A Taste of Desire(61)

“I’ve fallen in love with you.” She slowly rose to her feet, continuing to swipe at the tears rolling down her face.

Briefly, Thomas closed his eyes. As he’d feared, she imagined herself in love with him. He quickly consoled himself with the knowledge that in a few months time she’d imagine herself similarly in love with her next protector.

Miss Grace Howell, with all her worldly airs and invulnerability—or so that’s how he’d seen it when they’d first met—didn’t have what it took to be a good mistress. She too easily became emotionally entangled. What she needed was a husband, not a protector, which was something he should have seen from the onset. But this knowledge came one bruised heart too late.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He could think of little else to say.

Instead of dissolving back into tears, she visibly collected herself and treated him to a hard glare.

“You are even more heartless than I was told. Does nothing affect you? Save your precious mother and sisters, is there not a woman you care enough about to feel anything for?”

A vision of Amelia pushed to the forefront of his thoughts, a place she tended to linger all too frequently in. He forcibly shoved it back. “I will ensure there is enough money in your account to keep you until you find a new situation. Three months should be adequate.” Three months should be more than plenty. In two weeks or less, the Earl of Chesterfield would snatch her up. He’d been waiting impatiently for Thomas to tire of her. Or so Grace had told him on more than one occasion.

“Keep your damn money.”

If he had handed her a bank draft, he could see her ripping it to pieces and crushing it under her rosette embellished slippers. As soon as he’d gone, she’d be on her knees frantically collecting every jagged scrap. Pride and anger would elicit the former reaction, practicality and logic the latter.

“I will put it in your account. Do with it as you will.” By then, her temper should have cooled.

Thomas exited her residence for the final time with the grim thought, Women are more trouble than they are worth.


Instead of an evening on silky linen sheets, Thomas sat in the small library at Cartwright’s residence on John’s Street. Each man cradled a glass of port in their hand and lounged in brocade armchairs in the respective colors of deep green and burgundy in front of a blazing marble fireplace.

“She pounced on me like a cat.” Thomas slanted a glance at his friend, feeling fatigued by the whole affair. “By tomorrow I’m sure to bear some of the scars of our encounter.”

A small mirror in the carriage had already revealed a faint bruise appearing near his jaw.

“Who the hell told you to do it in person?” Cartwright chastised, lifting his legs to rest his stockinged feet on the ottoman in front of him. “Some flowers and a note should have sufficed, or perhaps a little trinket.”

“Yes, well, it was not my intention to break it off when I set out.”

His remark drew a quirked brow from his friend, who tipped his glass back for a sip of the port. “Then why did you?” Cartwright asked, placing his drink on the redwood side table next to his chair.

Yes, why did he? Thomas had pondered that question often since he’d left Grace’s residence. He lifted his shoulders in a helpless sort of shrug. “I don’t know. I guess because I’d been getting bored with her and she was becoming too possessive. Too demanding of my time.”

“Yes, that does happen. But in your case, much sooner than usual. How long had it been with her? Six months? A year?”

“What does that matter? She’s over and done with. At present, my most pressing matter is that damn Louisa.”

“And just what has our fair duchess done now?” Cartwright asked dryly, his grey eyes alight with interest.

Thomas quickly recited what Grace had told him.

“To seek out your mistress, at her residence no less, was bold beyond words. And with her husband gone not even three months.” Cartwright tsked. “The passing years have changed her. I don’t believe she’d have attempted anything so blatant when we made her acquaintance. Although, there was the incident with Rutherford….”

Yes, the incident.

Thomas had been foolish enough to believe Louisa when she’d said she loved him and claimed she’d marry him without a shilling to his name. At that time, his bank account contained little more than that.

He’d been completely taken with her blond beauty and coquettish innocence. But her veil of innocence came down with a mighty tug when he’d caught her pressing herself up against Rutherford at a ball Thomas hadn’t been expected to attend. At first, he’d stood there in shock, hidden behind the hedgerow in the garden. Then he’d waited in growing rage and watched to see just how far she intended to go.