Page 54 of The New Earl’s Convenient Wife

Chapter Sixteen

Halfway across the ballroom floor, Rafe stood frozen, his gaze locked on the lady at the center of a group of laughing guests. Thalia, his shocked brain whispered.

Despite his resolve to meet this moment calmly, long-buried memories burst through the wall he’d erected to contain them.

That same beautiful face upturned to him, laughing, as he partnered her in a waltz at the Collington ball, where they’d first met.

Thalia, laughing as they sneaked away from a garden party into the friendly shrubbery, where she’d allowed him their first kiss.

Thalia, a tremulous smile on her face when he gathered the courage to ask whether she thought she might want to be with him for a lifetime.

Her white, unsmiling face as she delivered the horrible, crushing, at-that-moment incomprehensible news after he’d returned from a brief sojourn at Thornthwaite that her parents would be announcing her engagement to Lord Altorn. A duke’s wealthy heir, whose offer in her family’s eyes was a triumph far superior to winning the hand of an earl’s landless younger son who would have to make his own way in the world.

The sense of disbelief followed by the stark horror of knowing he would never be permitted to see her alone, dance with her, kiss her again, had sent him into a dark hole of despair from which it took him months of service in the army to gradually recover, far away in the Peninsula where there was no chance of seeing her at a ball, watching her on the arm of her fiancé, reading about her nuptials at St. Mark’s, just off Hanover Square.

No, no, he would not revisit this, he told himself, struggling to subdue the turbulent emotions. Having spent so much agony and effort into burying all these memories and his hopeless love, he would not, would not, allow them to ravage him again.

He knew the moment she saw him, recognition in her eyes like a stab to the heart. And then realized, while he stood there frozen, she was approaching.

With an iron discipline honed on the battlefield, he clawed his mind from the memories, willed his pulse to steady and readied himself to greet her.

She halted beside him, smiling up at him with the sweet expression that sent the acid roiling through his gut again. ‘Rafe! Though it’s Thornthwaite now, isn’t it? Congratulations on assuming the title. You’ll be a credit to it, I know. It’s so good to see you!’

He scrabbled for a response, coming up with just, ‘You are as beautiful as ever, Lady Altorn.’

Her smile dimmed a little at that, but she continued, ‘I followed your career in the army, you know. How grateful and relieved I always was when your name didn’t appear on any of the injury lists after the battles! How pleased I was to learn you’d inherited, an event I knew would pull you out of the army and away from danger.’

Her violet eyes looked up at him entreatingly. A deep, unusual shade of violet, those large, lustrous eyes were one of the first things he’d noted after being at first captivated by her overall beauty—the graceful figure, generous breasts, porcelain skin, perfect oval face, straight little nose and rosebud lips…that he would not remember kissing.

Wrenching his mind free again, he said, ‘It’s been…a long time. How have you been?’

‘Well enough, I suppose. I have two sons now, a four-year-old and a two-year-old, scamps both, and the despair of their nanny. With them growing up, I’m left with more time on my hands. Lord Altorn has…other interests.’

Rafe thought four and two were still too young to be considered ‘growing up’, but he didn’t know much about how children were handled in the ducal household where she still resided with her husband. Probably aristocratic mothers at that level were tripping over servants and left with little to do. Her delicate reference to her husband’s ‘other interests’ and the fact that he apparently had not accompanied her to the ball tonight hinted that, having done her duty to provide him with heirs, she’d been set aside while he pursued feminine comfort elsewhere.

Anger at the unfairness of it all added to the chaotic mix of emotions seeing her again had stirred up.

She was still gazing at him, expecting some response. ‘My congratulations on your sons. They must be a comfort to you.’

Preliminary notes were sounding from the orchestra, indicating the next dance set would be forming. ‘Shall we stroll for a bit?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to catch up, and one can’t do that during a pattern dance.’

Still feeling flayed inside, he had no desire to extend the torment by remaining in her presence. But short of causing a scene by bolting across the ballroom, he had little choice but to offer her his arm and stroll off down the corridor towards the refreshment room. With the dance beginning, the room was relatively deserted. After he’d fetched her a glass of wine, she waved him to a seat in one of two chairs drawn close together by one of the windows, where they could talk undisturbed.

‘I’d been hoping, once I heard you’d become the earl, that you might return to London,’ she said, after sipping at her wine. ‘Congratulations as well on taking your seat in the Lords. Will you be remaining for the rest of the Season?’

Although details about Parliament were printed in the papers, she must have been following news of him to know so much about him. Rafe wasn’t sure whether to be gratified or even angrier. ‘Only for a month or so, most likely, unless some important bill is under consideration. My late brother had been ill for some time before his death and the estate was left in a rather…precarious position. There’s still much work to be done there, so I don’t mean to tarry long in London.’

‘I’m sure you will soon put it to rights. If only you had inherited sooner…’

He gave her a sharp glance as another blast of acid scoured his gut.

‘You wouldn’t be in the position of having to restore it,’ she added.

He made no comment to that. Taking a deep breath, she looked up and said softly, ‘My…interests have never changed, despite what my family obliged me to do. I hope…you don’t hold against me what I couldn’t prevent.’

His anger melted away. This was the apology he’d never received the awful day she woodenly informed him about her upcoming engagement and told him she couldn’t see him again. Even though he’d believed at the time, still believed, she wouldn’t have jilted him willingly, she’d never so plainly stated that.

Perhaps she’d been as devasted as he was, only able to get through that last interview by stating the bald facts, her heart breaking as his was.