Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(76)

But now, a different sort of blur descended upon Sebastian. Words rattled about in his mind, attempting to form into coherent thoughts. The anger crashing through him wouldn’t allow a complete sentence to form. The words, separately, meant little.

Trousers. That explained the fortune she’d spent at an establishment owned by a Madame Blanc. Wild parties. And that absolutely explained the thousands of pounds in expenditures he’d noticed disappearing from his accounts. He read on. Scandal. Artists and playwrights. The Earl of Bolton.

Trousers. Goddamn it. The Earl of bloody Bolton?

The image of Bolton touching Daisy—of taking her in his arms and kissing her soft pink lips, of hearing her satisfied sighs and stripping away her layers and losing himself in her delectable body—made him want to smash his fist through the table. Through a wall. Through the Earl of Bolton’s fucking face.

What had she said that first night at the Beresford ball?

Thank you for your unnecessary concern, Your Grace, but foxes don’t frighten me. They never have.

The devil. If she had allowed Bolton to touch so much as her hand, he’d… What would he do? Hadn’t he left her behind without a word? He’d been gone nearly three months, a far longer span of time than the fortnight he’d known her. His fault. He had pushed her away. He had chosen duty over her.

But if the contents of the report were to be believed, she was faithless. A soul-crushing ire seared through him at the thought. She could have waited for him to return. By God, she’d claimed to love him. Lies, whispered a voice inside his mind. She lied to you. What other lies did she tell?

He tamped down the bile. Forced himself to calm. Took a breath. Two.

There. He felt nothing. Thank Christ Carlisle had chosen to deliver this report in private while Griffin was out reconnoitering with some men from the Home Office. And then, he felt something again. Sudden and explosive, directly in the vicinity of his chest.

“The Earl of Bolton? Tell me, Carlisle. Is she fucking the Earl of Bolton?” He hadn’t meant to snarl out those particular questions to the brick wall of a man staring him down. But they’d emerged, raw and visceral, from somewhere deep within him.

“Likely bewitched Bolton the same way she’s bewitched you,” Carlisle said, his tone sour. “Does she have a magical cunny?”

Sebastian clenched his fists. He would not strike the leader of the League. He would not. “Go to hell.”

Carlisle raised a brow. “Perhaps we ought to ask Bolton.”

Sebastian launched himself from his chair so forcefully that it toppled over behind him. He was going to beat Carlisle to a pulp. “Fuck you, Carlisle.”

“I once thought you unshakeable.” Carlisle whistled, cocking his head to consider him as though viewing him for the first time. “The man who survived a fire and an assassin’s blade brought low by a conniving bit of American skirts. But do read on, Trent. It would appear there’s someone else who may have enjoyed her ample charms as well.”

Damn Carlisle. He was like a lion pawing at a mouse, and Sebastian couldn’t shake the feeling that part of the man enjoyed this. Enjoyed tormenting him. His body teemed with fury and the need to smash something or someone. Belatedly, his training returned to him. He forced the tight muscles of his body to relax, his face to become expressionless. If Carlisle meant to provoke him into doing something stupid, he wouldn’t facilitate the bastard.

Sebastian caught the report back up and hurriedly scoured the contents, returning to the last three paragraphs he’d missed. The blood turned to ice in his veins.

Padraig McGuire called upon Her Grace and was received upon four separate occasions, the first lasting one quarter of an hour, the next lasting twenty minutes, one-half hour the third…

The remainder of the report swirled before his eyes. She had been closeting herself with her former betrothed. A dangerous man, and one that perhaps she had never stopped loving. Betrayal, sharp and sudden as any blade, twisted through him.

He was going to kill McGuire.

When the time came, he would savage him and take great pleasure in it. A knife to the gut, maybe, after water torture. But Daisy… What the hell would he do with his beautiful vixen of a wife if the report was true? Bolton and McGuire? Trousers and scandal? It sounded much like the Daisy Vanreid he’d first met.

Perhaps that was the real Daisy. Mayhap everything had been a lie, from her father’s abuse to her fear. Had that sickening scene with Vanreid the day after their wedding been staged for his benefit?

Dear God, his wife was courting ruin and taking lovers. The last few months he’d spent away from her, he’d been a man torn between his duty and the woman he’d married. How many nights had his thoughts strayed to her? How many times had he longed for her scent, the sight of her burnished curls, her mouth and body ripe beneath his? How desperately had he ached for the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand? How thoroughly had his love for her eaten him alive?

And all the while, she’d been scheming and taking other men to bed. In his own bloody home. Was it possible that the entire time he’d thought he was using her, she had in fact been using him? The notion was too ugly to contemplate, the implications too far-reaching and severe.

His stupid, bloody heart thudded in his chest. Had everything been a ruse? If it had, he needed to be put down like a lame horse. How could his instincts about her have been so wrong? How could he love someone capable of such deception, he who had been trained better than anyone to recognize even the most cunning subterfuge?