Page 89 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville

In a daze, he headed for his study. He couldn’t believeshe’d left. He couldn’t believe he’d driven her away.

In his study he halted, brought up short by the sight of another of Minerva’s books sitting on his desk. It conjured up a flood of memories—Maria teasing him about the other one, Maria debating philosophy with him, Maria staring up at him with eyes clear as blue glass as she said,There is always hope.

He scowled. For other men, perhaps. Not for him. He’d lost all hope the day he’d driven Mother into killing Father and herself. Leave it to Maria to recognize the depravity that his family seemed blind to.

Minerva trailed into the study after him. “What are you going to do to get Maria back?”

He uttered a harsh laugh. “Not a damned thing. She doesn’t want to be back. If she didn’t even leave me a note or stay around to—”

He broke off, the words choking him. He’d tried to force her into marriage and Maria didn’t take well to bullying. Was it any wonder that she’d fled?

“You can’t just do nothing!” Minerva protested. “You have to go after her and convince her to marry you.”

“Why?” He faced her with a frown. “So you and the others can pacify Gran? She’s had it with the lot of us. And this . . . madness with Maria is the last straw. You might as well start making plans to live here for all eternity, because Gran is not going to stop until she has us married—and I’m not marrying anyone.” Not if he couldn’t have Maria.

Turning his back on his sister, he picked up the glassnear the brandy decanter on his desk and filled it to the brim. He’d been mad to think his life might change. That somehow Maria could “save” him.

No one could save him.

“I don’t care about Gran and her ultimatum,” Minerva said. “But I do care about Maria. And she cares aboutyou.”

“Then she’s a fool,” he said hoarsely. “Besides, if she cared, she wouldn’t have run off after Hyatt.”

“I still say that she—”

“Stay out of it, Minerva.” He swallowed a healthy measure of brandy. “She made her choice. It’s over.”

She snorted and marched off in a huff. He stood there drinking, trying to get to that pleasantly numb state where nothing mattered, where he didn’t think about Maria and last night, and the sweet way she’d given him her innocence . . .

He downed the rest of the brandy. She was gone, blast it! He should be elated that he’d escaped the fetters of wedlock.

“Damn it all to hell!” He slammed his empty glass on the table.

“Oh, that will certainly help the situation,” Gran said behind him.

Just what he needed—another female plaguing him. Ignoring her, he poured himself more brandy.

“She said you would behave like this,” Gran went on. “That you would not care about her leaving, that you would congratulate yourself on a narrow escape.”

He drank his brandy in silence.

“I told her you would not give her up easily. I guess I was wrong.”

A bitter laugh roiled up from inside him. “It won’t work this time, Gran.”

“What won’t work?”

He faced her, arching one brow. “Your attempts to manipulate me into doing what you want. I learn from my mistakes.” And now he was paying the price for that education—this pain of loss weighting his chest, crushing his heart. “Apparently, so does Maria. That’s why she ran off the first chance she got.”

“She ran off because she’s afraid that she cannot resist you, that she cannot be near you without giving in to you. You of all people ought to recognize when a woman does not trust herself around you.”

He fought the effect her words had on him. “Whatever the reason, sheleftme. I’m not going to run after her like some halfwit.”

“So you are just going to let her American fiancé have her?”

Playing on his jealousy—another of her tactics. Unfortunately, it was working.

He gritted his teeth. “If Hyatt is the one she wants, then I can’t—” His eyes narrowed. “How did you know about her fiancé?”