She hadn’t even had time to put her hands on him when he drew back.
“My apologies. We were in close contact for as long as I could manage without kissing you.”
She wished it hadn’t been so brief, but their luck had held considering the door was open.
He rose to his feet and reached for her hand to bring her up beside him.
“I don’t suppose you have time to spend the day with me.”
She smiled slightly. “The whole day would not be proper.”
“I shall take as long as you will give me,” Foxford declared. “Can you secure a maid or your mother as chaperone and come with me now?”
“Where are we going?”
“To The Pantechnicon. I am going to buy a new sofa for my drawing room. I want you to choose the fabric and the style. After all, it shall be your drawing room, too.”
Purity heard only the wordsofa, remembered Lady Varley’s awful confession, and slapped Foxford hard across the cheek. His head snapped to the side, and a moment later, her tears began to fall.
“What the devil?” he asked, laying a glove to his red cheek.
“You are a liar,” she said, choking on the despair rising in her throat. “If I cannot believe you now, how shall I ever trust you when I am your wife?”
She couldn’t look at his face another instant. The man lied as easily as he breathed, and she had willingly believed him.Again!
Before another false word left his lips, she fled the room.
Matthew wandered outof the fine house on Piccadilly speculating how he could have made it worse.
He ought to return to his study and consult his schedule. He knew he had a ledger to look over, sent by his Surrey estate manager the day before. His Tangley Manor was a medieval monstrosity, but he loved it, despite its hunger for coin. And he had correspondence to answer. Moreover, his banker had requested to meet with him, and he had an appointment with a solicitor regarding the marriage documents.
He doubted he would need them now.
Yet instead of doing anything responsible, he headed to Boodle’s to drown himself first with wine and then with brandy.
When Quinn entered the dining room hours later, Matthew was already in his cups and thinking of going to a tavern for gin. He wanted to obliterate the day from his mind, and gin could do that better than anything else he knew.
“You missed a clutter downstairs,” Quinn said. “One of our senior members accused one of our junior members of cheating.”
“At what?” Matthew asked, leaning his head on the cool white tablecloth.
Quinn frowned down at him. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Resting. The room is spinning. Who was cheating at what?”
“Sanders gave old Rosen a physicking at faro. I don’t think he cheated at all. I think Rosen needs spectacles.”
Matthew rummaged around in his pockets until he pulled out some coins. Picking out two pence, he pushed them across the table.
“Give these to Rosen so he can buy another pack of cards. That’ll set him right.”
Quinn laughed. “It’s not the cards he has lost. It’s a goodly chunk of his fortune. If I had known you were up here, I would have fetched you down to witness. You should have seen them both buttering their bets, higher and higher, with the rest of the chaps edging off wagers on the side.”
“Then what?” Matthew asked, trying to care and failing.
“Sanders kept winning. The last hand, Sanders had swabbers while the only face Rosen had was his own.” Quinn laughed and took a seat. “What has you half seas over? Nothing to do with your lovely lady, I hope.”
“Why would you think that?”
