Chapter One
Lavinia Halifax, Countess of Wilshire,sipped her wine and watched the snow fall. Light from the lamp posts lining the quiet Mayfair street reflected off the individual flakes, making them sparkle like white diamonds. Unconsciously, she ran her fingertips along the diamond necklace that she wore. A gift from her husband, Nicholas Halifax, the Earl of Wilshire.
She searched her memory for what occasion had prompted such an expensive gift. The jeweled pendant that rested in the hollow of her throat was the size of a silver schilling. An anniversary, perhaps? They’d been married five years this past October. A birthday? She’d turned seven and twenty in May. Or perhaps it was one of a hundred presents she’d found waiting for her on her pillow when she turned in for the night and her husband remained locked away in his study, pouring over his precious ledgers instead of making love to his wife.
Yes. That was it. Furs were for anniversaries, sapphires were for birthdays, but diamonds…diamonds were for appeasement.I cannot be with you, but warm yourself with this beautiful choker, or bracelet, or tiara.A tad ironic, as diamonds were widely considered to be the coldest of all gemstones. Then again, Nicholas wasn’t exactly renowned for his romantic gestures.
On a quiet sigh, Lavinia took another sip of dark red claret and turned toward the room. Nearly fifty people, all members of the Grosvenor Square Society for the Betterment of Orphaned Youth and Widowed Women (she’d twice suggested a shorter name, and twice been voted down), were in attendance for the evening’s fundraiser: a charitable dinner that had cost eighty pounds a plate. A small fortune for some, but a mere pittance for tonight’s crowd, an exclusive who’s who of High Society.
Lavinia had served as co-chairperson (a position that she reluctantly shared with Lady Gertrude Godshall) of the Grosvenor Square Society for the Betterment of Orphaned Youth and Widowed Women for nearly a full year. Under her stewardship, the society had funded a new orphanage and gotten more than twenty widows and their children off the streets and into reputable boarding houses. She’d have liked to have done even more, but the Grosvenor Square Society for the Betterment of Orphaned Youth and Widowed Women was as much a political organization as it was a charitable one. Just taking a vote to shorten the name had involved months of petitioning, and then in the end it was all for naught. Lady Godshall had withheld her vote at the last minute and the measure had failed, much to Lavinia’s annoyance, as she was the co-chairperson responsible for signing invitations to events such as this one.
How many times could a person writeGrosvenor Square Society for the Betterment of Orphaned Youth and Widowed Womenbefore they snapped their quill pen in half and threw the ink pot across the room in a fit of frustration?
Thirty-two, she’d discovered.
The number was thirty-two.
Finishing her wine, Lavinia snatched a second glass off the tray of a passing servant. Aside from her fashion, she normally wasn’t prone to overindulgence. But what did it matter if she arrived home a bit wobbly on her feet? It wasn’t as if Nicholas would be there to notice. Or if hewasin residence, he’d almost surely be in his study with the door closed.
Not locked.
He never locked it, a point that he liked to make whenever they’d argue.
“I haven’t seen you in a week, Nicholas! You’re always in your study.”
“You may enter whenever you’d care to, Nia. The door isn’t locked.”
The door isn’t locked.
The door isn’tlocked.
As if it washerfault that during the span of their marriage, he’d spent more time in that bloody study of his than he had their bedroom. As if all she had to do to fix everything that was broken was to open a damned door. But they both knew, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not, that a lot more than a few inches of wood and a brass knob separated them. The divide was as long and wide as a chasm…and Lavinia had long ago wearied of trying to build a bridge to cross it.
“Has the wine turned?” asked Lady Vanessa Maxwell, sidling up beside Lavinia and peering into her glass. A perfectly plump blonde with matching dimples and a cheerful disposition, Vanessa possessed a loathing equal to Lavinia’s for Lady Godshall’s domineering ways that had made them instant friends at last year’s benefit ball for–oh, heavens. She wasn’t going to spell it out again. Suffice it to say, the two women got along splendidly.
“No, the wine is fine.” To prove it, Lavinia took another sip. “Why do you ask?”
“Your face. It was all puckered.”
After casting a covert glance around the room to ensure there were no eavesdroppers present, she lowered her voice and said, “I was thinking about Nicholas.”
“Ah,” said Vanessa, nodding. “I see.”
To the outside world, the Earl and Countess of Wilshire were the ideal couple, and Lavinia took great pains to keep it that way. In a society that valued gossip as much as it did fortune, one could not afford to have their name besmirched. And nothing besmirched a name faster than whispers of marital discord.
Affairs, bastard children, separate households…those were all well and good, so long as the husband and wife presented a united front inpublic. But if that façade showed a crack, however thin, it wouldn’t be long before the vultures found their way in. Vultures that would coo with sympathy even as they raised a dagger to plunge into the middle of Lavinia’s back. Vultures that wouldn’t hesitate to remind her of where she’d come from and who shereallywas…the third daughter of an inconsequential baron that had caught the eye of an earl and plucked him out from under the noses of High Society’s most eligible misses before they knew what was happening.
How they’d hated her!
How they’dloathedher.
But it hadn’t mattered, because she’d loved Nicholas…and that love had drowned out all of the vitriol and catty remarks and sideways glances. That love had bound them together. That love had kept them strong. That love had beeneverything.
Until the day it turned into nothing.
No, not the day, she thought, pressing the cool rim of the glass to her lips as she drank from the warm wine within. No, the indifference and the closed doors and the polite nods had taken weeks, months, even a year to accumulate. Like dust being swept under the rug. Just a little bit at first. Easy to hide. Easy to ignore. Easy to pretend it wasn’t there, that it had all gone out the door. But as time went on, the pile got larger. And larger. And larger, until it couldn’t be ignored.
Well, she amended, itwasignored. It was very much ignored. By both of them. The true state of their marriage was never discussed, not even in passing. On the rare occasions that they said more than few words to each other, the topic was generally the weather, or the creak in the third step going up the stairs, or the latest news from France.
