Winning, Sebastian smiled and shook his head. “More like enraged. She’d been sending me angry letters all summer. After the first few, I stopped reading them. Threw them directly in the fireplace.”
Whitmore narrowed his eyes at Sebastian, who’d retrieved the object ball and had bent to take his second shot. “What made you read the one she sent two months after the wedding, then?”
“That’s just it,” Sebastian replied, sending his cue ball cracking against the object ball, which dutifully dropped into the pocket. “The letters had stopped before the wedding. It had been weeks since I’d received one. I thought perhaps she’d come around to see reason. Instead, I was disconcerted to read that she was claiming to be with child and that the babe was undoubtedly mine.”
“You had no choice but to go see for yourself,” Whitmore offered.
Sebastian sighed and stood up straight again. “Yes. Damn my morals to hell. If on the slight chance she was with child, my child, I, of course, would do the right thing by her and provide for her and babe. Only I had no intention of doing so without seeing for myself that she was, indeed, with child. She’d lied to me before and was prone to dramatics. I didn’t put it past her to dissemble to attract my attention, either. I had been ignoring her after all.”
“So, you went to her town house,” Whitmore continued.
Sebastian took another sip of brandy and shook his head, staring unseeing out the darkened windows into the snowy night. “Worst mistake I’ve made, and that includes the time you and I thought it would be a lark to fill Chancellor Hawkings’ bedchamber with honey and let bees loose inside.”
“Nearly got expelled from Eton,” Whitmore replied with a laugh and a wince.
“Nearly got beaten to death by my father,” Sebastian replied grimly, taking another sip.
“The moment you saw Melissa, you knew she’d been lying?” Whitmore probed, taking the next shot, which merely sent both Sebastian’s cue ball and the object ball flying.
“Oh, she tried hard enough,” Sebastian replied. “She’d tucked sheets under her skirts and pretended she had to remain abed because of the doctor’s instructions. But I quickly exposed her scheme by asking her some pointed questions about how far along she was and doing the maths in my head. She was flustered, and I pulled the sheets out from under the bedclothes. She admitted she’d invented the entire tale.”
Whitmore clucked his tongue and shook his head, taking a sip from his brandy glass. “One wonders what was going through her mind. Did she think you’d never realize she’d lied?”
“God knows,” Sebastian replied. “I’d like to think she would have staged some sort of accident that would account for her plausibly losing the babe, but I can’t say I’ve never wondered if she would have tried to procure an actual child somehow. Makes me shudder to think of it. At any rate, you can see why I didn’t tell my wife that I had a plan to visit my former mistress to determine if she was lying about being pregnant with my child.”
Whitmore winced again and sucked in his breath. “Yes, I can’t imagine that would have gone over well in your household.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Of course, I had no intention of mentioning it to Veronica if it turned out to be nothing. Only when I returned home and she asked me where I had been, I replied that I’d been at the club. Which was true because I had met you there later.”
“But…?” Whitmore prodded, lifting both brows.
Sebastian expelled his breath. “But I didn’t know Melissa had a note delivered to Veronica the moment I’d left home, informing Veronica that I could be found in Melissa’s bedchamber that evening.”
Whitmore’s face crumpled into a deep frown. He shook his head. “Melissa is bold. I’ll give her that.”
“I had a much worse word for her in mind when I found out,” Sebastian said with a tight smile. “At any rate, I stepped directly into the trap Melissa had set. Veronica showed me the note and asked me to deny that I’d been at Melissa’s house. I could not. I tried to tell her that nothing had happened, but it was too late. I’d been caught in a lie and—”
“And my sister still hasn’t forgiven you,” Whitmore finished.
“Precisely,” Sebastian said. “Unfortunately,” he added with a grumble, “she’s refused to believe me all this time. She’s made her choice.”
“She never even listened to your explanation?” Whitmore asked.
“Oh, she listened all right. She listened and then promptly told me she didn’t believe me. That’s when I stopped trying to explain myself.”
“And that’s why you didn’t try to stop her when she left you?”
A thunderous look covered Sebastian’s face. “I wasn’t about to have a sham of a marriage with a woman who refused to trust me.”
“But you had lied to her?” Whitmore clarified. “And been caught in the lie?”
Sebastian’s nostrils flared, and he stamped his cue against the floor. “Yes, but—”
“No. No. Simply clarifying,” Whitmore replied, bending to take his next shot.
“She refused to give me the benefit of the doubt,” Sebastian said, wanting to grind his cue directly into the earth.
Whitmore scratched the back of his neck. “You must admit, the doubt looked extremely doubtful. What was she to think?”
