He’d never known her to look so uncomfortable as she nodded and managed to turn the wedding ring on her finger while still holding on to her glass of wine. “His heart gave out. While he was in bed with a woman nearly thirty years his junior. She was all of two and twenty. He hadn’t the stamina to keep up with her apparently. Serves him right, I say.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She traced a finger around the rim of her glass, her cheeks blossoming into a dark pink hue. “I enjoyed your company. You made me laugh, and I was very much in need of a laugh. And while we never journeyed to your bed, still you made me feel as thoughI was enough for those few hours every Wednesday night. I’ve seen forty-one years, twenty of those with a man who married me for my dowry and spent that money purchasing baubles for other ladies, but never for me. At the time of his death, I’d been seeing you for barely a month, but already you knew my favorite flower, my favorite wine, my favorite authors. I wasn’t ready to give up someone who appreciated the small details of me. I hope you can forgive me for my selfishness. You are a young man who probably would have preferred spending those evenings with someone nearer your age—your fellow Chessmen whom you’ve told me so much about and, of course, the ladies.”
Setting his glass aside, he rose, walked over to the sofa, and sat beside her. Placing his arm around her, he drew her up against his side. “Nothing to forgive. You had a need, Chastity, and I’m glad to have been of service.”
“Are you quite sure you’re not a little bit in love?”
“With you? Absolutely.”
She laughed lightly. “No, I meant with the maid. I could have sworn there was an attraction between you, so palpable that I felt it thrumming around you.”
“She was here under false pretenses and would have told the world what she saw.”
“Which is what you wanted.”
“Yes, but”—releasing his hold on her, he got up and stalked to the fireplace—“whoever she was, she wasn’t who I thought she was.”
“Not at all?”
He swung around and tried not to glare too forcefully. “Why are you haranguing me with mentions of her?”
“Because perhaps there is more truth between the two of you than you realize.”
He didn’t want to consider their time at the Fair and Spare when she’d known no one was waiting in a bedchamber for him, when she’d not been spying on him because there had been no information for her to gather on him at the club. Nor did he want to think about the kiss, the raw power of it, when for those few minutes she hadn’t needed to snoop on him and he hadn’t needed to pretend to be having an affair. The way she’d looked at him, the way he’d wanted to touch her. It had felt real, so damned real. And then in the carriage when he’d been unable to resist...
“Whom do they think you’ve murdered?” Chastity asked.
“The husband of a woman I was striving to help.”
“But you’ll be proven innocent?”
“Yes, of course. It’s well on its way to that happening. Otherwise, they’d have already arrested me.”
Although what he was fairly certain they were doing was watching him. He’d noticed a couple of fellows trailing him when he’d gone out yesterday afternoon for a visit with his tailor. And last night, he’d noticed a man smoking and leaning against a lamppost across the street. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone, but since he was there for at least a couple of hours, Bishop thought it was likely he was waiting on him.
“I should so hate for you to come to a bad end. Perhaps you should hire a detective to help you prove your innocence,” Chastity said.
He offered her a mocking grin. “I suppose you have a particular one in mind?”
She laughed lightly. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”
“I doubt she would even see me. We didn’t part ways on the best of terms.”
“I feel rather certain that you can charm her into forgiveness.”
He almost objected to her notion that the fault was his, but he shouldn’t have brought Marguerite pleasure when he’d known he was going to deliver her to her aunt’s with the hope of never seeing her again. But it was the very notion of never seeing her again that had driven him to cross over to her side of the carriage, because he couldn’t bear the thought of spending the remainder of his life wondering what it would feel like to have her shattering with ecstasy in his arms. In the end he’d taken things further than he’d intended, even if she’d been more than willing to welcome him.
Their relationship had started as a game he’d been intent on winning. Yet standing there, with Chastity’s raised brow and knowing smirk directed his way, he felt as though Marguerite had struck the final blow and left him on the battlefield bloodied and tattered but determined to make a last stand.
Chapter 15
Monday morning, dressed in a dark green frock that was appropriate for a woman of business, Daisy gave her aunt a hug before climbing into the carriage that would convey her to her office. She’d slept fitfully every night since Bishop had delivered her to her aunt’s residence.
It hurt to discover that he didn’t trust her. It made her feel as though the basis for their relationship had been a fabrication—except for their time at the Fair and Spare, the few minutes when she’d been tending to his injured hand, and those moments in the former brothel when she’d learned the truth of him, when they’d been so near to each other, when their lips had merged with the impact of molten lead being forged into something new.
That was how she’d felt. That she was no longer who she’d been but had irrevocably been altered into someone else. It had been both exhilarating and frightening.
