Likely they were beautiful and sophisticated. He’d never told her he was going to be faithful, had he? She hadn’t asked him to be faithful. She’d only told him that she wanted him to bed her.
And he had.
She’d thought he’d enjoyed it the same as she. Was she wrong? Did gentlemen really require a buffet of women?
“Beth?” Tabetha’s hand dropped onto her knee. “Delia didn’t mean to upset you.”
Bethany lifted the corners of her mouth and only hoped it resembled what ought to be a dignified smile. “Why would I be upset?”
“He really should be more discreet in his affairs.” Tabetha’s words dripped with pity. “I’m so sorry, Beth.”
Bethany didn’t want to be pitied. She would rather be made into a scandal than be considered pitiful.
Was that what his “errands” were all about?
F-a-i-t-h-f-u-l. Eight. P-i-t-i-f-u-l. Seven.Of course.
She straightened her spine and summoned what poise she could find. “Why would you be sorry? Neither of us expects the other to change their ways simply because we are married.” But the words might as well have curdled in her mouth. “Oh, look at the time. I best return to Byrde House. Chase’s mother is dining with us this evening and I don’t want to be late as we’re just becoming acquainted.”
“Are the rumors about her true?” Delia seemed happy for any change of subject.
“What rumors?”
“That she ought to be committed?”
“She’s a little eccentric but an otherwise lovely woman.” Bethany placed her cup and saucer onto the tray and rose. She refused to discuss Chase’s mother in any sort of unflattering light. “Good to see you, Delia. Do tell Mother I came by, won’t you, Tabby?”
Bethany smoothed her skirts and walked calmly out of the drawing room and then out the front door and onto the walkway. After that, she didn’t pay much heed to where she was going. Because where did a person go when home was no longer home? When dreams turned to ashes?
Last night had been special. It had been! Hadn’t it?
Or had she simply convinced herself that he experienced the same emotions she did? But he had not.
Of course, he had not. Becauseshe loved him.Even more now than she had before.
Bethany counted her steps as she passed one house after another.
If she felt betrayed after spending a single night with him, how would she feel after a month, or a year? How would she feel to hear of his affairs after she’d carried his child?
All these thoughts tormented her as she strode along the walkways taking a rather roundabout route from Adam’s Row back to Byrde House. Along Brooks Street, around Grosvenor Square back toward the park…
The familiar sights ought to be comforting, reassuring. But home wasn’t home anymore.
When she finally tired herself out, she wasn’t all that far from Byrde House. She needed to go there—go home. She needed to dress for dinner and dine with her mother-in-law and her husband.
“It’sa good thing you’ve extra stays with you. Still, it wouldn’t be remiss to make an appointment with a modiste. You can wear almost anything you want.” Polly had been waiting almost anxiously for her, announcing that the dinner bell had rung ten minutes before. She’d pressed a gown and had it laid out on the bed along with underthings and slippers.
Sounds from the chamber adjacent to hers assured Bethany that her husband had returned as well.
She’d thought she was coming to know him, but was she? Was he, in actuality, only an illusion of the ideal person she’d made up in her mind? And if that was the case, how could she think that she loved him?
Clutching the bedpost while Polly tightened her stays summoned recollections of the night before, recollections that she couldn’t make sense of anymore. It had felt like intimacy, and yet… Something had been missing.
Love. Love had been missing.
Did he care for her at all, or was she simply one of many? Or worse than that? Was she a nuisance?
I don’t pity fuck.
