“Where you will be working yourself ragged until God knows what hour every day,” he grumbled.
“There will be time for us,” she promised. “I’ll make it so.”
She only hoped she could manage the subterfuge that would be required to keep anyone else from discovering their secret. Because she truly could not afford to allow any further damage to come to her reputation. Her future and her school’s success depended on it.
“Of course you will.” He sighed heavily. “Listen to me, prattling on like an arse. I’m sorry, love. I’m in a rare mood. Don’t take anything I say to heart.”
“You’re worried about your friend. I understand. I haven’t many good friends any longer after the scandal of the divorce, but I treasure those who have remained steadfastly loyal.”
The number of ladies she’d believed were her friends, who had faded in the wake of the wretched gossip surrounding her, had been shocking. There had been so many, when she had been Countess of Ammondale, who had avowed their friendships were lifelong. Only to disappear in her time of need.
“Bloody hell.” He frowned. “Anyone who didn’t remain loyal to you wasn’t worthy of your friendship.”
“I expected some of it, of course,” she said, confiding in him about what had been a staggering loss at first, but had grown easier with time. “I knew that there were some ladies who would not wish to be associated with a divorced woman. It was a risk I gladly took so that I could be free. But there were others whose defections hurt more. It was quite sobering to realize suddenly that someone who professed she considered me a sister had only sought my friendship for her own selfish gains and not because she was truly my friend.”
Lady Clarissa Leland had befriended Miranda for her familial connections, and she had promptly set her cap at Miranda’s brother. In the end, it wasn’t George whom Clarissa had married, but George’s friend, the Earl of Hayward. Miranda still recalled her shock upon paying a call to Clarissa and being told by a frosty butler that her ladyship was not at home. The shock had turned to sadness upon her receipt of a letter from Clarissa which had laid bare her true feelings. The bonds of sisterhood had not just been thoroughly broken—they had never existed from the start.
“I’m sorry,” Rhys said, cutting through bitter memories. “I cannot begin to imagine how difficult the divorce and ensuing gossip has been for you.”
Like her marriage to Ammondale, her divorce was not a subject Miranda preferred to dwell upon. Nor was the sad way that seeking her own happiness had led most of the people in her circle to sever ties with her.
“It was difficult,” she agreed, thinking of the countless days she had spent agonizing over those who had betrayed her, who had claimed to love her and then proven the opposite. “But I will forever believe that it made me stronger. And I need to be strong, if I am going to succeed with my school and other endeavors.”
“Your quiet strength is one of many traits of yours that I admire.”
What an enigma this man was. Sometimes, he surprised her by offering words of such deep reflection, words that held profound meaning and were precisely what she needed to hear in the moment he uttered them. And other times, he made her laugh with outrageous statements, sweeping hyperbole, and silly quips. This was part of why she loved him so. She made an alarming sound, quite unintentionally, in her throat as she choked back a sob and a laugh all at once, tears pricking her eyes.
“Oh dear. You’re not weeping, are you?” he asked, leaning across the carriage to peer at her with comical effect.
She sniffed, blinking furiously. “No, of course not.”
He reached for her, taking her chin in a gentle hold. “I didn’t intend to make you sad.”
“You didn’t,” she hastened to reassure him. “You don’t. You make me happy.” Frighteningly so.
And she knew she must not grow too accustomed to it, for one day too soon, this little understanding of theirs would come to an end as well.
“Good, because when you get tears in your eyes, it makes me want to set fire to the very world and watch it burn to ash.”
She smiled. “That is very bloodthirsty of you.”
“I’m a bloodthirsty chap, I find, when it comes to you.” He swiped his thumb along her lower lip, his stormy gaze dipping there as well. “I am sorry about all the suffering you’ve endured, but I am selfishly glad that you divorced that bloody arse Ammondale. Because now I can have you to myself.”
“Marriage was not what I had imagined it would be.”
“Oh?” His thumb traced the upper bow of her lip now, the touch light and delicate. “What did you imagine it to be?”
“Happy,” she blurted. “I thought that my husband would fall in love with me and that I would do the same with him in time. That we would laugh together and talk together, that we would attend balls and the theater, and that one day our children would fill the nursery and our hearts.”
She stopped herself before she revealed more or said something she would regret.
He cupped her cheek, his warmth and tenderness comforting her, his touch making desire burn to life too. “What was it instead?”
Miranda found that she wanted to unburden herself to him.
“He was cold and resentful toward me. I later discovered that he had wanted to marry his mistress, and his father, the duke, had forbade the match. He never forgave me. Nothing I ever did was good enough. Nothing I said pleased him. He spent most of his time out of the house, which was a blessing at first, until I realized that his mistress was with child and that all the time he had spent away had been with her instead.”
The betrayal she had felt at the knowledge had not entirely faded. How she had wanted a family of her own. And then to discover that her husband had begun one with the woman he truly loved instead… The duplicity had nearly broken her. In the end, it had been what had driven her out of the marriage. There was only so much unhappiness she had been willing to bear.
