Page 30 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

It was her decision, granted, but was it really a choice?

He muttered an oath and opened his eyes again. Yanking a pen out of its holder, he once again turned his attention to the document before him, forcing himself to read it all the way through.

His solicitors had assured him it was a fair offer, and he was inclined to agree. It would be an ideal investment property, likely to bring in a very high rent for many years to come, and though the asking price was steep, he could easily afford to pay it.

Not everyone, a little voice whispered to him, had that luxury.

Devlin sighed and leaned back in his chair, tapping the pen against the blotter on his writing desk, his mind drifting from his own comfortable financial situation to that of someone who had not been so fortunate.

It had never occurred to him that Kay could be in such dire straits.

Thinking back fourteen years, he tried to remember if her father had ever shown any signs of financial impecunity, but it was hard to know.

Peers tended to hide that sort of misfortune.

Besides, his family and hers had not been well acquainted.

The one time he’d visited Raleigh Grange in pursuit of Kay, he’d paid no notice to the conditions of the earl’s estate.

His thoughts had been on Kay, not her home.

He did know that the earl had seemed prosperous enough.

He’d managed to somehow scrape together two thousand pounds to get rid of the man he’d deemed a fortune hunter.

In hindsight, he could recall no signs that indicated the earl had been desperate for money.

But then, he hadn’t been looking for any.

If only he’d seen. Devlin tightened his grip on the pen in his hand. If only he’d known.

The moment those thoughts went through his mind, he almost wanted to laugh. Had he known her family was broke, would it have mattered? It probably would only have made his resolve to get her out of their clutches all the greater.

In the end, of course, none of it had mattered. Her determination to escape had faltered at the last minute, and he’d known she would never go to Africa.

If only he’d stayed.

Ah, but what then? The options for the fifth son of a peer who hated his guts were limited.

God knows, he wasn’t cut out for the clergy or the army, which meant he’d probably have become a barrister, or worked for a bank, or become some rich magnate’s secretary, and he knew none of those occupations would have enabled Raleigh to give permission for Kay to marry him.

And, to be brutally honest, Africa was where he’d wanted to be.

It had been so easy to believe the earl, to take his money, and go where he wanted to go, confident he’d make his fortune and come back to Kay with something to offer her.

He hadn’t thought she would see his departure as an abandonment.

How could he, given all the letters he’d written?

Looking back, the news of her engagement to Giles hadn’t really been much of a surprise.

A shock, yes, but once the shock and disbelief had worn off, he’d accepted her supposed betrayal as a fact without really questioning why she’d done it.

And given that he’d never heard from her, it had seemed quite likely that she’d given him up willingly to marry someone else.

If only he’d refused to accept it. If only he’d come home, fought for her. If only he hadn’t been so ready to believe the worst.

Devlin stirred impatiently. If only… if only…

the most banal and futile phrase in the English language.

He hadn’t known her situation, he hadn’t come home, and he hadn’t fought for her.

Instead, he’d allowed his anger and hurt to keep him away, and now she was forced to marry a man strictly for material considerations.

Anger flooded through him, anger on her behalf, anger at Rycroft, at her father, and at society.

Raleigh had controlled Kay’s destiny from the moment of her birth.

The malicious tongues of society had shredded her and smeared her good name for no reason other than for the entertainment of watching her downfall.

And Rycroft knew, he must know, that he was in control of her.

Rycroft was a ruthless bastard, but he was not stupid.

But though all that was true, none of it compared to the anger he felt at himself. It roiled within him, seething in his guts like molten lava.

Devlin’s hand closed in a fist around his pen.

He could have prevented this, but he hadn’t.

Bitter and broken and full of resentment, he’d done only the absolute minimum to salvage her reputation, deeming it her fiancé’s office to save her, not his.

And now, as she’d pointed out, there was nothing he could do to save her.

She would marry Rycroft, and like her father before him, he would tell her what she could and could not do, who she could and could not associate with.

He’d tell her what to feel and what to think, and she would be unable to do anything but comply.

Marrying for a dowry is a time-honored and perfectly acceptable tradition.

That, of course, was true. In their world, a dowry was always a consideration in marriage. It was how things were done. Had Kay’s father offered him a marriage settlement, he’d have taken it without a thought, so he was hardly in a position to criticize the concept.

Her lack of choices, of alternatives, made him sick inside, and he knew that no matter what he’d known or hadn’t known, what justifications he’d had for his thoughts and actions, he was to blame for what she was now forced to do.

Because of him, her ability to move in society had been curtailed, her chances of finding someone else to marry, and the means to support her and her mother and sister had boiled down to only one choice.

All this time, he’d blamed her—for her lack of courage, her lack of faith, her weakness in turning to another man, but their conversation a week ago had forced him to put all that aside, to see past his bitterness over her actions and take a good, hard look at his own.

Despite his shock and hurt, it had been far easier than it should have been for him to believe she’d thrown him over.

He recognized now that his own youth had made it hard for him to have faith in anyone, even Kay, or that she could truly love him enough to stand by him.

But those excuses didn’t absolve him. The blame for this began and ended with him.

A sharp sound pulled him out of his reverie, and he looked down, staring in surprise at the pen in his hand, realizing he’d snapped the pearwood handle in half.

He tossed the broken pieces aside with an oath, plunked his elbows on the writing desk, and rested his head in his hands.

Never in his life had he been filled with such profound remorse and regret, never had he felt as powerless and frustrated as he felt right now.

But as hellish as these feelings were, he almost relished them.

Because this hell was of his own making, and nothing less than he deserved.