‘Dismissed?’Fear wrapped around his chest and tightened his throat.
She huffed.‘Not like that.Just go away.Leave me be.’
Chapter seven
Herfeettrailedpastthe fifth Duke of Osborne.Past the sixth Duke of Osborne.Past the third, and finally, the seventh, the only one she’d known.The one she hadn’t known at all.Lorelei moved so slowly her shoes dragged the runner.One slipper dropped partway between two stairs.The other came loose in the hallway, outside her door.She moved into her private sitting room, then into the duchess’s bedroom.The one with the internal door to the duke’s bedroom, with a lock on the duke’s side.
She’d spent a night here.Just one night, although William had not come to her bed then.He’d already consummated their marriage in the afternoon.While she was changing out of her wedding gown, he’d come through the connecting door.He’d told the maid to leave, then gestured for her to lie on the bed.With his undershirt around his waist, he’d found his way between her thighs and claimed her as his wife, bumping into her with the same mute efficiency that he’d used to sign his name on the licence.An agreement made.A bargain settled.A ministry position for William.His support on a bill for her father.Some exchange of funds had taken place—she’d never had the courage to ask which way the payment went, from her father to him or the other way round, but she’d always hoped it had been William who’d paid.
After all, she had been quite the prize.
She’d eaten alone in her room that night because she had not been invited to dinner.When she’d climbed into bed and heard William moving about his own room on the other side of the door, she had waited with a mix of dread and hope that he’d come to her again.Not because she’d wanted him.She’d been sore and sticky.It had hurt, and she hadn’t known if it would always hurt.But she’d wanted to be pleasing.She’d wanted to be loved.She’d slid out of bed, tiptoed across the room, and tried the door.
Only to find it locked.
Lorelei skirted the edge of the room to cross to the window.Disturbed dust swirled and floated through the shadows.She had to tug with both hands to pull the heavy velvet curtains apart, which rose to the ceiling ten feet above, but with a little effort, she let in the light.A beam bounced off the mirror at the dresser and fell across the jacquard bedspread, stretching to the gilt-and-white paint of the wardrobe doors, lighting all its little swirls and flourishes.The room remained as it had been just after the reading of William’s will, when she’d ordered the townhouse shut up.Back then, she’d had no desire to head to Town to see the faces that would delight in her humiliation, all those lords and ladies who knew becauseeveryone knew.And it would be years before Arley would have to stay here to take his seat at the Lords.
It was probably for the best that William had never brought her here.The furniture was ghastly.Way too overdone for her taste.She’d rather see the wood and preferred lighter timbers like beech, where she could trace shapes and patterns in the knots and grain.The wardrobe, the dresser, the bed—they all had too many carved flourishes and too much gilt.
Definitely not to her taste.
But then, the furniture on the estate was all dark wood.Heavy pieces, commissioned by one of the long-gone dukes from William’s ancestral line, all pieces she’d been forbidden from changing because he liked them so much.
Lorelei drifted to the dresser.She avoided locking eyes with her reflection but let her fingers run along the circumference of the frame.White.Gilt.Swirls.Curves.Flowers.
Not to William’s taste either.
Moving slowly, Lorelei slid a drawer open.There in the base, stark against the paint, lay a ribbon.Just a faded green ribbon, abandoned and alone, its ends foxed with age.She opened the next drawer.A half-empty powder pot.A porcelain perfume bottle.She pulled it out and unstoppered the lid, then sniffed.Stale like flat beer.The scent had eaten itself into sickly sweet decay.
A woman’s perfume.
Bile rose, tangy, raw, and hot, burning in her throat with no relief.All she could do was grip the edge of the dresser and cough out a pathetic apology of disgust.
Here?Had he really brought his mistress here?Placed her in the room that should have belonged to his wife?He must have.She could no longer deny it, for her refusal to think about the movements of his life away from the estate had not stopped them from happening.Her determination to ignore the truth had obscured but not erased the trail.
And she’d been stupid enough to love him.To mourn him.Not because he was good or kind, or because he had treated her gently like she’d craved.But because he’d made her his wife.His duchess.He’d saved her from being a daughter without relishing her as a wife.And amidst his deceit, he’d made her a mother.He’d stood by her as she failed to produce an heir for an entire year.How could she hate him when he’d given her Arley?
Even as his seat at the table sat empty, as she poured over newspaper reports to follow the events in the House in case she might be able to engage him in conversation, as she filled her days with planning menus for elaborate meals he would not join her for and seeing to gardens he would not sit in, she’d loved him.
Her marriage, her purpose, her very being—everything about her was a lie.The lessons she’d excelled at meant nothing.The piano, the painting, the poise.Cutting conversations and controlled curtsies, dropping with precision to the appropriate depth.
Lies, lies, lies.
With a rumbling, indignant cry, Lorelei rushed towards the bed.She grabbed at the blue-and-gold jacquard, faded with age and stiff with abandonment, and tore it off the surface.Had these colours beenherchoice, or his?Had he indulgedherwith small pleasures while Lorelei lay alone, miles and miles away, not even allowed to decide what paint or paper should line her walls?Her skirt caught beneath her knees as she climbed onto the mattress, but she persisted, snatching cushions, then a bolster, and flinging them into the abyss beside her.
‘Damn you!’She punched the headboard.Scratched at a pillow until the thin cotton split and dank feathers, limp with age, scattered in a wild spray.A few dared to lift into the air, but most dropped like frail skeletons.Lorelei tore at another cushion, then another, clawing and gouging the fabric as if she could fight off the woman who had lived the life that ought to have been hers.As if she could rip them from her mind, stop herself from imagining their intimacy, their happiness.Kicking and pulling, Lorelei split another pillow and wrestled with the sheets, bundling them up until she had stripped the bed to its lumpy mattress.
Then she shoved the entire mess to the floor.
With a final, pathetic whimper, Lorelei gripped the drapes and slumped against the bedpost.Wracking sobs spluttered from her lips, so hard they seemed to crack open her chest.She slid down the velvet lengths and off the side of the bed, her skin crawling with the thought of being so close to the place where he’d made love to the woman he wished had been his wife.
It didn’t matter that Lorelei had been given his name.
His title.
His ring on her finger.
She’d been the other woman all along.
