Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(74)

It was one hell of a time to realize that his heart would be broken, that it probably already was. When had he suddenly acquired a heart? Perhaps she had not really meant her dismissal of him; perhaps she did not resent their betrothal as much as she said she did; perhaps . . .

Perhaps nothing. She had made herself perfectly clear.

He could only make an ass of himself by telling her now that he had not got over her at all, that he did not believe he ever would. He could only make a nuisance of himself by begging her to marry him anyway. Though he knew that for the sake of his children and her own he would keep pressing her to do just that.

Good God! He had just told her he killed Adeline. Which he had done.

“You will be glad,” she said. “You do not want to marry me, Marcel. It was never part of our plan. Very far from it.”

“A thousand miles from it,” he agreed. “But we are in the devil of a coil, Viola. My sister is arriving this afternoon, along with all your family. A big party is imminent. Our children appear to like one another.”

They both turned their heads to watch the three young people make their way back about the lake in the direction of the main house. Bertrand was in the middle, Estelle on one arm, Abigail on the other.

“So,” she said, “we take the easy way out and celebrate our betrothal here. And at Christmas we take the easy way out and celebrate our wedding. And then we face the rest of our lives.”

“You make it sound like a bleak prospect,” he said.

They looked at each other, and their eyes held.

“I cannot face another marriage that might be anything like my first nonmarriage, Marcel,” she said.

He winced inwardly but said nothing.

“And you—” she said, and circled the air with one hand, in search of words that would not come.

“And I am an incurable libertine,” he said.

“Well.” She frowned once more. “Aren’t you?”

“Except when I am married,” he said, “as I pointed out earlier. But I have not been married for a long, long time, and during that time I have indeed been a libertine. I daresay you are right, Viola. I daresay I am incurable.”

But he felt hurt. He wanted to beg and protest and justify. He wanted to . . .

She did not want him. She had enjoyed their idyll and had tired of it and wanted to go home. Just as he ought to have done.

Damn him for a fool for having sent his brother home in his carriage instead of going with him and forgetting the former Countess of Riverdale.

“I am going back to the house,” she told him.

“And like the gentleman I am I will escort you,” he said.

But they did not touch as they walked, or exchange another word. He was reminded of their walk back from the beach to the cottage in Devonshire. He ought to have grabbed her then before the cottage came in sight and had it out properly with her—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, just as he wanted to do now.

But it would be unfair to her and humiliating to himself to pour out his love now and his commitment to fidelity and forever-after and love eternal and all that drivel. She had tired of him. She had never given the smallest hint that she loved him or wanted a future with him.

Humility attacked him like a hammer blow to the stomach.

She did not love him. She had told him that in so many words. He was going to have to allow her to go free, to extricate herself from this mess somehow. He could not do it himself. A gentleman did not repudiate a betrothal once he had committed to it. Or once he had invited her to his own home, and all her family and his were gathering to celebrate with his neighbors.

Good God! It was enough to make the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

The walk back to the house seemed interminable.



* * *



? ? ?

After she returned from the dower house with Marcel, Viola retreated to her room and wrestled with the temptation to leave, to send word that her carriage was to be before the doors within a half hour, to send word to Abigail that she must pack up her things without delay. She wanted to be gone. She wanted to forget.

Two months or so ago she had run from Bath—to escape from the suffocating love of her family. Two days after that she had run again—to escape from herself to the mindless pleasure of a love affair with a libertine. Much good it had all done her. It had brought her to this, to an entanglement far more complicated than anything she had known before.

For this time, of course, she could not run. Estelle had gone to a great deal of trouble to plan this house party and the betrothal party tomorrow evening. And she was bubbling over with excitement, a girl of seventeen who had lived a sheltered existence with her uncle and aunt but who had longed for her father’s presence in her life and now thought she was about to get it.

She could not run. Her mother was on the way here. Camille and Joel and the children were on the way. So were Michael and Mary. So were all the Westcotts, even her former mother-in-law. Even Anna, Humphrey’s legitimate daughter. And Wren, with whom she had struck up such a lovely and unexpected friendship back in the spring. Wren was pregnant, but she was coming anyway. Viola could not possibly not be here herself when they arrived.

And there was Marcel. He had accepted reality this morning, telling her that he would not stand in the way of her announcing that there was to be no betrothal. And only she could do that, of course. Honor dictated that the man could not.