Arabella let out a shaky breath. “I-I had heard a few whispers in the last few days. I’d heard he had someone new and that there were hints of a scandal about it all. But?—”
“And why didn’t you tell me?” Evelina interrupted, fisting her hands at her sides and wishing it made them shake less.
“Because he hurt you,” Arabella said. “And I didn’t want to hurt you further until I could meet with Simone and get all the information available.”
Evelina flinched. Simone was the courtesan who had helped Arabella and both her sisters when they entered into the life years ago. She was a true friend and one of the sharpest people Evelina had ever met. Of course, Arabella would look to her for the truth.
She reached out to steady herself on the nearest chair before she collapsed into it with a thunk. She stared at the fire rather than her sisters and brother-in-law. “Could it be true? That Harry could really be with Lady Blackburn? That he was with her behind my back all the while he told me I was the true love of his life and that he would only marry for duty?” She flinched as she thought of Lord Blackburn’s crestfallen expression earlier in the night. “Could it be true that he would do something so horrible to his friend, a man who I never saw be anything but kind and supportive to him?”
Arabella dropped down to her knees before Evelina and cupped her cheeks. They held gazes for a long moment and she could see how much her sister hurt for her. That had always been their way. Their pains were shared, they protected each other, sometimes to their own detriment.
“I will go to Simone first thing in the morning,” Arabella said. “I’ll detangle her from the arms of whatever lover she’s entertaining at present, and I will find out.”
Evelina looked past her sister to the fire again and shook her head. “No. No, I need to find out myself. I need to do thismyself.”
“Evie, that cannot be wise,” Arabella whispered. “It could only hurt you more.”
Evelina blinked down at her. “Nothing could hurt me more, could it? There must be an end to it at some point.”
Her sister’s expression softened, but even as Arabella embraced her, as Julia joined their sisterly hug and Silas went to pour her a very strong drink, Evelina already knew the answer in her heart. Just as she’d known it when Blackburn told her, no matter how strenuously she denied it.
She just couldn’t understand it.
CHAPTER2
Vaughn sat in his study the next morning, staring at the state of his desk. He’d always been a tidy person, taking care of his duties as swiftly as he could and immediately filing or discarding the papers that went along with them. But in the last six months, that had changed, along with every other part of his life. His desk was piled with papers now, almost all to do with his divorce. There were so many parts to the complicated act of severing a marriage so that it no longer existed. So many disapproving and demanding people to respond to so that he could receive permission from church and sovereign and family to pretend as though he and Florence had not spent five years as man and wife.
It was an expensive endeavor, as well. He sometimes felt he was bleeding money. He supposed that was part of how the world discouraged such a scandalous act. Make it impossible financially, socially and even physically.
There was a rumble of thunder that shook the windows and Vaughn started as he looked up. He hadn’t even realized it had started raining. Well, it was appropriate. The gloomy dark clouds fit the tumultuous emotions in his heart. And a raincloud tended to ruin everyone else’s day, too, so that also seemed to match his current situation.
He thought, and not for the first time, of Evelina Comerford at the hell the night before. Her expression when he revealed the truth about Southwater had been…broken, even if she called Vaughn a liar and stormed out. He’d hurt her, and it would only hurt more when she realized he was right. It gave him no pleasure that he’d been the one to tear her last vestiges of belief about Harry down.
He’d always liked Evelina. She had only ever been kind and bright all the times he spoken to her over the years when she’d been his former best friend’s lover.
“Bollocks,” he muttered to himself. It seemed all he could do lately was destroy.
There was a light knock on the door and he looked up as his butler cracked the door. He hesitated there and Vaughn could hardly blame him. He’d been such a grumbling ogre lately that all the staff avoided him, which was even more proof of his wretchedness.
“Yes, Langley?” he said, trying to sound warmer than he had lately.
“I beg your pardon, my lord, but you have a visitor.” He extended a card as Vaughn got up and came around the desk to receive it.
Evelina Comerford
The card was a scrawl of delicate filigree and gold leafing that made up the swirls of her name. He found himself tracing those peaks and valleys with his fingernail.
“She…she’s here?” he asked in shock. Since he’d just been thinking of the woman, it almost felt as if he’d conjured her.
“Yes, my lord. I would have sent her away as you’ve requested to be done to all visitors in the last few months, but the lady was very insistent. She has put herself on one of the benches in the foyer and refuses to leave. What should I do?”
Vaughn let out a shaky breath. He’d thought Evelina wouldn’t wish to see him again after the last encounter that weighed so heavily on his mind, but it seemed he was wrong. He could only imagine why. Did she wish to share the pain of her betrayal with another person? He could hardly manage his own.
But then again,hehad been at least part of the cause of her hurt, so he should do the gentlemanly thing and see her.
“Tell the lady that I’m in residence. And take her to the blue parlor.” He hesitated and wrinkled his brow. “Is the blue parlor ready for guests?”
He’d closed up so many rooms in this big house lately, but Langley inclined his head. “Indeed, it is the parlor we keep prepared for unexpected arrivals and to receive…er…”
