The footsteps returning to her now, echoing in the marble front hall, were not the butler’s. Tom appeared before her, his handsome face a mask of concern.
“Nell.” A deep vee of worry furrowed his brow. “The fortnight is not yet over. What has happened? Has Needham…”
She shook her head, feeling miserable. She knew what he was asking. Had Jack forced her? Of course he had not. Everything she had done with him—every kiss, every touch, each time they had made love—she had been perfectly willing.
“No, Tom,” she said quietly.
He searched her countenance and then gave a nod, his jaw tensing. “Come then, let us go somewhere more private where we can speak.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it, swallowing down a rush of emotion. When she touched him, she felt none of the awareness that radiated through her whenever she was in Jack’s presence. None of the attraction, none of the spark. Part of her wished she could.
But now that she was with Tom again, it was painfully clear to her that what she felt for him paled in comparison to the love she carried in her heart and the powerful magnetism she had always felt for Jack. There was something undeniable between them. It always had been, and it always would be. It was bigger than the both of them. It transcended time, distance, betrayal.
Time without him had fooled her into believing she could settle for someone else and be happy. That was not true.
Tom led them into a small, blue salon he often used for intimate entertaining. Though she had been within these four walls on many occasions in the past, tonight was likely the last time she would ever be welcome here. The thought filled her not with sadness as she had suspected it might. Rather, it lifted a weight from her chest. It buoyed her. It felt right.
She was making the right decision with Tom.
But it would not be easy.
“Would you care to take a seat?” Tom asked her stiffly. “Shall I call for tea?”
“No,” she said again, releasing his arm and stepping away from him. “And no, thank you. I will not be remaining long. Please forgive me for appearing suddenly, but I had to see you as soon as I could.”
Tom inhaled sharply, then released his breath. “You have chosen Needham.”
It was a statement rather than a question.
He knew her well, Tom.
She bowed her head, feeling as if she had betrayed his love and his trust. She had never meant to do so, but she had. And as someone whose love and trust had also been betrayed once upon a time, she knew how badly it cut, how deep the resulting wound.
“I am sorry, Tom,” she said painfully, struggling to find the proper words when there were none. “I am still in love with my husband. I always have been. It would be unfair to you were I to continue, knowing I do not feel for you what I feel for him.”
A muscle ticked in Tom’s jaw. “Have you forgotten what he did to you, Nell? Have you forgotten that he took another woman to bed and then spent the last three years abandoning you? Did he tell you he was faithful to you during his sinner’s pilgrimage? Is that what this is about? Has he convinced you he has not once erred and bedded another strumpet in all the time he has been gone? How can you be so naïve, my love?”
She clasped her hands at her waist, bearing the brunt of his anger, his pain, as she knew was her duty. She had caused it all, though she very much wished she had not.
“I have not decided whether or not I shall proceed with the divorce,” she told him. “That remains to be seen. What I have realized, however, is that I cannot marry you. I care for you too much, Tom, to see you devote your life to a woman who cannot return your love. You deserve better than that. You deserve far better in a wife than a woman like me, who is desperately in love with another.”
“You are in love with a man who is not worthy of your love,” Tom bit out. “You do realize, do you not, that without me to aid your cause, it will be even more difficult for you to obtain a divorce? You do realize, do you not, that I have spent the last few years of my life devoted to you, showing you I am trustworthy, steadfast, and loyal, and that I love you more than any other man ever could, do you not?”
Tom was so rarely angry. He was calm and peaceful. His personality was pleasant, soothing even. This was a different side of him, one she had caused.
She flinched. “I do not come to you with this decision easily, Tom. And I am grateful for your constancy in the last few years. You have been a source of comfort and joy, always. I am forever in your debt for what you have done for me. But surely you see the injustice of proceeding. I would mire you in scandal, ruin your reputation, and I would… I would not love you. Not in the way I love my husband.”
“Your husband is a philandering scoundrel,” Tom snapped. “A drunken waste of flesh. He does not deserve you or your love. He has done nothing to earn it. Who has been at your side, steadfast?”
“You,” she answered without hesitation, “and I am grateful to you, Tom. I care for you. I am thankful to you for your companionship and caring. But I cannot love you. I do not love you. I cannot be your wife.”
Tom’s nostrils flared. His nose was still swollen, but the bruising had faded. Yet another sin to lay at her feet—the broken nose he had suffered because of her.
“You can be my wife, Nell. The choice is yours,” he persisted. “I have always promised you that I will aid you in this. I do not give a damn about scandal. All I care about is you. You are all I have ever wanted. I wanted you before he met you. I wanted you before you ever married him. I loved you even then.”
She closed her eyes against the sight of his anguish. How she hated causing him pain. He was fighting for her, and it was futile. He loved her, and she did not love him. How wrong she had been to ever suppose she could be happy as his wife.
“I do not know what else to say, Tom.” She paused, weighing her next words with care. “I have always cared for you. You know that. I thought I could be happy as your wife, but—”
“But then he returned,” Tom interrupted, sneering. “I was only good enough when he was not here to challenge me.”
What could she say to that?
