“Cousin?”
He froze at the sound of Arthur’s concerned voice behind him. “Not now,” he croaked past a suddenly thick throat.
Arthur stepped inside and closed the door. “I was looking for you on your mother’s behest. What is wrong?”
Colin looked up at him, hardly seeing his cousin’s face through the fog of betrayal and disappointment and humiliation. “A short while ago, you asked if I could trust Jane…well, it turns out I cannot.”
Arthur arched a brow. “What are you talking about?”
Slowly, Colin choked out what he’d seen on the terrace, watching as Arthur’s eyes grew wide and his expression grave. “Great God, Colin,” he said, shaking his head when Colin had sunk into a chair, covering his face with his hands. “I feel terrible that I brought up anything tonight about Jane’s trueness whenthiswas to follow.”
“Don’t be,” Colin whispered. “After all, without that doubt being named, I might not have followed her and it would have been Cassandra all over again.”
Arthur nodded slowly. “It is better to know the truth, I suppose. But what will you do now?”
“I have no idea,” Colin said. “I cannot end the marriage. It was…consummated.”
Arthur drew back in obvious surprise. “Was it?”
Colin felt heat rush to his cheeks. “Yes,” he said softly. “But what do I do? Confront her and her lover?”
Arthur paced away. “It might be tempting to do so, I suppose, but what good would come of it? Perhaps there is a better solution.”
“And that is?” Colin asked.
“Send her to the country,” Arthur said.
“Banish her,” Colin said, his tone flat and dull, even to his own ears. “That seems abominably cruel.”
Arthur shook his head. “More cruel than what she did tonight, with no thought to how it would make you feel? How it would look were she discovered with her lover?”
How it looked. Colin’s stomach turned. Others had known about Cassandra. Those whispers of her lack of fidelity had hurt him as much as the actual act had. And here Jane had been, still dressed in her wedding frock.
His stomach turned and he lifted a hand to his lips as he tried not to cast up his accounts. “Send her away,” he repeated, the idea gaining merit with each moment he pondered it.
“Your country estate is secluded enough,” Arthur encouraged gently. “If you were worried about her taking a lover there, you could have your servants report on her movements. It would allow you to move on with your life.”
Colin winced. His life. The life outside of his marriage. He did have duties to perform, and he’d always taken them seriously. He served the House of Lords to his highest ability and he’d always planned on providing an heir if he married. But Cassandra had made him question that plan.
Tonight, Jane had destroyed it entirely, and his old desire to lock himself away, body, heart and soul, returned with even greater urgency.
He cleared his throat. “Sending Jane away is certainly far more palatable than listening to her lie to my face about what she was doing on the terrace tonight. Perhaps some time apart will help clear my head so I don’t respond in rage and do something foolish.”
“Yes,” Arthur encouraged him. “It doesn’t have to be forever, does it? Just until you decide what to do. How to handle her terrible betrayal.”
Colin drew in a long breath and nodded. This was the right decision. “Will you fetch her?” he asked softly.
Arthur straightened his jacket. “Of course. I’ll get her right away.”
His cousin left the room and Colin paced the length of the chamber, his hands shaking and his blood pumping hard. He had to gather himself, as to not show Jane his emotions. He had to be cold and calculating, he had to shove feelings aside and simply do this duty.
This duty to send Jane away and with her, the pain that her betrayal had caused. Pain that exposed a weakness he had sworn he would never allow again.
Now he wouldn’t. Now he had finally learned his lesson. And that lesson was that no woman was to be trusted. Not with his name, not with his future, certainly not with even a fraction of his heart.
Chapter One
Six Months Later
