White Lace and Promises (16 page)

Her chest constricted, forcing her to take a slow, ragged breath. Well, that wasn’t the worst. This was the very first letter she’d received from him since he’d departed.

Her three silly little letters—filled with babble about how much she missed him—must have annoyed him. How insipid, pouring out her feelings like that! But at the time her longing for his presence had been such an aching, visceral pain she’d been unable to hold back.

Yet it was plain to see—she was the absolute last priority in his life. Maybe he’d even developed second thoughts.

Serious second thoughts.

Her stomach cramped and she laid a hand over it. She’d barely been able to eat a bite for days now and was almost constantly lightheaded with lack of nourishment and a little too much claret.

A squeak of rusty metal hinges brought her back to the present. Her stomach dropped.

No, not tonight. Surely not…

Boots crunched on the gravel path. Aching welled in her throat. Nostalgia? Regret? She didn’t know.

She looked up. “Good evening, Dr Wade.”

He grinned at her and quickened his pace. “It’s half past two in the morning,” he reproached her as he sat beside her on the stone bench. He touched her muslin-covered thigh. “And you’re out here in your dainty nightdress.”

She threw a scathing glance at his hand. “Take your hand from my person.”

He frowned and removed his hand. “Night air is not good for the lungs and you’re just begging for a quinsy, my girl.”

“Is that so,
doctor
? And how did you know I’d be here?”

“I was walking home from a late call to a patient and I saw your lantern’s light.”

She arched a brow.

He sighed. “All right, I admit it. I suspected you would be wakeful, so I decided to come by. I hear your merchant prince has yet to arrive.”

“He’s due to arrive in the morning.”

Joshua laughed. “When, a quarter till noon?”

“He had some pressing business in Baltimore.”

“Oh, you had best accustom yourself to it, my fine lady. There will always be some business matter. I know his type of gentleman. Christ, I spend my days treating the wives of cold-blooded, business-minded men like him for their nerves and migraines.”

She hated him more than ever for echoing the very concerns that had kept her up thus far tonight. But she tried to ignore the anxiety coiling in her belly. Tried to put her focus on her anger at Joshua. In fact, she was almost grateful for the distraction he provided from her thoughts.

He was studying her with his dark crimson brows drawn tightly together. “A merchant—a
merchant
? How could you, Beth? I thought you possessed of more refinement, more sensitivity—certainly more intelligence.”

“Ha! You’re a fine one to talk. I am sure you do treat those worthy, good wives
very
thoroughly.”

His thick lashes glinted like darkest wine in the lamplight as they swept over his eyes. “It’s never like it was with you, Beth.”

She snorted. “You insult me to even mention such a thing.”

“It’s hard to be merely polite when the very scent of your skin fills my mind with memories.”

Her lip curled up. “Won’t your wife be missing you?”

“She sleeps alone in her chamber and I never…I
have
never disturbed her.”

For a moment, she gaped at him. Then gladness, terrible and swift, spread through her. So he spent his nights in a cold bed, alone and aching? Good. He deserved no less. She laughed, dragging the sound out into a long, low taunt. “Oh, that is doing it far, far too brown. Even for you, Dr Wade. You actually expect me to believe that you’ve never fucked your dear, sweet little wife?”

He flinched. “Don’t… Don’t
ever
use that word again…not in the same sentence with her.”

She laughed again, this time in the wicked, practiced way she knew drove men insane with desire—and this man in particular. “Who taught me
that
word?”

He gave her a hard look. “How I hate what you have become.” He clapped a hand to his neck. “God, the mosquitoes are out for blood tonight. Why the devil must you sit out here?”

“They leave me alone.”

“Annie felt as pushed into marriage as I did and she was reluctant at first. I gladly gave her time.” He frowned. “She’s like a sister and I’ve never felt the least physical attraction to her. We’ve settled into a civil, polite pattern of living that does not include sharing each other’s beds—or bodies.”

How she had tormented herself, picturing him sated and cosily tucked in his wife’s bed, while she had burnt alone in hers. He took a deep breath. “I have made such a mess of everything. I have such a talent for it. From the moment of Annie’s birth, it seemed, my mother made it clear she expected us to marry.” He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “She is a very persuasive woman. I didn’t know how to say no and, because of that, I have deserved every moment of torment you’ve given me since I wed. But you deserved none of the pain I put you through. I will seek an annulment.”

Was she still in bed? Dreaming? Having some bizarre nightmare? “My God.”

He frowned. “What?” he said, as if he hadn’t just knocked her whole sense of reality off its axis.

“You’ve gone insane. You don’t realise what you are saying.”

“On the contrary—for the first time in years, I
am
sure of what I am saying.”

Her mouth dropped open. He couldn’t be sincere. “And what if it makes a scandal? You’ve been wed to her a while now. Who is going to believe you’ve never shared her bed? People will say you’ve abandoned her. What if it ruins your fine reputation? Even you couldn’t charm your way out of that. Your lucrative practice would be finished.”

“Have you even been listening to me?” His voice rang with frustration. “I made a mistake—I want to make up for it. I don’t care what price I have to pay.”

“What about your wife? You’re going to ruin her reputation too. Are there no limits to your selfishness?”

“If I am branded the culprit, the selfish one whom no woman could bear living with, Annie will weather it all just fine.”

Her breath was coming very hard, very fast, making her words gush out. “Your mother will disown you. But what will you do? Live off your inheritance until it runs out?”

His elegant, claret-coloured brows drew together. “You shouldn’t even need to ask.”

“Indiana.”

He nodded. “In Indiana, they will be so happy to have a skilled doctor they won’t care about such trivial things.”

His eyes shone brightly with idealism. He looked so boyish. Still young enough to believe in his dreams—dreams he had once converted even a city-bred girl like herself to. Remembered fondness softened her heart, but, goodness, she felt old, so old in comparison to the eighteen-year-old girl he’d seduced.

