Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)(29)

“Leave us,” the viscount instructed his valet. He waited until the other man was out of the room and the door closed behind him before speaking again. “It is for the best if I return home now your parents are here with you.”

“But—”

“It is but a mile by coach,” he chided gently.

Pru did not want his gentleness. She wanted Titus to stay here, where she could keep him safe.

Ridiculous to think Titus would ever really need her protection, but the thought of him leaving, of not knowing when she would see him again, was almost too much for her to bear. “I will miss you,” was the most she dared allow herself to say.

His mouth tightened. “It was foolish to think we could remain here as we were.”

Foolish or not, Pru had grown accustomed to visiting Titus in his bedchamber each morning, to spending most of the day at his side, the two of them occasionally playing cards together or, if Titus was feeling especially tired, to reading out loud to him.

It had felt right to her.

Meant to be.

Perfect.

As if it might go on forever.

Until her parents left Titus’s room a short time ago to inform her he had decided he was feeling well enough to leave today.

“How can you think of leaving after the things we have shared? Or is the reason you are going because you wish to put those intimacies behind you?” Her tone was accusing, her chin tilted in challenge rather than allowing Titus to hear her heartbreak or see her tears.

“I have things to do, Pru—”

“More important than staying here and—and recovering fully?” she substituted for what she had really wanted to say, which was being with me.

Titus’s gaze was hooded. “Stonewell informed me this morning that my men have a lead on who is responsible for killing Parker.”

“You are not well enough to go in pursuit.”

“I am well enough to direct my men as to the best way to do so.”

Pru knew of her own feelings for Titus, knew that she loved him, would always love him. Just as he was making it clear he did not feel the same way about her. He would not be leaving her if he did.

She had, after all, been nothing more than a warm and convenient female body for him to take and give pleasure to.

Much as it pained her to let him go, Pru’s pride would not allow her to resort to begging.

“Very well.” She nodded. “I trust you will send word if or when your men apprehend the murderer and he reveals his employer.”

“Of course.”

There seemed nothing more for Pru to say without making a complete fool of herself. Pride might be all she had left, but she was determined to hold on to it. “I will wish you a safe journey, then.” She gave an abrupt curtsey before departing with a swish of her skirts.

Titus drew in a long and ragged breath, his hands tightly gripping the arms of the chair he sat in to stop himself from going after her. To do so would make null and void all that he was trying to do by leaving, namely protecting Pru and her family from coming to further harm.

He had thought over this situation constantly the past four days, and leaving Pru and Germaine House, giving the impression to any who might care to know that the two of them were no longer friends, was the only way he could think of to protect her. His near proximity seemed only to have succeeded in drawing that attention to Pru and her family.

Much as it pained him to do so, Titus had decided he must make a clean break of things. Until the matter of the traitor was settled, at least. After that, he would not hold back in taking what he wanted. And what he wanted was Pru.

If his coldness toward her just now meant that she no longer wanted to be with him, then so be it. An alive-and-despising-him Pru was preferable to a dead one.

For now.



“You are moping again, darling,” Pru’s mother chided gently. “Although I doubt it is for the same reason,” she added shrewdly.

“We buried Parker today, and I am also still in mourning for Cilla,” Pru defended.

“We all mourn for Cilla and Parker,” her mother soothed. “But your restlessness these past three days and again today is not the same thing at all.”

It was now four days since Titus left Germaine House without so much as a goodbye. Not that Pru had said a proper goodbye to him either after leaving his bedchamber; she had been too angry with him at the time to stand on the steps of the house and speak polite niceties as he departed.

“It was noticeable that you and Romney did nothing more than nod a greeting to each other at the funeral today,” her mother added softly.

Pru gave her a sharp glance. Today’s funeral had been a sad affair for the household staff and the Germaine family. The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that Parker had no close family to mourn his loss or demand an explanation as to why and how he had died. The Germaine family was his family, and they mourned him as such.

She frowned. “Noticeable to whom?”

Her mother smiled ruefully. “Me, darling.”

Color bloomed in Pru’s cheeks. Her mother always had been able to discern her mood, and today it was one of anger as well as sadness. It was true she and Titus had not spoken at Parker’s funeral, but that was all Titus’s doing, not her own. Pru would have liked to approach him—reproach him, for his not having so much as written to her these past four days, even if it was only to tell her he had made no progress in his search for the traitor—but apart from that brief nod in her direction as he left the church, accompanied by the other Sinners, Titus had not acknowledged her as being anything more than a passing acquaintance.