Page 70 of My Darling Mr. Darling

Wentworth gave an awkward shrug, coughing into his fist as he averted his gaze. “I believe Miss Violet is waiting on you, sir,” he said.

“Ah. Well, don’t let me keep you, Wentworth,” John said, slinging his coat upon the hook in the entryway. “It’s quite late.” John headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time in his haste to reach his room—and Violet.

Light blazed beneath the door, and he pushed the door with one hand, an apology already springing from his throat. “I’m sorry; the time got away from me—” The words died in his mouth, tasting like ash and sawdust.

Violet sat, her knees tucked beneath her, pages scattered across the bed—pages loosed from the leather folio she held in her hands. Behind her ear, practically buried in her disordered hair, was a pen she had scavenged from his desk, and sitting beside the regiment of candles arrayed upon the nightstand was an inkwell. Her eyes moved swiftly across each page as she read the documents laid out before her—the paperwork he’d had drawn up in precise, almost clinical terms, petitioning the court for an annulment.

“I can explain,” he said softly, pushing the door shut.

“Can you?” It was an absent reply at best, offered as she fished for the pen behind her ear, dipped the nib into the inkwell, and scribbled something on the page she was perusing.

John fiddled with his cufflinks, swallowing hard. “I had that drawn up to protect you, months ago, before we—”

Her head popped up, but face was blank—perfect, placid, neutral. “Curious,” she said. “I don’t feel very…protected. Betrayed, perhaps.” She canted her head, her eyes distant as she considered. “Made a fool of, certainly. Though it could be argued that I have done that to myself.”

“You’re not a fool, Vi.” His throat felt as though he had swallowed sand, and it shredded with every word. “I was going to offer you a way out, in the beginning.”

She flipped a page, laying it out atop another on the bed as she continued to read. “But you didn’t,” she said, tapping her chin with the end of the pen. “I’m certain I would have remembered.”

He winced. “No, I didn’t. At first, I simply didn’t wish to be a villain to you. I was sure that if I offered you the option, you would have leapt at the chance, and I would never have seen you again.”

She inclined her head; a silent acknowledgment of his judgment. “And then?”

“And then—I wasn’t certain thatIwanted an annulment.” His fingers found the edge of his dresser, and drifted along the surface. “Theyarerather difficult to obtain, you know. I thought there was the possibility you hadn’t even considered the potential for one, so what was the harm in keeping it from you?”

Her gaze searched the pages she had already read. “You seem to have surmounted those difficulties,” she said blandly. “Under the age or majority, undue pressure. You even mentioned that, as a minor over the age of fourteen, I had the right to choose my own guardian—which, incidentally, I was not aware of.”

“Most aren’t,” he said. “There’s no guarantee—even non-consummation isn’t necessarily grounds for an annulment. But my solicitor thought the chances were high that it would be granted, had I petitioned for one.”

“Hm,” she said. “At least you were prepared to be generous. This would make me an extremely wealthy woman.”

Would, she had said.Would, notwill. And that was something, at least, wasn’t it?

“Vi,” he said. “This isn’t how I meant for this to go. I don’t want an annulment—I’m not sure I everdid.” He offered a vague, disgusted wave of his hand to the papers scattered across the bed. “That was—allof that was for you. If you wanted it. Even if I never got around to offering it to you. It was never meant to hurt you, I promise you.”

“I believe you,” she said slowly, and, coming to the end of the pages, she began to gather them back up again, sorting them back into order.

“You—you do?”

“Of course. I feel I have come to know you, after all. One can act poorly, but without malice. I do believe you had the best of intentions.” She tucked the papers away in the folio, and held it close to her chest. “I admit I had less pleasant suspicions when I discovered this. I was forced to confront some…assumptions I had made about the nature of our relationship. But I do believe you.”

Relief welled up inside him. “ThankGod,” he said, and started across the floor toward her—until she held up her hand.

“Do you love me, John?” she asked, her eyes cool and assessing, searching his face for the slightest twitch that would reveal his thoughts.

The brandy he’d imbibed sloshed around in his gut. The collar of his shirt felt as though it had twisted itself into a noose, tightening about his neck. “I—of course you must know I adore you,” he said.

“But do youloveme?” she pressed, unappeased, her lips firming into a flat, grim line as she recognized it for the deflection it was.

Something dark and ugly inside him—something that had been lurking in his heart since childhood—unfurled itself at her unwillingness to accept what he could give, and lashed out instead. “Doyouloveme?” he returned in a snide little voice. “My God, Vi—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, in clear, precise tones. “I do.”

And that bitter anger that had roiled up deflated at the unembellished statement. Just plain, simple fact, and she had offered it up as if it were the easiest thing in the world. As if exposing her soul for him to see had been just a matter of course, as simple as shucking off a cloak.

She shamed him with her candor. His shoulders slumped, and he scratched at the nape of his neck. “What do you want from me, Vi?”

For a long moment she stared at him, but the terseness of his reply, his persistence in dodging her question, had killed some light in her eyes, banked that fire that had glowed behind them. She bowed her head, withdrew his pen from behind her ear, and placed it on the table. He heard her swallow audibly as she rose from the bed, crossing the floor toward him. Her dark hair glowed in the candlelight, pinned curls haloed in a corona of light that made her look like an angel come down from the heavens. There was nothing of anger in her face, neither malice nor resentment. If he had to put a name to her expression, it would have been resignation, perhaps with a subtle shading of disappointment.