Page 30 of Always the Lyon Tamer

John had evidently realized her intentions, but Rebecca could not wait. Not a single minute more could be spent in his company, for the tears she had forced away when she had seen his disappointment in her true identity were threatening to return.

She did not wish to cry in front of him. Not even if the pain of losing him, irrevocably and forever, cut into her stomach like a knife.

Staying here was impossible.

“Goodbye, John,” said Rebecca without looking around. The door was shut behind his reply.

The gambling floor was unbearably loud after the relative silence of the room.

No, she could not think of him. She must not.

Walking away quickly, Rebecca did not even look where she was going. It did not matter. She had to put as much distance between her and that room as possible, in case—

“Ah, I wondered when you would be reappearing.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon appeared before her, a cigar in her hand. “Well?”

A blush tinged Rebecca’s cheeks. She had not expected to see anyone or have to talk to anyone after making love for the first time. It had been a private moment, a monumental shift in her own body, and all she wished to do was return home.

But it was her establishment. Mrs. Dove-Lyon probably had some sort of right to know what had occurred, in broad terms.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon did not speak again, merely raising an eyebrow.

Rebecca shook her head. Words were not sufficient to explain the depths of misery she was feeling, and saying the words aloud would make them final.It was too painful.

“He will not marry you? Come, let us away to my private sitting room—and put that mask on, if you do not wish to be identified.”

Rebecca hastened with the mask, tying it around her as they walked toward a door. Mrs. Dove-Lyon opened it, and Rebecca stepped through.

The sitting room was rather like an older lady’s parlor: cozy, but with fashions from several years ago in the furnishings and paintings. The silence was welcome after the raucous noise of the gambling floor.

“Sit,” ordered Mrs. Dove-Lyon, pointing to an armchair by the little grate, taking a seat herself.

Rebecca obeyed and sighed. “He…he said he would after I removed my mask.”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon waited for the rest of her sentence. “Then I do not understand what the problem is, Titania.”

Titania.It was a foolish name, and Rebecca wished she had thought more about it before she had started this ridiculous charade.

Titania.She started Shakespeare’s play in an argument with her husband, Oberon, and then spent most of it in love with an ass.

Perhaps it was only right she be given such a name. What a shame she was not going to experience Titania’s happy ending.

“I could not bear the disappointment on his face when he saw who I was,” said Rebecca quietly. “That is not how I want to get married—I want my husband to be wildly, passionately in love with me. I want marriage to me to be the best thing that has ever happened in his life. Not a consolation prize at the end of a game.”

The bitterness in her voice was unlike her, but perhaps it would be now she had known real disappointment. After all, she only spoke the truth.

She should have known. Young ladies like herself did not get happily ever afters.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon, however, did not seem moved by Rebecca’s plight. She shrugged.

“Some marriages of convenience or agreement are the best, in my experience.”

Rebecca stared at the older lady. She knew very little about Mrs. Dove-Lyon, only what she had heard through the rumor mill, and most of that was not very detailed. That she was married herself was not even certain. Plenty of older ladies took on the moniker Mrs. as a form of respectability.

But if she had been married, and it had been a marriage of convenience, had she just offended her host?

Well, if she had, there was nothing she could do about that now.

“I could not bear that,” Rebecca said quietly. “It…it is not for me.”