“You deserve happiness and love, Tom,” she said quietly. “I cannot give you either of those things. I am sorry it took me so long to realize it, but I am freeing you now. Before it is too late for you.”
Because it was already too late for her. She was doomed to forever love a man she could not trust. A man who had betrayed their marriage. A man she had witnessed kissing another woman in his bed.
In the bed she had just departed that morning.
A new wave of confusion washed over her. She felt as if she were a dinghy cast adrift in open seas, continuously at risk of overturning and sinking to a watery grave.
“What if I am never free of you, Nell?” Tom asked then, his voice hoarse with repressed emotion. “What if you are the only woman I have ever loved, the only woman I will ever love?”
He was as bleak as she had ever seen him.
But she made another grim realization in that moment. She was not responsible for Tom’s happiness. Continuing with him would not bring her happiness, and nor would it bring him any in the end. True contentedness could not be forced. Nor could true love or true passion.
“I am sorry, Tom,” she said simply. “Sorrier than my words can convey. You are a good man, and I never meant to hurt you.”
“Get out,” he gritted, his tone going venomous. “Get out and do not dare come back. Not even when he throws you over for his next slattern. I will not be waiting, Nell. Do you understand? I will not be your fool any longer.”
She nodded, swallowing down a fresh knot of emotion as she removed the emerald-and-diamond ring he had given her before holding it out to him. “I understand. I wish you only the best, Tom. I wish you happiness and a future wife worthy of your love. I am sorry it could not be me. I wanted it to be me. Truly, I did. But the heart…it cannot be controlled.”
“No,” he agreed bitterly, taking the rin
g from her. “It cannot. I wish to God it could.”
It was a sentiment she understood all too well.
She curtsied to him, and then she took her leave without once looking back. Hurting Tom, seeing his pain, had been difficult. But she knew deep in her heart that she had made the right decision.
And she had one more yet to make.
The greatest decision of all.
Chapter Twenty
Nell prayed Lord and Lady Sandhurst were in town while she waited in their formidable entry hall. It had been a gamble, coming here without prior notice. Simon and Maggie could be in the country, or anywhere else for that matter. She had not seen either of her friends in several months. Not since their joyful reconciliation.
But she needed friends more than ever now.
The butler returned and guided Nell to Maggie’s sitting room. Her friend was within, looking serene and maternal, holding her baby son in her arms. She smiled at Nell with genuine delight.
“Nell!” Maggie greeted. “I have missed you so. What a pleasant surprise this is.”
An American heiress, she had entered a marriage of convenience with Lord Sandhurst, which had turned into a love match. How it had unfolded—with the two unwittingly thrown together at one of Nell’s masked house parties—was still a source of pride for Nell.
“Forgive me for calling so suddenly,” she said, seating herself on the divan opposite Maggie. “I am relieved you are in London. I have missed you also, my dear friend. And look at how big your little lord has grown already. I can scarcely believe it!”
Maggie’s son had been born several months earlier, and Nell had attended her lying in. Seeing her friend hold her babe in her arms for the first time and watching the bond between mother and son had been what had convinced Nell to ask Jack for a divorce. She had wanted, so badly, to become a mother.
She felt that same maternal pull now, stronger than ever.
But this time, she was no longer thinking of Tom as the father of her future children, and that terrified her.
“Simon had some matters to attend to here in Town,” Maggie said easily, her American accent quite prominent. “I thought you were in the country at one of your house parties. That was the letter you sent me last, was it not? You and Tom were planning to celebrate Needham’s agreement that you should divorce and have your freedom.”
That seemed a lifetime ago now.
Nell swallowed. “That was to have been the plan, yes. However, it would seem I was precipitous in my celebrations. I misunderstood Needham’s response. He does not want a divorce.”
Maggie’s eyebrows rose. “He does not? What does he intend?”
“He wants to save our marriage.” Nell bit her lip as she paused, attempting to find the proper words. “He claims he is still in love with me.”
“Oh, Nell.” Maggie’s countenance softened with sympathy. “What will you do?”
“I…do not know,” she admitted, unable to stave off a rush of tears. Her eyes welled and she blinked as her vision suddenly went blurry. “He has returned from abroad, and I made a bargain with him. I was to give him a fortnight to win back my heart. But I could not go through with it, Maggie.”
Maggie’s son made a sound of discontent, and she gently patted his bottom to soothe him. “Why could you not?”
“Because I am still in love with him,” she admitted, a tear at last slipping down her cheek. “I never stopped. His return has proven that to me without a doubt. But I am afraid. He betrayed me once. How can I ever give him my trust again?”
Maggie’s expression turned pensive. “Nell, there is something I must tell you. I hope you can forgive me for not doing so before, but you seemed so happy with Lord Sidmouth, and I did not want to cause you any upset after you had already endured so much. I also was uncertain of the veracity of Lady Billingsley’s claims. I thought perhaps she made them as a final way of hurting Simon.”
Nell frowned, trying to make sense of her friend’s sudden change in demeanor. “What did she say?”
“When Lady Billingsley died, she left behind a letter for Simon,” Maggie said softly. “In it, she wrote about that night with Lord Needham.”
