Page 30

S hay returned home late in the evening after dinner had already been served and cleared away. He should have known Flint would drag out the proceedings to make it as painful as possible.

He’d wanted to sell Nuit Noire , but he’d hoped to find some other buyer willing to take it. Mayhap if Shay had been willing to wait, it might have gone better, but in the end it was done and over now.

Shay no longer owned a gambling establishment. He’d bartered a fair deal for Stephen Rockledge as well. Freeing him of his servitude to Flint.

Unfortunately, the worst part was yet to come. He needed to tell Thea the truth. That would not be an easy thing, but it needed to be done as soon as possible.

Passing over an offer of a late meal, Shay hurried upstairs to his wife’s study. Despite his worrisome news, his lips pulled up in a smile of anticipation. He wondered where he might find the adorable smudge of ink she always managed to have somewhere on her person.

But when he opened the door he found it dark inside. Light from the moon filtered in on the messy desk, still strewn with paper, some covered with writing, and others blank, waiting to be filled with the words of a master who wasn’t there.

Backing from the room he worried she was ill. For that could be the only reason she wouldn’t be rushing to get this book done on time. Hurrying to their bedchamber he found it empty as well. But that offered only a short relief. For the room was not just empty of his wife, but her things were gone from the dressing table as well.

Using the adjoining door to the marchioness’s rooms he found her gowns hanging there in the clothes press, and her brush and comb on the dressing table in there. Her books were lined up on the small bookcase in the sitting area.

“What the devil?” he whispered as he returned to the hall, heading back downstairs. Running into Frannie, he stopped.

“Where is my wife?” Shay asked, noticing his voice had taken on a frantic quality.

“In the drawing room, my lord.” The maid nodded in the direction of the room as if Shay didn’t know where his own drawing room was. But while he did very well know where it was, he was baffled as to why Thea would be there.

Did they have a visitor? It seemed an odd thing at quarter past ten in the evening.

Inside the room, he found Thea sitting on a comfy-looking chair he didn’t remember having. She was dressed neatly and her hair arranged in a proper coiffure. No golden curls had been given the opportunity of escape. And her face was free of ink smudges.

If it weren’t clearly his wife, he would have worried he’d stumbled into the wrong townhome. But it was definitely Thea sitting there pulling rose-colored thread through a piece of linen over and over. It took much too long to put the name to the action for he’d not once seen her do it.

Embroidery.

His wife, writer of dozens of novels with one due imminently, was sitting calmly on a chair embroidering instead of writing. Unless…

“Thea?”

She looked up, and he noted the lack of any expression on her face. She was not happy to see him, yet she didn’t seem irritated or angry either. She just… was. Like an automaton that moved in the way of a real person but lacked the spark of emotion.

“Have you finished the book?” he pushed, thinking that could be the only reason for her to have ceased working. He would argue it still didn’t make sense that she’d be here embroidering like a proper noblewoman, but he would begin with the simplest explanation.

Her answer was brief. A shake of her head and a flat, “No” before she returned her attention to her work. He stepped closer and noted she was quite skilled in creating a running chain of roses along the edge of some undetermined white linen. But why?

“Thea?” he tried again, his voice lower. This caused an impact.

Her hands stilled, her eyes closed, and her head dropped ever so slightly, but he felt the burden of sadness weighing her down.

Kneeling in front of her he took her hand in his.

“What has happened? What is wrong? Is the book not going well?”

Rather than answer she asked her own question. One that near to gutted him.

“Did the sale of your gaming den go well?”

“You know?”

“About Nuit Noire ? Yes. I know about that and a great deal of other things.”

Bloody hell, had he wanted her to show emotion a moment ago? It was practically flaring from her now, like flames from the windows of a house that had been completely engulfed. She was a raging inferno.

“I know that you allowed my brother to run up huge accounts at your establishment.”

“Yes. But I cut him off, hoping to make him stop. It only forced him to go to Flint where he was able to get more credit than was reasonable.”

“But he started at Nuit Noire, yes?”

He let out a breath, but would only allow the truth to pass his lips. Damning as it might be.

“Aye. Some others as well. But, yes. I gave him credit.”

“Which you forgave after we were wed,” she added as if this had some great significance.

Shay nodded. “Yes. It seemed the right thing to do.” The lad was now Shay’s brother by marriage, and while Thea had wanted to pretend she didn’t care about the blighter, Shay knew it would not be so easy. Besides all of that, it wasn’t as if the man was ever going to be able to pay it back. So writing off the debt was no different than carrying it. Either way, he was out the blunt.

“You paid the debt to Flint, as well.”

He shook his head. “Not all of it. I didn’t have enough to take on that debt comfortably. As it was, things were a bit tight until Noire sold today to refill my coffers. But I assure you everything is fine now. There’s no reason to worry.”

That had clearly been the wrong thing to say.

Tossing her needlework to the side she stood, fists clenched at her sides.

“No. I imagine there is no reason to worry, is there? You wrote to my brother telling him I was at Cawdor House so he would come there. Then you so gallantly offered marriage. Something I had never wished to do. To lose control of my finances. But now you have all my funds to do with as you wish.”

Shay stood there staring at her for a moment. He could not comprehend what kind of trap he had stepped into. She had everything wrong, but all the pieces fit perfectly together. Almost like one of her mysteries.

Except at the end of the book all would not be well for the characters for this was his life and his wife thought him capable of the worst kind of treachery.

But why wouldn’t she? She knew the other deceit he was capable of.

“Thea, that’s not—”

“I don’t wish to discuss it. You may have been compensated, but you’ll get not another cent from me. I’m finished writing. I wish to return to the country. Either Cawdor, or another home you have that you never visit. So I will not have to look at you and be reminded of your betrayal.”

Shay wanted to explain. To fight back and make her listen, but seeing the tears rolling down his wife’s face to drip off her chin, held his tongue. She was angry and he imagined she’d been tied up in all of these tangled thoughts for most of the day.

“I am guilty of many things. Things I had planned to tell you tonight when I got home, which as I say it I know my timing seems suspect. But I did not write to your brother to tell him you were at Cawdor, and I didn’t marry you as some scheme or reparations.”

She swiped the tears from her cheeks and he stepped forward wanting to comfort her, but she quickly jerked back.

“Very well. It’s late. We should get some rest and in the morning, you and I will discuss things through. And if after hearing what I have to say, you still wish to leave for the country, I will make the accommodations as you wish. But know this, Thea. Not everything is a twist of a plot like in one of your books. Sometimes it’s just a man who doesn’t know the first thing about love, who’s trying to do the right thing for someone he desperately wants to love.”

She pressed her lips together tightly and he used the silence to say one last thing.

“I didn’t trick you into marrying me. I only wanted to protect you. But I’ll not lie and say I wouldn’t thank the person who facilitated those events. If not for the risk to you, I never would have felt myself worthy of asking for your hand.”

He did step closer then, to place a kiss on her forehead before he quit the room and went straight for his study and the whisky. It would be a long night indeed.

He didn’t know why he’d thought he could have this. Have her. He had known by now that he was best on his own. Everyone he’d ever cared for had left him in some way.

His mother was the first. She’d died and while she’d left him in the care of his aunt, it hadn’t been long before Deborah had grown tired of caring for a child and left him alone.

The boys had left him when he’d taken on the tending of Sheamus, and then Sheamus himself had gone on, leaving him alone. The auld marquess, and Harrington had left him alone as well.

And now Thea wanted to leave him. He should have expected as much. Nothing good ever lasted. Not for him. It was the punishment he was to bear for all his crimes.