After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(29)

He hated that “I believe in you, you can do it” was the way that his uncle said “no, no, under no circumstances will I come to your aid.” He hated it.

He hated that if Grayson saw this exchange, he’d raise his eyebrow, and Adrian would know that he was thinking that he had told him so.

Adrian exhaled.

No. No. If he believed just a little longer—if he did the impossible—it would all work out.

Still, he tried one last time. He had to try, even though he knew that pushing the matter was already futile.

YOU PROMISED, he sent to his uncle.

He drank beer while he waited for one last response—not so much that he lost his senses, of course, but enough that he felt his thinking beginning to fog at the edges. Enough that the connections his mind made started to loosen. Enough that he stared at Alabi’s sketches that he’d put in his notebook and actually tried to make something of them with his own pencil. He couldn’t draw at all. He made nothing but a mess.

It was afternoon by the time the response came. Adrian had nothing to show for his time but sketches of lopsided bears, alongside some ideas he had about his uncle’s problems.

I ALWAYS KEEP MY PROMISES, his uncle’s final telegram said.

BUT SO DO YOU

AM COUNTING ON YOU

Damn it. Somehow, somewhere, Adrian had to find a way to obtain the proof of wrongdoing that he needed. He was going to get it—there were no two ways about it. But until then…

He glanced at his notebook.

Disguise? he had written. The word stood next to a giant dark misshapen lump that was supposed to be a hibernating bear. Household informants? Illegal entry?

Nothing sounded right. In lieu of a plan, he sent his brother a telegram full of lies.

EVERYTHING GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN

JUST A LITTLE WHILE LONGER

WILL RETURN TO HARVIL TO FINISH DESIGNS SOON

AND TELL YOU ALL AFTER

There. Now he was committed.

He’d figure this puzzle out. He had to do so.

There was a more immediate question that he needed to address. It would have been easy if he had been returning to the inn to simply tell Miss Winters that they’d be off to Gainshire the next day, and they’d have an annulment by the end of the week.

Now?

Now Adrian had to figure out how to tell the woman who wasn’t his wife that she was going to have to continue not being his wife for a while longer.





Chapter Nine





“You know, dear. You must face the truth. He’s left and he isn’t coming back.”

Camilla was in the kitchen at the inn where she’d spent the night.

It had taken two hours for the truth to come out. In the first hour, the innkeeper’s wife, one Mrs. Lawson, had made helpful suggestions for further conveyances to take Camilla on to her destination in Lower…where had Mr. Hunter claimed she was heading again? She couldn’t recall.

Mrs. Lawson had mentioned guides, helpful farmers going to market, even directions to follow on foot. That was back when she’d believed the story about Camilla being a governess who had become lost.

Then the truth had arrived in the form of gossip.

Mrs. Lawson had come out to where Camilla was sitting, waiting and watching the road for Mr. Hunter’s return.

“Miss Winters?” she had asked. “Lately of Rector Miles’s employ?”

That was it; the truth was known. Camilla had sighed.

Mrs. Lawson sat beside her. “I know what’s happened to you.”

If she had been cruel, Camilla could have held up. Instead, the sheer weight of her unwanted kindness, the sincere depths of sympathy she showed at Camilla’s fall from half-grace, nearly undid her.

“I should have known,” Mrs. Lawson said. “He did seem to have a bit of a golden tongue. Knew precisely what to say and when to say it, didn’t he?”

“That’s just what he is like,” Camilla replied, a little too earnestly. “It doesn’t make him dishonest.”

“And how long have you known him?”

Four days, Camilla did not say. She didn’t have to; the woman had heard the gossip.

“We are women, dear.” She said it gently. “And I know you’re still almost a child—”

“I’ve just turned twenty. I’m hardly a child.”

Mrs. Lawson just clucked her tongue. “If you insist, of course. We’re women, dear. It’s not an easy world for us, if we lie to ourselves. Your Mr. Hunter said he’d be back before noon, and it’s almost four. He’s gone. He’s not coming back. You must face reality.”

No, Camilla wanted to say. He’s coming back. He said he would.

The alternative—that he had lied and already joined the crowd of people who had abandoned her—was too cruel.

Deep down, rationally, she was sure that Mrs. Lawson was right. The story he’d told last night…it should have beggared belief.

His uncle was a bishop? His grandfather, a duke? He was pretending to be a valet? She’d believed him because he gave her kind words and enough coin to pay her shot at the inn.

Logically, she knew that half a pound was a low price for ridding oneself of a wife.

“You can’t stay,” Mrs. Lawson said, ever so kindly, “not for long. One more night’s stay may be seen as charity on my part. But I’m known for running a respectable establishment. Have you no family you could go to?”