly through her diaphanous gown.
Was that a slight rounded curve on her ordinarily willowy frame? He couldn’t tell, and he hated himself for looking, for hoping there would be none and that he had somehow misheard her in the cacophony of the ballroom. That this was all some twisted joke she was playing upon him. That it was anything other than the truth. Because every second of being alone with her felt like the greatest of betrayals to Bess.
But the worst of it—and the part his numbed mind could not seem to grapple with—was that Eugenia was pregnant with his child. His own flesh and blood. He tamped down the urge to retch, for it was undeniably a betrayal of the most egregious sort, even if it had happened before his marriage to Bess.
He would lose her for this, he feared.
“How?” he demanded hoarsely. He had taken care to prevent such a possibility, using a sheath every time they had been together.
Eugenia gave a chuckle, moving nearer, bringing the cloying scent of her perfume with her. This evening, thanks to the heat in the ballroom, it was mixed with the sharp staleness of sweat.
He gagged and then brought the whisky bottle directly to his lips, taking another long pull from it.
But oblivion wouldn’t claim him that easily. Apparently, this night, he was meant to suffer.
“How do you suppose it happened, my love?” Eugenia asked, trailing a nail down his chest. “In the ordinary way. You bedded me, often and passionately. Need I remind you of all the ways in which it happened? The details? The many, many times you fucked me with that big, hard cock of yours?”
What had he ever seen in this woman?
He shrugged away from her touch, his stomach giving another violent lurch. “No details. You know what I am saying, madam. How can you be certain that I am the father of this presumed child? I made every effort to prevent such an unwanted event from occurring.”
A triumphant smile curved her lips. “I can only imagine that your efforts failed in some fashion. For only you have been in my bed, my darling. Heaven knows Worthing hasn’t. He couldn’t even find his cock if he tried these days. He’s far too fat.”
Her unkind assessment of her significantly older husband wasn’t far from the mark, but Torrie took no joy in it.
“You haven’t taken another lover in all the weeks since we parted?” he demanded, hoping she would tell him otherwise.
That she’d taken a string of men into her bed. Because she was Eugenia, and her appetite was insatiable. It had been one of the qualities about her which had drawn him, fool that he’d been, aimlessly seeking something that had forever been out of reach.
Happiness.
That was what he had been searching for, what he had been missing. And he had found it with Bess. But now, he was going to lose it. He was going to loseher, and it was all his bloody fault for thinking with his cock when Eugenia had first propositioned him instead of seeing her for the viper she was.
