Page 24

THIRTEEN

Lilah

I’d stopped caring about what color the wine was about three glasses ago. Now the glass I was holding was the end of a bottle of red and the beginning of a bottle of white.

Did that make it rosé?

Draining the glass, I blinked around the library and wondered where on earth it had all gone wrong.

“You have no idea what it is to be vulnerable, and then betrayed.”

“And you have no idea what it is to be vulnerable, and then rejected!”

Well, fine, perhaps it was obvious. But I still didn’t understand how two people could love each other—or say they love each other—and it still all come tumbling down. It didn’t make sense.

Or perhaps William and I didn’t make sense.

“There’s the door.”

“You know it so well. But this time, I’ll be the one to take it. ”

I sighed heavily, placing the glass back on the ornate hand-carved oak table, and looked about the room.

It was beautiful, really. I'm sure if I was in a better mood, I would appreciate it more.

The wooden paneling had been stained a gorgeous, dark rich brown. There were a set of brown leather armchairs and a roaring fire. More blankets could be found here than anywhere in the world, and there were bookcases jammed with classics and some of the most exciting poetry coming out of France.

And a drinks cabinet.

Standing up to head back to the cabinet of delights, the sudden dizziness that overswept me made me drop back onto the sofa.

Well, maybe having another drink wasn’t a good idea.

But it was the only thing that could give me a little peace. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get William’s face out of my mind. Couldn’t stop wishing that things had been different, even if it hadn’t been my fault.

Entirely my fault.

“Damnit, Lilah, you broke my heart and then abandoned it! You cannot possibly ? —”

“Get out.”

It was so…so frustrating. We’d tried to make this work, not once but twice.

But every time William and I got too close, hearts got broken.

“I suppose that’s just how it is,” I said quietly to the empty room. “And that’s how it will always be.”

“What happened to you?” said a voice laced with humor.

I scowled up at Kineallen as he stepped into the room, and my scowl deepened as Markham followed him .

Great. Of all the people in the world who could try to make me feel better, my two least favorite friends had to be the ones to come find me.

Regret and guilt seared through my chest as soon as the thought was over.

Well, it wasn’t Kineallen’s fault that he was so aloof. Of the three of us, he had been the most broken after his spouse had died. Georgiana and I had barely tolerated our husbands, and though Markham had mourned his wife, they had been married, had known each other such a short time.

And then there was Kineallen. A love match, for a duke no less—and then to lose her in childbirth, her and the babe…

He and I had always been close. Strange, really. It was Markham who had married my sister, had not known her well enough to mourn her. Then he’d gone and betrayed us all by stealing from us.

He seemed to know precisely what I was thinking, because Markham put his hands up in mock surrender as he shut the door and dropped into an armchair.

“Look,” he said with an apologetic look. “I didn’t want to come.”

“Is that any way to speak to your friend?” Kineallen said seriously as he closed the drinks cabinet door.

Surreptitiously.

Or at least, what he clearly thought was surreptitiously.

I rolled my eyes. Honestly, what were they doing here? There was absolutely nothing they could do, and they probably didn’t even have half the story.

“So,” said Kineallen without any preamble. “We’ve spoken to Parry. ”

I shot upright, staring daggers at my friends. “You what?”

“Well, you are the hostess of the dinner party tomorrow, and you basically disappeared,” said Markham, in what he evidently thought was a fair manner. “And he was assisting you, Lilah.”

“Obeying me,” I snapped, ire rushing through my veins.

How dare they! What, a woman couldn’t just decide to not attend a luncheon and disappear from all friends?

“You can fix this,” said Kineallen seriously.

I glared. “You think?”

“Everything can be fixed,” he pointed out, as though everything William and I had been through was just a misunderstanding. “As long as you know what went wrong?—”

“Well that’s just it, I don’t,” I said, throwing up my hands and sinking back into the armchair.

“But you knew—you must have known, William, that they have attempted to destroy the Gambling Dukes’s reputation. How many times have I told you? It’s a bitter rivalry, one you clearly don’t understand!”

I blinked away tears I was most definitely not going to let spill.

This was all William’s fault. Time and time again, he’d hurt me. He’d never tried to fix it, had never reached out to me, had never apologized.

I was the one who had my heart broken, and he was the one who thought he was in the right?

The arrogance!

