Then he nodded. Agreeing to end their association.
She fled the room, heart racing far more from the conversation than from her speed.
Regret. Misplaced. No future.
Tears began, but she brushed them away. She had dealt with a great deal more worth crying over in her life than a broken heart. Now, she needed to focus on her future. She was not naive enough to believe that she could quickly solve everything, but she could find the next step. She needed to respond to the steward and return to Lord Tarrington’s estate to face whatever awaited her there.
Chapter 38
This was just the sortof moment when Lucas would usually retreat to the club for a fight to release some of his emotions.
But he did not deserve a break from them. He deserved to sit in the pain that he had created, to face it like a man, not to hide from it as he had been doing for years.
He groaned as he buried his face in his hands. The look on Miss Faraday’s face as she’d backed away would haunt him forever, but he’d done the right thing.
Hehad.
Yet he felt even more terrible than before.
His fingers constricted painfully into his hair as he held back an explosion of anger at himself.
“Son?”
Without moving his hands from his face, he responded to his father, who was presumably in the doorway watching Lucas’s quick and painful deterioration. “Yes?”’
“Are you well?”
“Enough,” he muttered.
“Do you still wish to join me?” His father sounded hesitant.
Lucas took a silent breath, working to remove any evidence of emotion from his expression before he looked up. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Father narrowed his eyes, but Lucas raised his palm. “Please. Just let me help fix this mess.”
His father nodded, though he did not appear entirely convinced. “Let’s be going then.”
***
They missed dinner, there were so many calls to make, but at last, they were returning home. Night had nearly fallen, but they had been successful in their endeavor to convince membersof both the Bridgeport and Heatherdown Companies that Lord Colbert was not a man to place their trust in, and it gave Lucas a sense of satisfaction to know that he had managed to fix at least one thing. Colbert would not bother his family—or anyone else’s—again. The satisfaction was rather hollow in the face of all he’d lost, but he clung to it nevertheless.
“There is one thing I still have a question about, son,” his father said as they traveled through London’s streets in the confines of the carriage.
Lucas met his father’s eye.
“Why start the club in the first place?”
He swallowed. This was the crux of it all, but he’d promised himself he would not hold back from his parents any longer. He was adding honesty to the list of adjectives with which he would define himself moving forward: controlled, smart, honest. He would not be making more mistakes anytime soon.
“For...” But he could not say her name.
Somehow Father knew. “Marietta?” he asked softly.
Lucas nodded.
“Your mother thought as much. But, Lucas . . .”
Something told Lucas he was not going to like the direction of this conversation. Largely because just hearing his sister’s name was bringing up the usual pain already.
