“I have always been alone and despised in my own home. I had hoped—” His voice cracked.
“What…what did you hope?”
“I hoped I could change. I just proved I cannot. I have placed my needs above yours, over and over. I married you, courted you, under false pretense. I was cruel. I will destroy you, if I haven’t already. I cannot permit myself to touch you again.”
She scrambled off the bed, holding her ripped stays against her chest. She touched his back. He flinched, and then he turned. The resolve in his eyes left her cold.
“The Langley line was broken.” He fisted his hand and hit the wall. “It does not require me to mend.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“You have the name, now,” he whispered fiercely. “You don’t need a bastard like me to ensure a proper heir.”
He didn’t mean—hecouldn’tmean… “Are you telling me you want me to take a lover?”
“I am telling you I will not stand in your way,” he replied. “I release you.”
She blinked away the burn behind her eyes and held a hand against her chest as if she could keep her heart from breaking.
Then, she remembered. She hadn’t a heart. Not anymore.
“How on earth did Ieverthink you were worthy of my love?” she whispered. “Damn you to hell, Bromton.”
“I have,” he choked. His gaze met hers, as pained as if he knew he’d never see her again. “I have damned us both. But you are capable of surviving, if I let you go.”
Before she could reply, he disappeared into his chamber, shutting and locking the door.
Chapter Fourteen
Sometime in the night, Katherine fell into silence, lulled by the absence of sound into a fitful slumber haunted by dream images of anger and loss. The next morning, she found a note on a silver platter atop the table at the center of her sitting room.
Lady Bromton—
Enclosed is a list of shops where I have arranged credit. The carriage is at your disposal.
I will be—smudge—absent for a few days. If you’ve a need the housekeeper cannot attend, please send word to Lord Farring.
—Giles Everhart Langley, Marquess of Bromton
Her eyes lingered on the smudge for an appalling length of time. Her heart thumped against her ribs. How she hated the flicker of hope even pulsing anger failed to extinguish.
Using her body to form the words she could not say, she’d given him what had remained of her still-broken heart. And instead of fighting to save them both, he’d fled.
Of all the things Bromton had done, suggesting she take a lover just minutes after she had dissolved in his arms was, by far, his nadir.
How many times need he prove he was a fool until she took him at his word?
Coldness entered her heart, an icy protection against further harm.
Long ago, Lady Katherine Stanley had retreated in the face of less provocation. Fleeing to the country, she’d hid from her shame and from her mistakes. But she was no longer Lady Katherine Stanley, was she?
She flipped the paper, rereading the address:
To Katherine, Marchioness of Bromton
The world had yet to meet Katherine, Marchioness of Bromton. She tested the title on her tongue and decided it would suit. Decided? No, resolved.
Her heart was broken and bruised, but life would continue. Julia would be coming to stay with Lord Farring’s family, and someday soon Markham would return. She would not be entirely alone.