Lady Billingsley had once been Simon’s mistress. When he had chosen his love for Maggie over her, Lady Billingsley had leapt from a window, committing suicide in brutal fashion.
Nell stiffened now, steeling herself. “Tell me what she wrote, if you please.”
“She claimed what happened between her and Lord Needham had been a mistake,” Maggie said. “That they had both been deep in their cups, and that Lord Needham had been asleep in his bed when she had unwittingly entered the chamber, thinking it was Simon’s. She wrote him that they had kissed and nothing more, that she had never betrayed him. I… I hope you can forgive me for not telling you sooner. Her assertions made no difference to Simon because he had moved on with me, and I thought it would be the same for you. Now, I am not so certain.”
Nell reeled with the information.
It was the same story Jack had told her, almost verbatim.
Could it be that his story about that night had been the truth?
“It is exactly what Jack told me,” she told Maggie. “I refused to believe him. It seemed far too convenient, and Lady Billingsley is no longer here to tell her side of the tale.”
“Her words remain.” Maggie’s expression was stricken. “Oh my dearest friend, I am so very sorry for keeping this from you. I never should have. In thinking to spare you further upset, I believe I may have only created more.”
Nell shook her head. “Nonsense. You have become a dear friend to me, and I know you would never seek to hurt me. You are not responsible for my disastrous marriage. I am.”
Indeed, if what Lady Billingsley had written and what Jack told her was true, Nell had been more culpable than she had ever imagined. If she had believed him, trusted him, three years ago, he may have never left. They may have never been apart. The realization was devastating.
“If you still love Needham and he is intent upon winning you back, perhaps it is not as disastrous as you suppose,” Maggie suggested gently.
The little Lord Hill, so styled as Sandhurst’s heir, began to complain again, this time more vehemently. Nell knew the feeling. She was feeling rather distressed herself at the moment. Uncertain as well. More confused than ever.
Maggie rose from her seat and gently bounced her son to soothe him as she walked. Nell stood as well. “May I hold him, Maggie?”
She had not held him since the day of his birth. What a miracle he had been, red-faced and squalling, the tuft of dark, silky hair upon his head sticking up on end. But the urge to hold him now could not be contained.
“Of course, my dear. Come and take him.”
Maggie’s proud smile and look of tender adoration as she handed off her son to Nell made her heart ache. Lord Hill was an adorable blend of his mother and father, gazing up at her with wide, blue eyes. She ran her finger over his plump cheek. How soft he was. How precious.
“There you are, sweet one. I have missed you,” she cooed to him.
He gave her a dimpled smile and cooed, as if to say he had missed her too.
“That look becomes you,” Maggie said.
She glanced back at her friend to find Maggie watching her with a knowing regard. Yearning rose within her, deep and undeniable.
“I have longed to become a mother,” she admitted. “When I was with you at Denver House for your lying in, it changed something in me.”
“You will be a wonderful mother, Nell,” her friend said, her voice ringing with certainty.
“I am afraid, Maggie.” She caressed the baby’s cheek again. “What shall I do? I want to believe Jack. I want the love we once shared. But I am not even sure if that is possible. Can I ever truly trust him?”
“Trust your heart,” Maggie advised. “Your heart will guide you. It did me, and I have never regretted my decision to find my happiness with Simon. Do not forget, I was in you
r position once, determined to divorce my husband. We may not have had the most conventional of beginnings to our marriage, but where there is love, there is always hope. Our love brought us together, made us stronger. And now, we have little Alexander. The reward was worth far more than the risks.”
Did she dare trust her heart? Did she dare trust Jack?
“I love my husband quite desperately, I am afraid.” The words were torn from her. “Poor Tom…I have just come from crying off with him, and I fear I have broken his heart. But I knew it was not right. I knew I could never care for him the way I love Jack. There is no comparison between the two.”
“Then it sounds as if you already have the answer, Nell.” Maggie gave her an encouraging smile. “Your second chance is waiting for you. All you need to do is take it.”
The door to the sitting room opened then to reveal Maggie’s husband Simon, Lord Sandhurst. He grinned and bowed. “Two of my favorite ladies. Nell, you are looking regal as ever. We have missed you, and Alexander has missed his godmother.”
“I have missed you all as well,” she returned. “I have just returned from the country, rather unexpectedly, and I thought to pay a call to my dearest friends. I hope you do not mind.”
“Never,” Simon said, going to Maggie’s side and dropping an ardent kiss on her brow. “You will join us for dinner, I hope?”
She had not planned upon it, but there was no one awaiting her back at the townhouse. Suddenly, the prospect of returning to an empty home seemed daunting. She watched the unspoken intimacy passing between her two friends, the naked adoration on their expressions. Their happiness pleased her.
And it occurred to her, all in a rush, that she wanted to secure that same deep, abiding contentedness for herself.
With Jack. Always, only, with Jack. He had owned her heart from that first dance at Cowes. And he owned it still. For the first time since his return, the weight upon her heart had lifted. She saw so clearly what she needed to do.
Her Missing Marquess Page 23
