Beth had not believed him about the month in the winter.
But he did intend to take her away, just the two of them. He simply needed to work hard now so that he could find the breathing room later.
She hadn’t believed him.
She’s a wise woman.
Damn. No, no, that was not the way of it. He would do it. He would keep his commitment to her.
How many promises did you break to Juliana in those first months of your marriage?
He had never intended to break any of them.
A hollow ache erupted in his chest. The pounding in his head increased. He sat in the chair by the fire then lowered his face to his hands.
You’re going to break this marriage the same as you did with Juliana.
If he hadn’t already.
He recalled that evening he had come home and found Juliana’s chambers completely bare. And she had never returned. She had refused to even make a negotiation of her return.
Beth couldn’t leave. She just couldn’t.
Grey’s chest tightened. He took a deep, hitching breath. God, he did not need these extremes of emotion. Not now.
He needed her. He needed more than he was getting from her. For a moment, he could imagine himself back in the carriage with her. The scent of rain and her skin surrounded him. She grasped both ends of his loose cravat and pulled him closer. He had tasted her sweet breath…
Hunger shuddered through him. Christ almighty, how he missed her fire! And he was cold all the time now.
He must try and stay home one night next week. For Beth’s sake. But how would he manage that? There was no possible way to spare the time. The most important contacts took place in the evenings, in gentlemen’s homes.
There was just no possible way.
Beth’s sad sky blue eyes flashed into his mind.
I am dying, Grey—literally dying of loneliness.
The dejection in her voice still burned into his guts.
No matter if it was impossible.
He must try.
* * * *
The tall, gleaming mahogany and brass clock chimed out five in the evening. From the top of the stairs, Beth watched Grey below in the vestibule as he gathered his top hat and gray suede gloves, his tall body moving rather stiffly. Did that mean he was still feeling hurt over their quarrel?
He glanced up, meeting her eyes. An urge to call out to him, to beg him to stay home this evening, rose to her throat—an urge so strong it burnt. She held it back. What good would it do? He would only present her with a stream of excuses and rationalizations.
All she wanted was a night or two a week for her alone. Just a fraction of his all-important time.
Was it truly so much to ask?
The old Beth might have run down the stairs, flung herself at him and seduced him. The new Beth—the lady—silently watched while he looked away, then walked to the door and exited.
The closing of that door, such a soft, innocuous sounding click.
What was left of her energy crashed and she leaned against the railing. A burning scratchiness made her cough softly to clear her throat.
Jan had been waiting at the foot of the stairs to speak with Grey. Now he climbed the stairs two at a time, his eyes fixed on her as he approached. She took a deep breath and straightened then forced a small smile. “Did you get your money?”
He shook his head. “No, he’s forcing some austerity measures upon me. I think he’s actually quite overset about my getting expelled.”
“Can you blame him?”
“No, but I didn’t think he’d take too much notice of it.”
“You are his only son; of course he cares.”
A surprisingly sympathetic glint warmed his ice-gray eyes. “You are very different than I expected,” he said with his usual bluntness. “I thought you’d be like those other pieces of fluff Father kept.”
Her mouth dropped open slightly. “How do you know about your father’s—I mean that?”
He grinned, a resemblance to Grey showing despite the difference in their facial features. “Will likes to drink port in his chamber on Sunday afternoons. He can be very loose-lipped when he’s drunk. Dear God, but he hated those vain, greedy cats who cared only that Father paid their bills and kept them in style.” His grin turned into a scowl. “The one here in town—Kate—she was the worst. Always looking down her nose at Will and everyone else, as though she was some exalted being because a gentleman as wealthy and powerful as Father deigned to keep her. But she was just a common whore he’d picked up from the green rooms of London.”
She returned his gaze steadily. If he preferred bluntness, she’d give the same in return. “I was never your father’s whore.”
“Ah, you must accept my abject apologies. I wasn’t aware he favored any other kind of woman. Father prefers to control those around him through the purse strings. He has no use for anyone not bound to him through monetary need.”
“If you resent his money, why then do you squander so much of it?”
“Boredom. I am the most useless person alive and my life is one long, tedious ordeal. Why else would I bother getting myself expelled? I thought this time he’d have to take notice of me. He would have to make a place for me, in that real world where he goes every day—but he didn’t. He opened his purse and indicated that I should return to my play.”
“You are only seventeen. You should be in school.”
“I couldn’t stomach another day at Harvard. Sitting there hour upon hour, learning useless nonsense like ancient languages and perverse stories of gods who never existed. I want to do something real, to enter the business world—the world I’ll have to occupy someday.”
“Why haven’t you told Grey these things?”
“He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Why are you so certain?”
He laughed, low and cynical. “Because I have tested him. I make up fantastical ideas for his business. He listens and smiles tolerantly and thanks me. Thanks me, instead of tearing those insane ideas apart and telling me why they won’t work. And so I know not to waste my time sharing my best ideas. He will not listen, he doesn’t care if I am a fool, and he won’t waste his precious time teaching me anything.”
“Why would you decide to fool him in such a way?”
