“Is that why you’re with Robert?”
“Yes. And now I really must go and see what’s keeping him,” she said firmly.
She rose to leave, but her friend grabbed her arm.
“What about your sister’s party this Saturday? Surely you can get your husband to take you tothat. After all, who among our friends has met him besides me?”
Oh, no! “I don’t know, Sheila. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Sharisse muttered, desperate to get away.
She found Robert as quickly as she could and asked to be taken home immediately, using the throbbing headache she was fast developing as a legitimate excuse. She hardly said a word to him on the way home and left him with a quick, distracted good-bye. Mrs. Etherton met her in the foyer and took her cloak and gloves, worrying over Sharisse’s pinched expression.
“Where is my father, please?”
The housekeeper sniffed disapprovingly and said stonily, “In the kitchen, miss.”
“Raiding again?” Sharisse grinned.
“I believe so, miss.”
Sharisse was still grinning as she went to find her father. She liked to think of him upsetting the servants by entering their domain. It was so like him. She found him alone in the kitchen, a cold chicken and a loaf of bread before him on the kitchen work table. Well, he wasn’t quite alone. In the corner was Clarissa, the cream-colored female cat it had taken Sharisse weeks to find after she got home. Clarissa was suckling her litter of three. And there was Charley, never far from his little family, curling his way around Marcus’s feet. Sharisse was astonished to hear her father say, “Damned cat. I suppose you want some of this?”
“Why, you old softy!”
Marcus jumped, turning around to glare at her. “I’m too old to be startled like that!”
“I’m sorry.” She sat down near the work table and picked up a piece of chicken.
He eyed her curiously. “You’re back early. Did you find out who your secret admirer is?”
“No. Well…maybe. Oh, I might as well tell you right out and see whatyoucan make of it. Sheila was at the Academy, and she told me she met Lucas last night at the Stewarts’.”
“Lucas? You mean…Lucas?”
“Yes.”
“Well, well, isn’t this interesting.”
“Alarming is more like it. Couldn’t it be someone else pretending to be Lucas?” Sharisse asked hopefully. But she knew it couldn’t be, not with Sheila’s adoring description.
“What did you tell her?” her father asked.
“I couldn’t very well tell her that I didn’t even know he was here. How would that look? But she did have one thing to say about him,” she added testily. “She thought he was gorgeous.”
“What kind of way is that to describe a man?” Marcus asked.
“Sheila’s way. She found him quite attractive,” she said nastily.
“As I recall, you did, too. All right, let’s assume this man is your husband. He’s here. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m not going to do anything,” she said flatly. “I’m certainly not going to see Lucas.”
“You may have to, my dear. I can’t very well deny him access to this house if he demands to see you. He is still your husband. He might not have been aware of that fact when he arrived here, but he’s obviously found it out. And he’s also made sure that you are aware of his rights as your husband.”
“What do you mean?”
“He paid for your purchases. I doubt that was simply a matter of owing up to his obligations. I would call it an extravagant message. A message to you.”
“In other words he wants me to know that if he wants to play the role of my husband, he can?”
