Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (Scandalous Seasons #1)(53)

“I believed you had come to care for me, Drake. Would you have me believe that you do not?” She reached for him and he flinched. A laugh that sounded half-mad to her own ears escaped her. “Have I been so wrong about us?”

He didn’t respond.

“You can’t even have the decency to answer me that?” The words were desperate. “What game do you play? Why would you send round a note and ask me to meet you here if—?”

There was a flash of surprise in Drake’s expression. “What note?”

And then she knew. Her breath whistled between her teeth. “Oh God, you didn’t send it.”

A dull, throbbing pain came from somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, a heart she was certain had already withered inside her. Her hand went to her chest. The organ continued to beat. Odd, the rhythm seemed too steady and strong for someone dying.

She dropped to a knee and with fingers that quivered, fished an envelope from the drawstring bag. Her hands shook so badly she clumsily dropped the note. The scrap fluttered forlornly to the ground.

Drake bent down and swiftly rescued it. He perused the note he’d been purported to have written.

His brow furrowed while he scanned the parchment and then his eyes glazed over with a haze of fury. And she had her confirmation.

She wanted to flee, turn on her heel and be spared this humiliation.

Wordlessly, he stuffed the note back into its envelope and handed it back to her. On legs that trembled, she rose without assistance. Dazed eyes remained focused on her name scrawled across the thick ivory vellum, because then she didn’t have to look at the black rage in his expression.

Emmaline was possessed of a violent urge to tear up the piece. She wanted to rail at herself for not recognizing the scrawl as similar to other notes she’d received these past weeks from Lord Sinclair. Hated herself for seeing only that which she’d wanted to see.

“I—I allowed myself to hope.” And hope had clouded her reason.

“Sinclair?” he asked tersely.

Emmaline looked away.

***

Drake cursed.

He would bloody murder Sinclair.

“Why ever would he send that note?” Then it hit him with all the force of a bayonet to the gut. All along it had been Sinclair. “It all makes sense.”

She blinked at him with soulful brown eyes. “What makes sense?”

A cynical laugh burst from his chest. “Don’t play coy with me. You schemed with Sinclair. It was he who informed you of my whereabouts this Season.” He’d been betrayed by his closest friend and his betrothed.

“I assure you I couldn’t manage coy if I tried,” she snapped.

“But you could manage deceitful.”

Her delicate palms curled into little fists at her side and he thought she might hit him which really would be no less than he deserved.

She sucked in a deep breath. “Really, Drake? Is that how you see me? As some kind of maniacal scheming debutante?”

An image of Sinclair and Emmaline closeted away trickled into his consciousness. He imagined them laughing while they planned to trap him. The idea of them, plotting behind his back, sent rage spiraling. He was besieged by a tumult of emotions and couldn’t sort whether it was jealousy of her closeness with Sin or anger at the good laugh they’d had behind his back.

“What fun you must have had at my expense.” Filled with a restive energy he presented her with his back and stepped away.

“Has it really been so awful being in my company?”

He ran a hand across his face and swung back around. “So you enlisted Sin’s aid to ascertain my plans each evening. I understand your means of conspiring against me. Your intention was to force my hand, but Sinclair?”

“Bah. Why can’t you believe Sin was just trying to help you because he believes we belong together?”

He arched a brow. “I am rather surprised he accepted your appeal for support. Subterfuge is not really one of Sin’s traits.”

Emmaline folded her arms indignantly across her chest. “But it is one of mine? My, what a low opinion you have of me. If I were a violent woman, I would slap you. I suggest you speak to Lord Sinclair for the answers to your questions.” She tilted her chin at a mutinous little angle. “You are a beast,” she spat.

He tipped his head in assent. “Truer words were never spoken.”

A near hysterical hiccough of laughter burst from her lips. “Did you ever really care for me?”

Drake studied Emmaline. The tightness around her mouth, her lips dipped down at the corners indicated that she was wavering between fury and despair. How dare she take on the role of the offended party? She had after all been duplicitous. He owed her no apologies.

Yet still…when her lush red lips trembled in that forlorn way, he wanted to knock himself out for being the cause of her pain. He hated himself for hurting her, even if ultimately it would be best for Emmaline. Then all false illusions she carried of him being an honorable gentleman deserving of her love could be at last squashed.

He closed the short distance between them with long, determined strides. Emmaline backed away. “Come Emmaline, am I to believe this plan you crafted was designed out of love for me? That it had nothing to do with your ultimate goal of marriage?”

“How little you think of me,” she snapped and then took a bold step toward him, so only a hand of distance remained between them.