“What do you mean that he was done with you?”
Blythe took a deep, shuddering breath, ready to voice the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her. “He sold me.”
“Sold you!” Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “To whom?”
“Dr. Valentine.”
Elizabeth’s mouth opened but no words emerged. Blythe supposed that she should have expected such a reaction.
“When, how, what happened next?”
“It was a month before the Battle of Waterloo,” Blythe answered before she explained that he had obtained a room at a local inn for her, without telling Elizabeth that Orlando had claimed that they were married.
“Did you ever see him again?”
“Yes. Almost daily.” Blythe smiled at the memory. “He worried that something could happen to me, a woman, living alone at an inn, but there was no need. I was safe and for a short time we were friends.”
“Short time?” Elizabeth asked. “Did something happen to end your friendship?”
“The Battle of Waterloo,” she answered flatly. “I became a widow and Orlando did not need to worry about protecting me any longer.”
Elizabeth arched a brow in intrigue.
“I promise that he remained a gentleman at all times.”
“If he was only a friend, why did you practically run from the Venetian Breakfast? You certainly couldn’t have feared that he would announce just how the two of you were acquainted.”
Blythe drew in a deep breath and blew out a sigh. “It was the shock, I suppose. The fear of the truth, the memories of one of the worst days of my life, but also…”
“Also, what?” Elizabeth asked when Blythe didn’t finish her statement.
Blythe shook her head. “It is not important, nor does it matter.”
Elizabeth placed her empty wine glass on the table then crossed her arms over her breast. “I am equally as certain that it does.”
“You are mistaken,” Blythe insisted.
“Are you going to sit there, look me in the eyes, and try and convince me that you did not fall in love with Dr. Orlando Valentine over two years ago in Brussels?”
Infatuation? Yes. Smitten? Yes.
Love? No because she had not allowed it to happen.
“I did not and it is best that I forget him,” she finally said.
“Forget is something you do when a relationship has ended poorly. I thought you and Dr. Valentine had become friends, close. One usually does not want to forget such an important relationship,” Elizabeth argued.
“I was nothing more than a damsel who needed saving. He protected and befriended me.”
“But he did purchase you, so you must have meant something to him.”
“We had not even met each other before that day, so no, I did not mean anything to him.”
Further, she’d been living in London since her return and not once had he come looking for her. Even a close friend would seek the other out and he had not, which was proof that she meant very little to him. She told him to call on her if he wanted to continue their friendship, and that she would either be with her brother, Seth, or he would know where she could be located, yet not once had Orlando come looking for her.
“Well, that is it then. We faced your past, I know your secrets and I will keep them. Tomorrow is a new day in which you can move forward.”
If only it were so easy.