“You are really prepared to give up your comfortable life?” she asked.

“I am dying here. I long for my life to have meaning, but you—” His voice broke and the skin grew tight across his cheekbones. “Everyone thinks I am merely dreaming, that I cannot stand up to hardship and hard work. You were the only one who”—he coughed—“believed in me.”

His eyes glistened in the lantern’s light. Sadness, regret and anger rose in her, an uncontrollable explosion. How dare he come here on the eve of her wedding and tell her all of this?

Her hand shot out and struck his cheek, the sound echoing sharply in the garden. “Get control over yourself, Joshua!”

He gripped his cheek and stared at her dumbly, as if the act had yet to sink in. “I am twenty-eight years old. If I am ever to be my own man, it’s now or never.” He took her hand. “I am going, no question about it. However, am I going alone or are you coming with me?”

“C—coming with you?” She struggled against rising rage. How dare he insert himself into her life like this, on this night of all nights?

“Yes—I want you to come with me as my wife.”

It felt as if the stone bench she was sitting on had dropped several leagues all at once. He couldn’t have just said that. “Your
wife
?”

“Of course. Why else would I bother with a divorce?”

What she wouldn’t once have given to hear this melodramatic declaration. She’d dreamt for years of something exactly like this. Yes, honestly, pathetic as it was, she had. Yet now that he’d said it, coldness settled over her like a blanket of new-fallen snow.

“I hardly know what to say, this is so sudden,” she said with heavy sarcasm.

“Say you won’t marry this New York merchant prince. This—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat several times. “This reptile that you’ve allowed to fuck you. Say that you’ll wait for me to gain my freedom and you’ll marry me.” His eyes glittered, dark and warm. “Oh God, I have not stopped loving you—all these years have been a torment.”

Good God, he really believed she could still be his? The shock of it made her incapable of coherent thought.

He chose that moment to lean over and bring his mouth down on hers. Her body remembered his smell, his feel, his taste—all the sensations of her love for him. But it was nothing but aching nostalgia for her own lost innocence. She remained passive.

He backed away, his eyes hurt and confused. “This is loyalty to
him
?”

She rubbed her hand furiously over her lips, incensed that she’d allowed the kiss.

“Beth, let’s not forget the circumstances here,” he chided. “We love each other—quite passionately, in fact.” He gave her a scathing look. “Have you perhaps forgotten the things we said, the way we felt?”

“You certainly forgot—forgot long enough to marry someone else.”

“I. Told. You.” He ground the three words out harshly. “I let my family force me into that—” He clamped his mouth shut. Then a smile twisted his lips and he laughed softly. “I know you’re doing this just to spite me. To prove something to me.”

“You’re wrong. I love him dearly…ardently…insanely.”

He flinched, then blinked hard several times. “You speak so stridently, as if you must convince yourself.”

Did she need to convince herself?

A whole three weeks and just one terse note informing you that he shall be delayed. Can you continue loving such a man?

Her empty stomach cramped. She swallowed hard against a rise of acid. “It’s true, Joshua. I
do
love him.”

He scowled. “Maybe you think you do—but you’ll never be happy with him. He’s too cold natured for you. And you damned well know I am right.”

* * * *

Beth lay in bed all the rest of the night with Joshua’s last words echoing in her head. Their truth settled in her stomach like lead. Then, at dawn, when she finally fell into a fitful sleep, the clatter of a carriage on the brick street below her window awoke her. Nerves raw, she sat up and jerked the covers away. No use fighting it—she couldn’t sleep.

Could it be Grey’s carriage? This early? Oh, surely not. She rushed to the window and held her breath as the driver came round and opened the door. A tall, thin woman in a pale grey and white striped carriage dress exited the vehicle. With military-erect bearing, the woman briskly marched up to the front door and knocked. A girl of around seventeen or eighteen followed her, carrying a valise.

What the devil?

Beth grabbed her wrap, pulled it on over her nightdress, ran downstairs and flung the front door open. Her eyes met a washboard-flat chest covered in vertical-striped muslin. She looked up and encountered a pair of sharp, brown eyes in a thin, plain face.

“I am looking for Miss McConnell?” The woman spoke in a proper English accent.

“Yes,” Beth said. “I am Miss McConnell.”

“Good morning, Miss McConnell. My name is Miss Fairchild. Mr Sexton has engaged me to be your lady’s maid.”

Grey had engaged a lady’s maid for her? For
her
? Yes, of course, she supposed he would. Her hopes soared. Surely, if he’d made such a step, he still wanted to marry her. “Gre—Mr Sexton is arrived in the city then?”

“No, Miss, I cannot say. I did not travel with Mr Sexton. I was given my instructions and travel money over two weeks ago and I am told he left shortly thereafter.”

“He left—” Beth frowned. “Mr Sexton left New York?”

Well, to the devil with that! He’d left New York
weeks ago
and not even told her until his terse note from Baltimore. He had not made any effort to keep in touch with her and let her know what he was doing. She’d thought he’d been in New York this entire time until he began his trip back. Yet he’d been on the move since he’d left her. All her letters were likely waiting for him on a silver tray on his desk. Unopened and unneeded. Unwanted.

“Yes. When I spoke with his valet, Mr Cooper, he mentioned a trip to Salem and on to Cambridge to fetch Mr Sexton’s son. He told me to contact the Sexton business manager if I had any troubles.”

Beth’s stomach dropped to her cold, bare feet. “Oh.”

In the time since he’d hired Miss Fairchild, he could still have had second thoughts, hence his lack of communication.

Of course, he’d refrained from writing. Too honest to pen a false letter, he would wait to tell her in person. A gentleman would do no less.