“Nora, I’m sorry it took so long. I?—”
“Oh, pardon me. Obviously the demands of a duke outweigh simple honesty to a mere wife,” she spat. Another thought struck her. “Am I even your wife?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“Damn it, Nora, don’t say that. Our marriage is perfectly legal.” His expression wavered from determined to uneasy. “I signed my true name in that ledger.”
Perfectly legal and beyond annulment.
He seemed to pull himself together. “I know we have much to sort out.”
“When?” she demanded.
He stood mute.
“You’re leaving,” she guessed. His eyes confirmed it. Her lying husband planned to leave her.He probably planned it all along.
“Tonight,” he said.
“It is over, then.” It wasn’t a question.Oh God! Jamie is leaving.
“No! I will come back—if you still want me—but I have to go.”
She had no response for that. “I have to return to London,” he said. “I left some things, that is, my life?—”
She held up a hand to stop him. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Of course I do,” he sputtered.
“No! You don’t.” She pulled the wrapper more tightly aroundherself and hugged her waist with her arms. “I always said you were free to leave. You obviously have responsibilities. Someone in London must want an accounting, and—” Her voice trailed off. “—you must be needed.”
“Nothing so noble. You knew what I was when you met me,” he began.
“Did I?” she asked.
“The drunken major without two coins together was real and beneath your notice,” he asserted. “The rest of it, what I left in England, lies in shambles. I left people dependent on me. I left debts.”
“Were you married?” she demanded to know.
His shocked expression gratified her. “Only to you,” he said.
Her throat convulsed, pride stuck like glue. His title, his name, and the extent of his debts—those were the hidden things she had feared. Something else, more secrets, lurked under his hesitation; she knew it in her bones. “Is there more?” she finally managed to grind out.
A shadow crossed his eyes. He looked away. “We have to leave immediately,” he said. It was not, she knew, an answer to her question.
“Richard is needed in London,” he went on.
The wretched duke again.
“I’ll write to you at Casa Beaumont. The quarterly allowance Robert arranged should?—”
“Yes, Robert provided well for Isabella. We’ll do fine.” She didn’t try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“I’ll write to you,” he repeated. “You could reach me via—” He hesitated, groping. “—via Richard at the Foreign Office, if you need anything. Wentworth’s office can help with that.”
Nora nodded glumly. “If I need anything,” she repeated dully.
“Nora, I have to leave before dawn. We should talk more. There are things I ought to explain.”
“There is nothing to say.”Nothing I can bear to hear. “Isabella will be hurt when you don’t say goodbye.”
