Damn it all.What now?
“Oh, Gemma.My darling girl.”Henrietta’s voice trembled.
“What has happened?”Gemma demanded.
“Now, it may not be what we think,” Henrietta began anxiously.Her elaborate cap bristled with no fewer than six rows of blond lace, framing her worried face.
“I beg your pardon, Mama, but it is exactly what we think.”Lucy’s expression went thundercloud dark.“I’m afraid it’s all too obvious what has happened.”
“Not to me!”Gemma protested.“Because neither of you has told me what it is.”
Henrietta wrung her hands.“Oh, dear.This is simply dreadful.Perhaps you’d better show her, Lucy.”
Show me what?Gemma wanted to shriek at all this hemming and hawing.After the morning she’d had, she was in no temper for it.But she ground her back teeth and kept her frustration in.Whatever had occasioned these dramatics couldn’t be all that bad, not if both her mother and sister were standing before her, well and whole.
They’d already lost their father, their home, their friends, their standing in society, and their entire future.How bad could this really be?
Suddenly looking uncertain, Lucy clutched something to her chest as if to hide it, and Gemma realized she was holding a sheaf of papers.It looked like a broadsheet newspaper, along with some other things she couldn’t make out.
“The mail came yesterday, did it not?”Gemma said slowly, a strange feeling rolling through her midsection.“Any interesting news from Town?”
Henrietta and Lucy exchanged another agonized look before Lucy burst out, “Fine, all right.Here!”
She thrust the stack of papers at Gemma, who took them without being at all certain what she’d find.
She stared down at the broadsheet from several weeks ago, which was on the top of the pile, and folded back to the page that held the society columns—paragraphs detailing the movements and associations of the high and mighty of the Ton.The Marquess of H--- happily squired the beautiful widow Mrs.H--- Q--- to the opera Tuesday last, will the banns be read soon?
Lords B--- and P--- attended the spring meetings at Glorious Goodwood, and are home bearing tales of horse racing shenanigans hardly to be believed…
The devilish Duke of T--- has decamped from Town and the ladies (as well as the less than ladylike) have declared their hearts broken and bereft in his absence.
And there, at the bottom of the thinly veiled tidbit about the Duke of Thornecliff, who made frequent appearances in these pages, was a single line:The Duke of T--- is only recently returned from a journey to Bath, during which he stumbled upon the radiant Lady G--- L---, who is much missed from Town.Lady G---, it seems, is now the proprietress of Five Mile House, a Wiltshire coaching near the Bath Road.
Five Mile House appears to be quite the rarified establishment, playing host to not one, but two dukes.Although, for an oddity, the Duke of H--- seems to be serving drinks from behind the bar in the taproom!
What is even more odd is that Lady G--- does not seem to know who he is.So if you’d like to have a pint pulled by a peer of the realm, with the lively Lady G--- none the wiser, visit Five Mile House!
The sheaf of papers fluttered softly to the floor.Gemma’s fingers had gone stiff and cold, too numb to hold onto them.The heart that had cracked and cratered over the past few weeks finally shattered into dust that clogged her airways and stung her eyes.
Darkness pressed down on her, an oppressive cloud that dimmed her vision and staggered her balance.She might have actually swooned, had it not been for her mother and sister.
Henrietta and Lucy closed ranks, supporting her and holding her up and surrounding her with their steady arms.
“It cannot be true,” she heard herself rasp.“They can’t mean…that cannot be Hal they are speaking of.”
“That bastard,” Lucy cursed viciously.
“Lucy!Language!”
“Sorry, Mama!But he is!”
Gemma’s knees wobbled, and Henrietta said, “Oh my dear!You should sit down.”
Catching sight of the blue damask chair in the corner, where she had exposed herself to Hal and he had devoured her so hungrily, Gemma shied away and headed for the bed.Lucy helped her up to sit on the edge.
Her insides were crumbling.She tasted ash in the back of her mouth.
It had all been a fiction.From the very first moment.He had known who she was—known everything about her—and she had known nothing.Only the lies he chose to share.
