One Night With You (The Derrings #3)(68)

Most especially Seth's. He could go on ruining his sister's dreams for a life of love and happiness and live exactly as he pleased.

Without her. Without love.

"What do you mean she's gone?" Seth rose from his seat at the empty dining table. His sister had yet to emerge from her room, refusing to see or speak with him. Her absence for breakfast came as no surprise. Jane, however, he had hoped to find in her usual seat.

"She left yesterday, my lord."

"Why was I not informed?" he demanded, flinging his napkin on the table with unchecked violence.

The hapless butler darted a nervous look to a nearby footman. "We thought you knew, my lord." That his wife had left him? No, he did not know. Apparently he was the last to know. His fists curled at his sides. Though he might have guessed. He knew when she walked away yesterday afternoon that something had changed.

"Where has she gone?"

"I'm not certain, my lord. Although I think I heard her mention the cottage to your sister."

"My sister knew she left?" It appeared he was in fact the last to know. Nodding, he stalked from the dining room and up the stairs, determined to locate his errant wife and teach her that she could not run away from him simply because she disapproved of the way he handled matters with his sister. He would not stand for it. He wanted her back. In his bed. In his life. Regardless that she believed herself in love with him, they would go on as if she had never made that foolish declaration.

He stopped suddenly, one hand poised to knock on Julianne's door.

Dragging a hand over his face, he cursed. Haring off after Jane would show her precisely how much control she wielded over him. Too much. More than he had vowed to give any woman again.

Fine. Let her remain at the cottage. He would not go traipsing after her like some lovesick fool. Suddenly the door opened. Julianne stood there, pale and expressionless.

"I thought I heard your footsteps." Leaving the door open, she turned and moved back inside her room.

Encouraged that she was at least speaking to him, he followed her into her room, watching as she took a seat on a chaise near the window.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She snorted, smiling humorlessly. "You expect me to tell you? When you discount my feelings as whims? When you bullied the man I want to marry out of my life?"

"That is not—"

"Save your denials. You're here about Jane, aren't you? Have you only realized she just left?"

"Yes," he admitted. "Did she speak with you before she left? Did she say she was going to the cottage?"

"Yes. She felt sorry for leaving me here. With you. But I told her you could do nothing more painful than you already have, and that she needed to do what was best for her."

"You make me sound like a monster."

"Do I?" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "You're no monster. Merely a man. Flawed, to be certain. It's wonder Jane loves you."

His chest tightened at his sister's words. "She said that did she?"

"She didn't have to. It's why she left, of course." She faced the window, staring out of it almost as if she could see. "I hope you'll leave her be."

"Of course I won't." He inhaled sharply. "She's my wife."

"But you don't love her. Or won't." Julianne shrugged. "Same difference. Why do you care if you live apart from her?"

He opened his mouth to explain, then shut it with a snap.

Why do you care if you live apart from her?

Why did he? Seth thought hard, trying to formulate a reason. One he could tolerate. And not the one pushing at his carefully erected barriers.

Julianne's smug voice interrupted his anxious musings. "I thought so."

"It's not right," he snapped, scowling. "A husband and wife should live beneath the same roof." Turning on his heel, he called over his shoulder. "I'm bringing her home."

"She won't come," Julianne retorted. "And who could blame her?" She'll come, Seth vowed. He would not return without her. No matter what it took. Jane pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders at the sudden gust of wind that threatened to rip the warm chenille free. A glance to the heavens revealed dark skies rolling overhead. A storm was coming.

Turning, she headed back down the beach, intent on returning to the cottage. Her slippers sank into soft sand as she walked, disappointed that the coming storm had cut short her afternoon stroll.

The wind picked up, tearing strands of her hair free from its tidy coiffure and whipping the tendrils across her eyes. Scraping the loose hair back off her face, her vision narrowed on a figure emerging in the distance.

Her steps slowed as she watched the shape grow and take shape into a man, dark cloak whipping about him in the wind.

"No," she whispered, a heaviness settling into her chest as his face came into focus. Absurdly, she glanced left and right, as if she would take flight, as if there was somewhere to flee along the thin stretch of shore.

Deciding to hold her ground, she stopped, not taking another step as he advanced on her, the grim lines of his face becoming alarmingly visible.

At last, he was upon her. She noted her fingers had grown numb where they clutched her shawl around her.

Before she had any idea what she meant to say, she blurted, "Go away." A muscle rippled along his jaw. One word escaped him, hard and biting. "Never."