Page 76 of A Gentleman's Wager

That, alas, was true. She was far too grand and good for him.

Joshua held Wakefield’s gaze, until Freddy felt compelled to look away. He swallowed the brandy in the teacup. It burned all the way to his gullet.

“Love does not aways allow for rational thought.”

Joshua smashed his cup down on his saucer, then to Wakefield’s alarm, he laughed. “That argument would be a lot more convincing if Millicent wasn’t still in your bed.”

He couldn’t even deny it, for he had indeed left her there, admittedly, hoping she’d depart in his absence.

“Not for long.” It might well be too little too late, as Joshua’s expressions suggested, but it was a necessity, nevertheless.

-45-

Louisa

Louisa fled to her chamber and bolted herself inside the moment they returned to Lauwine.

“Lou, dammit, open the door.” Bella pounded with her fist.

Between the bolt and the beechwood chest she’d pushed before the door Louisa felt relatively secure. She had no desire to speak to anyone, to explain… to feel. That’s what Bella would demand. Words. A reliving of the experience in minute detail, examining every facet, running it over and again until it was made smooth as a pebble. Her emotions were far too raw for words. They were jagged and bitter, scourged and flayed. She wanted only quiet and oblivion. Why had she not had the foresight to steal away a decanter of something before she’d locked herself away?

“Go away,” she mouthed at the door, and Bella beyond it. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

She prayed Bella would not summon anyone else. Lucerne perhaps. He would be well meaning, but it was partly his fault that Wakefield had left. If he hadn’t kissed her… If she hadn’t gone to Freddy’s room. Why had they ever come here? She wished they’d stayed at Wyndfell. Nay, more than that, she wished she’d never travelled north. She ought to have stayed in town with her aunt, remained chaste and virtuous, and married some fellow double her age with more money than sense, and for whom she never had to feel any genuine affection. They would brush along together for years being civil, raising the next generation, without any real ability to hurt one another, because true depth of feeling simply didn’t exist.

“Louisa. Don’t be a dolt. Open up.”

“No,” she mouthed at the door. She was done with doing as she was told. Where had it ever got her?

Bella kept on drumming on the wood. Why didn’t she tire? Why didn’t she go away?

Louisa retreated further into the chamber, bypassing the bed in favour of the closet. She crept inside, folding herself in with the linen. The hems of her dresses dangled around her. It smelled of camphor and lavender, but at least the banging wasn’t so loud here.

She closed her eyes, but then her thoughts flooded with images of Millicent coiled like ivy around Wakefield’s naked body. Her hair hanging loose around her shoulders, and her vertebrae dimpling the skin along her back as she reared over him. She ripped back the covers, exposing a thatch of dark hair around Wakefield’s loins, and his cock, shiny with her saliva.

Louisa had never seen him naked before that moment. Would never be able to unsee it now?

He laughed as he tipped Millicent onto her back and covered her. Thrust into her with obvious enthusiasm. Of course, she didn’t know that’s what had happened, but it seemed silly to imagine otherwise. She knew how copulation worked, had witnessed it. Also, Lord Marlinscar’s library was extensive, and some of the material eclectic. There was one book she’d stumbled upon,L’academie des Dames, published in Venice, she suspected it may have been a present, which she’d found lying open on his desk. It was most enlightening. Not that she’d read it, but she’d glimpsed a few of the illustrations and they were… well, they were frightfully obscene.

She’d wondered if one day she and Frederick would look upon such a tome together to broaden their abilities to please one another.

Not that he evidently required instruction.

“I loved you,” she sobbed into her sleeve, picturing Frederick in her mind’s eye. “I loved you, and you ruined that. I loved you, and now I hate you.”

-46-

Bella

After Louisa locked herself away and refused to come out, Bella ate a lonely supper with Charles. Lucerne and Vaughan had ridden out, having left instructions that dinner shouldn’t be delayed if they were not back at the appointed hour. She’d walked the gardens afterwards, briefly seeking comfort from her favourite haunts, before settling before the fire in the drawing room. She supposed she must have drifted off, for it was gloomy when she woke to the sound of someone stoking the fire.

Bella stretched out her stiff joints. Lucerne stood bent over the hearth. He must have come straight from the stables, for his blond hair was blown into winsome ruffles, and wisps of steam were rising from his damp clothing.

“Is it raining again?” she asked.

“Drizzling.”

She sat a little straighter, unfolding her legs. “When did you get back?”