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“Kind! Did you hear that he lost his temper the other day and shouted that Lord Bellybrook was ‘false as Hell’?”

“I expect that Bellybrook is one of those people arguing against the antislavery bill.”

“Yes, he does have sugar plantations, so my father says,” Clara agreed. “Bellybrook is despicable. But shouting? In the House of Lords?”

“Dominic is passionate. He cares. The bill is important to him.”

“I wish he cared as much for you,” Clara said flatly. “That you were as important to him.”

Torie swallowed hard. No matter how ignorant Dominic was about gossip columns, he had to have recognized numerous acquaintances last night; Wednesdays were the most popular night of the week to visit the pleasure gardens.

He surely knew that the truth would filter back to her.

Even worse than not caring for her reputation, he didn’t care about her feelings.

“Now everyone in London is whispering about your wedding again, and not in a good way,” Clara said.

“Luckily, my entire life has prepared me to walk down an aisle tomorrow morning with mocking whispers on both sides.” Torie managed to keep her voice steady.

“Oh, please, won’t you jilt him?” Clara implored. “I don’t believe you about your father, Torie. Even I know that he gambles to excess. Why should your life be sacrificed as a result?”

If it was just a matter of money, she would jilt him. She would walk the three blocks between their houses, scream an insult or two, and throw the emerald ring at his face, hopefully taking out an eye.

“The Duke of Queensberry has fallen into such a melancholy that he’s fled to Bath,” Clara continued. “He would marry you by special license, and you’d be a duchess. Just think, Torie: yours would be the romance of the Season! No one could call you ‘poor woman’ then.”

“I can’t jilt the viscount,” Torie said heavily. “It’s too late.”

She felt the truth of that statement in her bone marrow. Since their betrothal, she had spent time every day with the twins. Her feelings for them when Leonora ran away to Wales were nothing to how she felt now, after accepting them as hers, her children. She had so many plans for their happiness and well-being. The morning after the wedding, Torie planned to fire their grumpy nanny.

As if she were Persephone, she had eaten the pomegranate seeds and doomed herself to the underworld. She would do anything for Valentine and Florence.

“Pooh!” Clara cried. “Even my mother, who loathes a scandal, thinks you should jilt him. No one would blame you.”

Likely that was true. She would only blame herself.

“Shall we go have a cup of tea?” Torie asked, desperate to end the conversation.

Clara waved her hand before her nose. “You have need of a bath, my dear. All I can smell is turpentine. I’ll leave you to think about it. I don’t like Kelbourne, but please know that I will stand with you no matter what you decide.”

Perhaps no one liked him. Dominic wouldn’t give a damn.

After Clara trotted down the stairs, Torie sat down and tried to think clearly. She didn’t have to accept public humiliation. She could demand that her fiancé dismiss Gianna. Thinking about the woman’s neck glinting with diamonds made her feel positively feral.

She didn’t care for diamonds, but she’d turned into a possessive wretch.

Yet if she demanded that he let the woman go, issuing an ultimatum—keep her or marry me—what would happen?

Dominic was not a man who would respond well to an ultimatum. He didn’t like to be told what to do. He’d made it clear in small and big ways, in complaints and growls. So far, she had stubbornly growled back.

Her stomach screwed into an even tighter knot. If she gave him an ultimatum, he might choose Gianna. After all, they’d been together—if that was the proper term—for years. At least four years. Quite probably he loved her.

He was merely fond of Torie. His quixotic plan to fight anyone who humiliated her signaled affection, yet the shallowness of those affections was evident in the fact that he was the one who had humiliated her.

His actions told the world that he not only didn’t love her, but he had no respect for her.

After Torie took a bath to wash off the turpentine, Emily helped her put on a promenade dress, burnt sienna just like the final dabs on her painting.

“The color turns your hair to burnished silver,” Emily said, handing her a lacy parasol. “Are you certain you don’t wish me to accompany you, Miss Torie?”