Alastair turned, putting down a prototype gasket and crossing to her, then leaned his hip against the bench as she scrubbed the dishes furiously. “I wanted tae see ye, wee bairn.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. “Ye could’ve seen me at home.”
“Ah, see that’s th’ thing,” he said as he pulled her hands from the soapy water and held them in his. “I’m nae going home. ’Tis nae safe.”
So he was leaving. Again, she waited for the hurt to come. Again, it was nowhere to be found. There was no numbness to replace it, no hole where the pain should have struck. In fact, it was the opposite—her heart was whole and healed. Her father could come and go as he pleased; her happiness was no longer tied to his whims.
“I’m glad ye said good-bye this time. Do I get to ken where you’re going?”
He squeezed her hands tightly. “I dunnae think so, lass. I would nae have you lie tae yer husband.”
Her chest constricted. “My husband does nae want aught to do with me. It’s been weeks and he has yet to write.” She had done to Edward exactly what her father had done to her—left without either an explanation or a good-bye. If he never forgave her for abandoning him, it would be exactly what she deserved.
Her fathertut-tutted. “That does nae mean he has nae been trying tae get yer attention, bairn. Have ye truly given up reading th’ papers?”
“Pardon?”
Alastair smiled. “Give him me regards, when ye see him next. Tell him that if he treats ye ill, I’ll cut off his baws myself.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Until we meet again.”
As he left, so did the future he embodied. She would not make his mistakes. There was still time to reverse the path she was on.
Edward.It was time to go home and beg his forgiveness. But what had her father meant when he mentioned the papers? She crossed to the box by the stove, where she and Benedict kept the flint and kindling and logs. On top of the scrap pile was this morning’s copy ofThe Times.
She had been studiously avoiding the paper all fortnight, sick of seeing her story told over and over, rife with false assumptions.
But, for once, the headline wasn’t about her. It was about Edward…and another woman. She grabbed the newspaper. Edward had been caught kissing Lady Walderstone in the middle of a ballroom, much to the anger of Lord Walderstone, who had been dancing with her moments prior.
Huh?She read that first paragraph over again. It made no sense. Fiona was fairly certain she’d met Lady Walderstone, and the woman had to be close to seventy years old.
She reached into the box and grabbed yesterday’s paper. Edward was on the front page again, this time for riding through Hyde Park in his nightclothes.
What the devil was going on?Either he had lost his mind, or…
No. No, it couldn’t be. He would never. There was no way the perfect Duke of Wildeforde would willingly torch his own reputation. It was far more likely that he’d contracted some kind of madness.
She picked up a third paper. He’d been at the gaming tables, playing hand after hand,losinghand after hand, without even looking at the cards he was dealt. He was taking extraordinary measures to destroy the reputation he’d built—or at least what was left of it following Fiona’s scandal.
Hope blossomed within her. What if he’d not come after her because she’d told him not to? What if he was simply showing her that he could respect her wishes? What if there was a chance that hecould forgive the things she’d done? If that was the case, then the next steps were hers to make.
If the perfect Duke of Wildeforde was willing to ride through London in naught but his smalls to show her that he had changed, then what was she willing to do for him?
Chapter 38
Edward wasn’t home.
In every version of the events that she had played out in her head—both the ones that went well and the ones that failed dismally—Edward had come home after a day in parliament.
He’d come home to her in a perfectly respectable dress, to a perfectly planned, twelve-course meal. In some scenarios, he’d gathered her into his arms and kissed her senseless before she even said hello. In others, he’d instructed her to leave.
In none of them did he simply not come home.
Fiona sat on the top step of the staircase, her skirts billowing out around her. She’d chosen the green, embroidered with lilac flowers on the hem and the sleeves, because he’d told her once that it was his favorite color. The carefully pressed fabric was beginning to crease where she’d twisted it up in her hands while she waited.
“Has he come home late often?” she asked Mrs. Phillips when the housekeeper brought her a pot of tea.
The housekeeper nodded. “His habits have been disordered in the past few weeks.”
That information would have been useful at ten o’clock this morning when she’d arrived at Wildeforde House with a trunk, a carriage full of ingredients, and a menu she’d been slaving over for days.