“I told you, I was testing him. Do you know that I didn’t always live with him? He was a stranger whom my mother allowed to visit me occasionally. A quiet, terse stranger who asked me about my studies and pretended to listen. When my grandfather died, my mother soon followed. She loved Grandfather too much to live without him. I was young—eleven years old. I had no choice but to come and make my home with Father.”
Her heart ached for him. He was just a lonely boy who needed someone to understand him. “You’re using an eleven-year-old boy’s logic on this situation.”
He arched a dark brow. “I don’t see a twenty-three-year-old woman’s logic doing any better with him.”
“We have some wrinkles to iron out.” She shrugged lightly. “Every married couple does. I am sure it will all smooth out here very soon.”
“And I am sure he is trying to convert you into a creature like those cats he kept. An unfeeling doll. I hope he doesn’t succeed. How I resented them. At least they could offer him something, unlike myself. I shall only be useful to him once he is dead.” He stared down as he drummed his fingers on the stair rail. Then he looked up, his sharp silver gaze so like Grey’s.
“My grandfather de Lange left me a house on the Hudson, in the country, up north from Tarrytown a ways. It’s an estate, really. We call it Red Oaks. Why don’t you come there for a week or two? You can forget about all of this unpleasantness with Father.”
Yes, that was exactly what she needed to do. She needed to absent herself—then Grey would miss her. He would realize how much they needed each other, even in the worst of times.
A soft, masculine chuckle cut into her thoughts. She looked at Jan. “What?”
&nb
sp; He shook his head. “No, no, no.”
“No what?”
“No, don’t go thinking Father will suddenly come to his senses and go chasing up there after you. That’s not how it works for him.”
Beth tilted her head. “And how does it work?”
“He keeps us. His son, his mistresses…and now his wife. We wait on his pleasures and wants. When he needs admiration and assurance that you’re desperately dependent on him for your life of luxury and adequately grateful, he will come and fetch you back. But it shall likely be a long time coming.”
“My goodness, that’s a dreadfully cynical view you hold of your father.”
Jan chuckled softly again. “Did you fool yourself that it was otherwise? Well, do yourself a favor and disabuse yourself of such illusions now. He’ll come around only on his own terms and no sooner.” He smiled. “But no matter. We shall take his yacht and do things up right. Beefsteak and pineapple ice cream and whatever else you fancy.”
She opened her mouth to protest but he spoke sooner. “You are afraid to spend his money, aren’t you?” His silver eyes narrowed for a moment as he studied her and he slapped the stair rail and grinned. “By God, I do believe you are. Well, we need to fix that. Honestly, you had better learn to take solace in the pleasures his money can provide or else your life will be one long misery.”
“Wouldn’t that make me just like your father’s fancy women?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to become unfeeling and cold. Love him a little. But only a little. Believe me, that’s all he wants from any of us.”
Beth crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. What could a boy possibly understand about a man and a woman?
What could it hurt to hope that Grey would miss her if she left? It might actually work.
* * * *
The crunch of leaves caught Beth’s attention. The sound was moving closer. She’d spent this afternoon, as she spent most afternoons here at Red Oaks along the banks of the Hudson, riding her horse like a fury. Today, she’d grown fatigued—well, not just mere fatigue but a bone weariness that forced her to stop and rest against the trunk of a huge oak.
This had happened several days this week. Maybe the short days were making her tired. But she must shake herself out of this malaise. She had many things to see to in New York. She and Grey had planned a ball to celebrate Jan’s eighteenth birthday. It would be Jan’s first time attending a ball and it had to be perfect.
Again, the sound of leaves rustling on the wind caught her attention. No—it was more regular than wind blowing leaves about.
It was footfalls.
Her eyes snapped open and she looked up into Thomas Watson’s whisky-colored eyes. Pulses pounding, she scrambled to her feet.
“Well, well, Mrs. Sexton.” His voice was filled with snide humor.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Watson.”
“Mr. Watson?” He laughed curtly. “Isn’t that terribly formal after what we have been to each other?”
She drew herself straight. If she was a former harlot, she could be a proud former harlot. “We were nothing to each other and you know that.”
His eyes narrowed. “I hear you are staying here with Jan. Alone.”
He put the most indecent inflection on the last word.
They had been here at Jan’s house for almost two weeks now, and yet still no word when Grey might join them.
“Grey is due to come any day now.” The lie came off smoothly enough. At least so she hoped.
He smirked. “Much to your inconvenience, I am certain.”
“What’s your business being here? Are you looking for Jan?”
“No. I have come to check up on how you’re treating my oldest and closest friend.”
She stiffened her spine. “Why must you harass me like this? I’ve done you no true wrong.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek and his jaw hardened. Coldness radiated off him, chilling her to the bone. “He meant to marry my eldest daughter. Did you know that?”
She took a deep breath and held her expression still to conceal her surprise. Why had Grey not told her? Warned her? “He never even mentioned such a thing to me.”
