“I make excuses when she asks for you,” she hissed. “Iliedto mymotherfor you and told her you were doing business on the continent. She thinks everything is fine between us, despite ample evidence to the contrary, and I have no intention of disabusing her of the notion. After everything our family has been through, knowing my husband had abandoned me would break her.”
Pain burst behind his solar plexus, and he lifted his hand to press it against his chest. “Lily—”
“Whatever you have to say, make it quick.”
He dug his hands through his hair, then shook the damp from his fingers. “I don’t want to do this now. It’s complicated.”
Her jaw ticked. “Un-complicate it, then.”
As often as he’d rehearsed what he’d say, facing her now, with years of work and pain behind him as he prepared for this moment, his words failed him, his mind wiping clean.
So he spoke from his heart. “I know how much it hurt you when I left, but I don’t regret what I did, only the way I did it. I know it’s unforgivable—”
“You’re right.”
His stomach flipped. Howcould she understand when he’d barely started?
“You’re right,” she repeated, stalking forward. “What you did was unforgivable. I woke up the morning after our wedding to an empty bed, to anotefrom my husband saying he was leaving toprotect me.” She pressed her palm to his sternum and pushed hard.
He thought his lungs might collapse. “The decision was in your best interest—”
“My best interest?” She recoiled and flung her arms out to the side. “How was leaving me, a new bride, in my best interest? I had to explain to everyone,” she gestured towards where he presumed her family was gathered, “that my husband had disappeared because ofme!”
His fingers twitched with the need to hold her, to offer the comfort he’d denied her all these years. “It wasn’t because of you. It was me—”
“Is everything all right, Lily?”
A giant of a man marched into the foyer with—was that Marigold?—trailing behind. He angled himself between Lily and Philip and crossed his arms over his broad chest. Marigold’s brows were furrowed and her hands tangled in her skirts. This must be the barrister who’d helped her divorce her horrid husband.
Lily’s mouth worked for a moment before she nodded stiffly. “Thank you, Archie,” she said softly, cutting her gaze to her sister. “I’m fine. I’llbe in to dinner shortly.”
Archie glared for one moment longer before taking Marigold’s hand and guiding her towards the dining room, glancing over his shoulder more than once.
When Philip looked back at Lily, her expression had softened the slightest bit as she watched her sister depart. “You don’t know this,” she said, as though each word pained her, “but my sister’s husband abused her and her boys. She’s only just divorced, and her children have never had a proper Christmas.”
He knew all of this, as he’d followed the case through the newspapers and used his contacts to ensure her former husband would never be welcome in a decent home in England again.
“We were nearly destitute until recently,” she continued, “and my mother and father were wrecks.”
He knew this as well; Timothy had told him every detail, and he’d utilized funds from the earldom, via Timothy’s investments, to shore up the Redbourne Viscountcy. “I’m aware—”
“And I will not let your arrival destroy the happiness my family deserves. Is that clear?”
As though he had any intention of causing the Waverlys—Lily in particular—any more harm than he already had.
“I swear I’ll cause no trouble for your family.” He infused his words with an earnestness he felt in his bones, but she scoffed and shook her head. “And I’ll promise you one more thing.”
He took a step closer until she had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. Her pulse thrummed beneath the delicate skin of her throat.
“By Christmas day, you’ll be my wife again.”
The intensity in her expression faltered, and he glimpsed the woman he’d fallen in love with. But she shuttered so quickly, he wondered if he’d imagined seeing it.
“I believe nothing you promise.”
Chapter 3
Usingasilverforkto stab herself in the leg was poor manners, but Lily supposed it was better than stabbing her husband. Because at that moment, seated at the obscenely grand dining room table and surrounded by her family, that pinprick of pain was the only thing keeping her from either running from the room or dissolving into a puddle of tears under the tablecloth.
