He frowned. A muscle along the line of his jaw ticked. He paused for a long moment. “That was…regrettable.”
“Regrettable? Regrettable! You pursuedme. You lied about who you were. Ye told me that I could trust ye, and then ye broke things off with aletter! Youbloody coward.”
“That was not…I wasn’t…Granted, I should have…”
“Well, ye dunnae need to concern yourself. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you or anyone else who thinks they can waltz in and out of my life with nae concern for what such fickleness does to people. You’ve left me twice now. Ye willnae get another chance.”
Because his disappearance last year had almost broken her. He’d ended his engagement, he’d told her he loved her, and then he’d charged into the middle of a riot. And all those feelings she’d stuffed away came seeping through the cracks he’d created. Then he’d left again, this time without even a note.
Mercifully, the carriage pulled to a stop outside Benedict’s town house, where she was staying during her time in London. She didn’t wait for Edward’s footman to open the door; she shoved it wide and took satisfaction as it banged against the lacquered wood.
Her blood was boiling.
She was halfway to the door when she heard him call her name. She turned around. “What?”
“I’ll send a carriage for you at half eleven to take you to my lawyer’s office. We have a meeting with the magistrate at one.”
“Just send me the address. I can make my own way there.”
***
Edward took the stairs one at a time, because two at a time would reveal too much of what he was thinking.
Damned, stubborn woman.
Most people would be grateful to be bailed out of jail, saved from a crowded cell of ne’er-do-wells. Most people would be professing their never-ending appreciation.
Not Fi.
Only she would put herself in such a precarious position and then argue after being rescued.
He nodded to the footman who opened his study door, tossed his gloves onto the leather armchair, and settled into the seat behind his desk. He took a deep breath, hoping the familiar scent of leather, parchment, and ink would calm him down.
His heart had been racing a mile a minute since Fiona’s footman had arrived. He’d almost killed Atlas, his most beloved horse, getting to the jailhouse in order to reach her before something happened.
And he’d been just in time.
He knew men well enough to recognize the look on that cretin’s face. The way he’d leaned over Fi, encroaching on her space with his body.
No, Edward had arrived with seconds to spare, and the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t made him want to cast up his accounts.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry. With her. With Asterly for allowing her to come to London with naught but a scrawny youth to look out for her. With the brute who’d made her turn white as a sheet.
That slimy bastard had better hope Edward never saw him again.
Edward flexed his hands, stretching the fingers out of the fist they’d formed. Mostly, he was angry that every word she spoke had been the truth.
He had pursued her. She had been a spark in his grey and heavy life. A moment of comfort in his grief that became two weeks of pure joy.
For a fortnight he had lived as though he wasn’t the Duke of Wildeforde, as though he didn’t have the weight of all his responsibilities pressing down on him, as though he wasn’t tainted by his father’s actions, forever trying to work his way out from that shadow.
For those weeks he’d experienced a different kind of life—free, kind, relaxed. He’d laughed more than he ever had. He’d slept through the night without nightmares, he’d done things the perfect Duke of Wildeforde would never even consider, and he’d foolishly hoped the change could be permanent.
A fish out of water dies gasping.
His mother’s words rang through his head as did the malicious glint in her eye that made it clear she’d enjoy tearing his love down.
Society could be vicious to anyone who dared break their rules. He’d experienced it before in the years of torment following his father’s death. And yet he’d fallen in love and foolishly forgotten the strength of their venom.