“Well, it was a long-held understanding between us. At least, it was until you seduced him into forgetting—but a marriage isn’t set in stone. There are ways of dissolving it, if a man is so disposed and has the means to pursue divorce.”
That shocked her. “You’d allow your daughter to wed a divorced man?”
“Not just any divorced man—Grey Sexton. A man tied not only to the de Grijs family but also to the Sextons and the Hales of Boston. He could weather the scandal just as he did when he sent his first wife back to her father.”
“He never sent her back. She made that decision.”
“Is that what he told you?” Watson kicked at a dirt clod and chuckled coldly. “Oh, the secrets you two keep from each other. Like you seducing his son right under his very nose.”
Her stomach went sick. “You’re vile—simply vile.”
He leered. “And you’re a base-born harlot, an interloper.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” She whirled away from him.
He grabbed her arm.
She glanced up at him and he bent his face so close she could smell the lingering tobacco on his breath. “I shall be watching you, Mrs. Sexton.”
She tried to pull away but he intensified his grip with crushing, bruising strength. Her mouth went completely dry and she forgot to cry out. Yes, it was painful. But a frightening realization eclipsed her pain. He must be insane to put his hands on her like this. And an insane man was unpredictable. She held herself still and remembered to breathe again.
Oh, God. How did one handle an insane man?
He leaned closer yet, his handsome face twisted into an ugly mockery of itself. “Do you hear me? I shall be watching you.”
He gave her a shake so fierce it rattled her teeth.
As her world stopped shaking, her heart thundered. “I’ll tell Grey.”
“Tell him that you met me, alone? I think not.”
“He trusts me.”
“Does he?” Thomas chuckled, a forced, hateful sound. “He knows you were no virgin. Are you so willing to test his trust?”
No, she wasn’t, Beth realized with horror. “What is it you want from me?”
“You and I both know it is only a matter of time before you prove yourself the harlot that you are. And when that happens, I shall see Sexton knows all. He’s a proud man—he won’t stand for infidelity.”
“Why bother telling me this?”
“Because I am a pirate at heart. I know battle tactics. Often, all it takes is a volley fired across the bow to make one’s opponent nervous. A nervous person is more apt to slip up. I can see the fear in your eyes. You know already that you’re going to slip.”
“You’re wrong—you’re so very wrong.” Her chilled blood began to heat.
“It didn’t have to be this way. You could’ve lived quite a comfortable life as my mistress. You’d have found me not quite as cold as Sexton. God knows, he can’t be keeping a powder keg like you happy in bed.”
His words hit her brain like a white-hot charge lighting her blood, making rational thought no longer possible. She spat in his face.
He spun her around and then let her go with a strong push to her buttocks, knocking her down. She threw her hands out to brace herself. His boot made contact with her bottom and the force of his blow sent her arms skidding out from under her and her chin hit the muddy earth. The gusting wind blew the skirts of her riding habit up, exposing her legs and cutting through her woolen stockings.
The taste of salt and copper filled her mouth and she gingerly touched her lips then pulled her fingers away. They were wet and bright red.
His snide laughter rang in her ears. “What a fitting position for a tramp like you.”
She jerked herself up and turned, whipping her skirts back over her legs, then pulling herself to
her feet. All the while, the filth of his gaze slithered over her.
Pure rage pounded in her ears, reverberating in a nauseating quiver throughout her body. Bested. Bested just because he was more physically powerful. She strode to her horse, her fists clenched at her sides, then she swung herself into the saddle.
After a last swipe at his face with his handkerchief, Watson stared coolly up at her. “I’ll be watching you, waiting for you to make that final, fatal misstep.”
Seeing red, she turned away and gathered the reins.
Thwap!
A sudden forward pull jerked her body and forced her breath out.
The mare tore off across to where the ground was uneven. Beth struggled to regain control. The animal lurched forward.
Beth went flying…
Then she hit the ground, on her back. Dazed, she lay there with the damp, cold earth bleeding through her clothes. She could feel a large, hard object beneath her. A log? Her leg was twisted underneath her and her bottom and the side of her thigh were quite sore.
But it was her knee that was throbbing with a red-hot intensity.
The thunder of hooves sounded. Her stomach dropped and her mouth dried. Oh God, was Watson coming back? She jerked her head in that direction.
It was Jan.
Relief poured over her. Oh, thank God, it was Jan. She jerked her skirts over her exposed limbs and tried to pull herself up. Pain shot up her leg, immobilizing her.
He halted his horse and came down from the saddle. The wind blew his coal-black hair as he ran to her. He crouched down. “What the devil happened to you?”
“I took a little fall and I fear I have hurt my leg.”
“Oh no, Beth!” Jan dropped into a deeper crouch beside her. “How bad is it?”
She forced a smile. “Not so bad,” she lied.
He gave her a dubious look. “You’re sure?”
Beth nodded. “Only hurts when I try to move.” She tried to make her smile brighter.
“What happened to your face?” His lips compressed, pulling the skin tight over his chiseled cheekbones. “I crossed Thomas Watson leaving in a thunderous gallop. He did something to cause this, didn’t he?”
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