Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(58)

‘Then I will not bind you against your will.’

‘Thank you.’ The words sounded distant as if it was not Arabella who had spoken them, but someone else far away. She did not even feel like she was really there in the room, but was standing outside of her body watching a tragedy unfold before her.

His eyes were glacial, but she knew they only masked a hurt deeper than her own. ‘Then let us sort the practicalities of this separation.’

‘There is nothing to sort. We will leave tonight and go to the village of Woodside; we lived there for a while when Henry was still alive.”

‘Oh, no, Arabella. You will wait until morning and then you will go to Amersham, to the cottage you once shared with your family.’

‘I—’ she started but Dominic cut her off.

‘The deeds of the cottage are already in your name, Arabella. It was to have been one of my wedding gifts to you. And do not refuse me, for I tell you that this is one of the stipulations by which I will release you.’

He had bought her the cottage. She batted the thought away, knowing she could not afford to let it in, not yet. Her mind felt frozen, but she could feel the great cracks that were spreading across the ice and she knew the barrier would not hold for much longer.

‘And your other stipulations?’ Second by second. It was nearly done.

‘Archie is my son and I mean to provide for him and keep both him and his mother safe. You will never go near a bordello again. Do you understand, Arabella?’

‘Yes.’ She understood what he still thought. She had never told him the truth. That there had only been that one night. That there had only ever been him.

‘I will provide you with an allowance and I will visit Archie regularly. A boy needs a father, Arabella.’

‘But—’ What would Mr Smith say to that?

‘But nothing. These are my conditions. I will agree to nothing less.’

His eyes were hard as flint. His jaw was clamped and resolute. She knew he meant exactly what he said. Smith had specified that she must not marry Dominic nor be his mistress, and that she must leave London. There had been no mention of anything else, although she did not trust what the villain would do if he came to hear of it.

‘It will be as you say.’ She could not hurt him or Archie any more than she had to. Hurting them to save them. Breaking Dominic’s heart to save his life. Such cruel irony.

‘Take the coach and what servants you will. I will close up this house when you are gone.’

She lifted the little red-leather box from beside the candlestick on the table and opened the lid to reveal the Arlesford betrothal ring nestled inside upon the cream velvet. In the dim light of the drawing room the sapphire had turned from a clear sky blue to a deep inky black as if it was in mourning. The diamonds glittered and winked in the flickering light of the solitary candle. She held the box out to him.

He hesitated for just a moment before taking it from her. The lid shut with a snap and he slipped it into his coat pocket.

‘Goodbye, Arabella.’ His eyes met hers and what she saw in them broke her heart into a thousand pieces. She did not trust herself to speak as she stood there barely hanging on to the shreds of her self-control.


He turned and walked away. And she just stood there, facing straight ahead at the paintings on the wall. She heard the click of the door shutting. Heard him speak to Gemmell and then his footsteps receding along the passageway. The front door closed with a slam that reverberated throughout the whole house. Only then did the ice barrier shatter as the great tide of raw emotion swept right through her, ravaging her with its ferocity. And she felt, absolutely felt, every last bit of what she had just done.

Arabella fell down to her knees and began to sob. She had saved the man she loved and their son, but at a cost so great she did not know if she could bear it. Arabella put her head in her hands and wept all the harder.

Chapter Seventeen



Dominic was in his study in Arlesford House sitting at his desk with all of the paperwork pertaining to Curzon Street open before him. He knew he should be checking through the details. But he barely noticed the letters. He was thinking of Arabella and that terrible last scene between them.

Over the subsequent days the shock and initial flare of reaction had diminished enough for him to at least begin to think straight. He was still hurt and angry beyond words, but he was also aware of an underlying feeling that something was not right. Not that anything could be right about her jilting him, again, or looking him in the eye to tell him that she did not love him. But he could not rid himself of the notion that there was something else, something that held the key to why Arabella had suddenly changed her mind. He revisited the scene in his head for the thousandth time, hearing her words again.

I cannot marry you. That same expression repeated again and again, so stilted, and with nothing of an explanation even though he had pushed for it. She refused to be either his wife or his mistress.

I have to go away, Dominic, away from you and away from London. Tonight.

The words had made his blood run cold, but now that he analysed them stripped of all emotion, he could see that they were all wrong.

He thought of her response to his baring his heart. She had wept as if her heart was breaking, yet she had not backed down.

And when he had told her he would not let her go she had begged. Arabella, who had led him to believe she was in a brothel out of choice, rather than reveal her dire circumstances. Arabella, who had suffered so much for the sake of her pride. Arabella, who had not begged even in the worst of her situations.