The life they should have had.
*
Tears streaked Willamina’scheeks as she opened the door to Warton House. Harold greeted her in the entryway and took her bag.
“My lady, Sir Watson is in the study.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, not trusting herself to say anything. Her eyes darted down the hall that would lead her to Gerard’s study. Afore, she had never been allowed in the room. It was his private sanctuary he would tell her.
With heavy feet, she moved down the hall, swiping at the tears. She paused outside the door and took a deep breath. She wanted answers. He didn’t want her as a wife, she knew that. He didn’t before, why would he now?
Then there was the matter of Lady Esmerelda. Something had been nipping at the edge of her mind about the woman. Had she and Gerard worked together to run her out of the city? To cause such a scandal that she would be shunned?
None of it made sense. There were much quicker ways to get rid of one’s wife. It was rare, but there was divorce. He could have shunned her himself instead of planning this ruse.
She shook her head to clear it and straightened her shoulders and with one final deep breath, she pushed the door open.
Gerard’s sneer let her know that he was fully expecting to see her. He didn’t get up from his desk. He just sat there with that stupid look upon his face as he eyed her up and down.
“Wife,” he greeted.
“Dinna call me that.”
He had the nerve to look affronted as he grasped at his heart. “That hurts, Willamina. Truly.”
“Ye ne’er called me that when we were married, dinna do so now.”
“Ah,” he stood and came around his desk, stopping in front of her and putting his hands on her upper arms. “See, lest ye forget. We are still married.”
She shivered at his touch, disgust plain on her face as she shook his hands away.
“I am no’ the woman I was when ye,” she searched for the right words, “when whate’er ’tis ye did. I only want to know why. Why such a grand ruse? What did ye get out of it?”
“Ye’re right. I ne’er called ye wife, because I ne’er wanted ye as my wife to begin with. Your parents had approached me with the proposition years before. If I had known ye would have grown to be such a bore, I would have rejected the offer straightaway.”
His words were like a dagger to her heart, slicing away at the walls she had built around herself in the time he’d been gone. Each word a stab meant to inflict more pain.
“Ye could have divorced me.”
He laughed. A deep bellow that echoed in the room. “And lose part of my estate? Absolutely no’.” Shaking his head hewalked to his desk, leaning on it and crossing his ankles. “Your parents and I had a deal.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do my parents have to do with this?”
“E’erything. They have e’erything to do with this. They helped hatch the plan.” He laughed at the shock on her face.
“I dinna believe ye.”
He shrugged. “It doesna matter if ye do or no’.”
She shook her head, refusing to believe what he said. “Why would they do such a thing?”
“Coin. Your parents were always a greedy lot.”
He wasn’t wrong there. She and her parents were never close and more often than not they treated her like a bartering tool. She remembered the horror she felt when they told her she would be marrying Gerard. They gave her no choice and forced her into the union. No matter how many times she tried to tell her mother how miserable she was, the conversations went nowhere.
“They were supposed to hold my funds then revert them back to me. Their untimely deaths wrecked that plan. Literally,” he chuckled, alluding to their carriage accident.
The man was vile.
