AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Robert’s features showed a look of immense pain before hardening into a disdainful mask. ‘You deny your part. You contend that you had nothing to do with the elopement. And you expect me to believe that.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Henri clasped her hands together and tried to hang on to that flash of vulnerability, rather than his avenging-angel look. Somewhere inside him that passionate lover of earlier today lurked and had to be listening to her and believing.
She waited, but his look grew colder and more remote. Her words of denial had fallen on deaf ears. Henri attempted to swallow around the growing lump in her throat. He’d no finer feeling for her. For him, it had all been physical need. And for her, it had been an expression of emotion, a desire to be close to him. Despite her vows and declarations, she’d done the unthinkable—she’d fallen in love. The knowledge tasted like ash in her mouth. But in that instant she knew she could never let him know. She couldn’t risk being hurt again.
Keeping her gaze on a point above his shoulder, she started again in a voice that picked up strength and purpose with each word that she uttered. ‘I’d no idea that they were going to run away together. I thought the romance was dead. Sophie seemed far more interested in Doctor Lumley than an ageing rake, which is what she called Sebastian on the last morning I was at the New Lodge. I told Sebastian this. I told him to grow up and solve his problems on his own.’
She was proud of the way she finished. She waited for his abject apology.
‘Your protestation of innocence grows increasingly wearisome, Lady Thorndike.’ He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away from him. His mobile mouth, which only a few hours before had kissed her senseless, was now an angry white line, his eyes hardened points of coal instead of multicoloured pools.
Henri’s insides twisted. He believed her guilty without even waiting for her explanation. It was as if what lay between them was irrevocably shattered, leaving only bitterness and resentment. And she knew she would miss that ease and friendship. She was bereft and alone. Unjustly accused. And her brilliant idea of it only being the physical that she cared about was a foolish lie. It had gone beyond the physical for her. She had cared and cared deeply for Robert, and his refusal to believe her hurt far more than it should.
‘Why shouldn’t I when I am innocent?’ she retorted in a furious undertone.
‘Innocent? You?’ Robert shook his head as he struggled to hang on to his temper. Henri was lying through her teeth and he wanted to know why she cared so little for him. ‘It’s clear what happened and how you two conspired. The poor stupid man will be so blinded by Lady Thorndike’s attention that he will not even notice what is going on beneath his nose. Will not even notice until it is far too late. How do you think that makes me feel?’
Henri twisted in his grasp, but he clung on, wanting her to admit the truth. He wanted to shake her or to kiss her senseless. Anything to get her to tell him the truth. ‘You have it all wrong. Now let me go!’
Lady Cawburn advanced towards them. Her widow’s cap quivered as she reached for the poker. ‘Mr Montemorcy, stop assaulting my niece!’
The words shocked him back to sensibility. He released her, not knowing who he loathed more—Henri for deceiving him or himself for losing his temper.
‘Forgive me, my emotions overcame me.’
Henri stumbled away from him. She wrapped her arms about her middle and tried to keep her heart from breaking into a thousand shards. Robert wanted to believe the worst of her.
‘I wish I could help, but I had no idea this was going to happen,’ she said, blinking furiously. She refused to humiliate herself further and beg. ‘I’ve not left this house all day. You were here earlier. Do you think I could keep something like this hidden from you? I’m dreadful at keeping secrets, truly I am.’
‘I know where you were this morning, and that I was with you. You summoned me.’ He paused and his gaze travelled slowly and insolently down her, as if he were remembering every curve of her body. A hot flush crept up Henri’s body. ‘The note purporting to be from Sophie is not in her hand, but in the same hand as the note I received this morning from you, asking me to visit and discuss the proposed picnic.’
‘I wrote no note.’ A deep chill entered her bones. He had called because a note had been sent in her name, a note written by the same person who had penned the one from Sophie. Sebastian had set her up. He had been the one to play Cupid, not her aunt. This was his doing, everything, and she’d blundered into a trap. ‘Show me the note and I will prove it is not in my hand.’