“You must have an idea of what happened between the two of you,” said Markham quietly. “I mean…did you…did the two of you?— ”

I cast a scowl at my friend. “Don’t even think about asking.”

“Thank God,” he said heavily.

That was the trouble with having no one but your male friends to rely on. When it came down to it, there were certain things you just couldn’t talk about with a pair of dukes.

Georgiana, maybe. But she was off somewhere enjoying herself with that husband of hers.

And even with Georgiana, there were just things that I couldn’t share with her. In fact, now I came to think about it, the only person I really wanted to talk to was…

My heart sank, just as my stomach curled into a tight knot.

William.

Why hadn’t he come after me? Was he really willing to just let this slide? Let all that we could be, all that we already were, disappear?

I blinked. “Kineallen…I thought you were with the Count of Guadalencia.”

Guilt hunkered down in my heart. The thing I was supposed to be doing. The job I was hiding from.

They must hate me—think I'm completely useless.

But after all the effort I’d put in with William, I couldn’t bare facing the Count of Guadalencia. Every minute with him was just evidence that William had been right.

Right about the Gambling Dukes. Right about my lack of talent in public speaking.

But not right about us. About love. About what we could have ben.

“I'm sorry, Kineallen,” I said awkwardly. “I know I should have?—”

“Yes, you should have,” he said curtly .

My shoulders drooped, and though a flare of irritation threatened to make me shout something, I didn’t give into the temptation.

After all, what would I say? That just because Kineallen had decided never to fall in love, that he’s never made a mistake, that I shouldn’t be punished for doing the same thing?

Kineallen sighed heavily and pushed his hair back. “Look, just break the connection. Get it done.”

I stared as the words slowly settled in my mind.

Break—end the acquaintance William?

“What, make it look to Society as though I’ve done something wrong?” I said slowly.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking like this. Markham turned around and, in an act of defense I had not expected from him, glared at our friend.

“You think Georgiana would allow that?” Markham pointed out. “A dowager duchess, appear to be in the wrong…”

His voice trailed off, but he didn’t need to spell it out. We all knew the truth.

The Gambling Dukes was going to fall apart if we couldn’t get ourselves in order.

If I couldn’t get myself in order.

“I still think stepping away is the swiftest way out of this mess,” Kineallen was saying to Markham. “If this goes on much longer?—”

“It’s not as simple as that,” Markham cut across him, with a glance at me that made my cheeks burn. “Lilah hasn’t—at the end of the day, he’s a part of our social circle now. We can’t be seen to?—”

“Social circle?” I repeated in amazement .

Did they have any idea? Any clue what William was to me?

Both of my friends were staring at me now in bewilderment.

“Yes, he’s a mere acquaintance,” Kineallen said. “You did not think of him as anything more, did you?”

My heart would have sunk, but it was far too busy raging against the meager description my friends had given him.

William, just an acquaintance? He was a clever man, an intelligent one—but he was also kind, and witty, and he made me feel…

Made me feel everything. Beautiful, and wanted, and important. As though I became the sun in the sky, the warmth of the world. He…

Oh, hell.

“William Parry,” I said quietly, “is so much more than an acquaintance.”

“In that case,” Markham said with a sly grin, “why are you here?”

William

It wasn’t often that I woke up literally on the floor beside my bed, but apparently that was going to become a routine now.

I groaned. The light was too bright. The floor was too hard.

And it was all my fault.

“Because I knew it was all too good to be true. It had to be. People like you, they’re not as good as they appear. And so when it all came crashing down ? —”

“You mean, when you left. When you made the very worst assumption about me—an assumption that wasn’t true—and just ended things, without telling me!”

Fine, the argument wasn’t a direct influence on me waking up once again having not quite made it to the bed. But perhaps in a way it was. Perhaps if I had just been a better person, a better man, I wouldn’t be staying up all night reading those ridiculous novels.

Novels which made me cry now.

Oh, hell. What had my life become?

Standing up and discovering to my relief I hadn’t even opened the bottle of whiskey that I’d bought last night, I jumped into the bath and tried to wash away all the painful thoughts I’d allowed myself to wallow in last night.

Thoughts like, it was all my fault.

Thoughts like, I could have done something, said something, and this wouldn’t have happened.

Thoughts like, I’d had a second chance and then completely messed it up.