Page 77 of Miss Delancey’s Tragicomedy

“A what?”

“Nothing.” She sounded irked. “We were introduced at the Barringtons’ ball.”

Both slowed their carriages so that they could exchange greetings. Trentham was convinced Grenville smirked nastily. But the interaction was short and they both rode on.

“Did you love her?” Miss Delancey blurted, startling him.

“What? Who?”

“The lady with whom you had your affair.”

“Fanny?” Good God! She already knew?

“Is there more than one?”

“What! No! Fanny was the only—who told you?” Not Lynch. Eli? No, he couldn’t believe it of Eli either.

Miss Delancey looked miserable, twisting her hands together, biting her lip. “Lady Melvin,” she said at last. “She called you a wayward man. I assumed an affair.”

She hadn’t known. She’d been fishing and he grabbed the bait. What was he supposed to say now?

“It’s a long, complicated story.”

“Did you love her?” she asked again.

“I did not.” He took a slow breath. Would she prefer that he had? Would that be a better excuse? “Frankly, I didn’t even like her.”

She slapped her palm on the bench. “You must have!”

“She was loud and boorish.” He knew he sounded disdainful, but he wasn’t being haughty without cause. “Lynch says she’d set her cap for me, but it wasn’t that. She wanted a title. Any title. Gilliam would not have had to coerce her to marry Lord Stanley. He was a viscount.”

But the unfortunate girl hadn’t expected her husband to be drunk half the time, nasty, and violent. Trentham’s mind flashed from Fanny to Felicity. From Lord Stanley to Sir George. Anger flared, then died.

His mistake had been to treat his old friend’s sister kindly, with sympathy, at a house party in the country.

No. His mistake had been to sleep with her.

He’d gone over this and over it in the years since. He hadn’t known, and never would know, Fanny’s motive. Maybe she’d wanted to make Stanley a figure of ridicule. The only revenge possible. In the end, it didn’t matter. Except, he hoped she hadn’t cared for him. That would make it all worse.

“Gilliam was her brother?”

He nodded tersely. This was not the way he’d intended to make his confession.

“Was she…was she very beautiful?”

“No.” He could barely remember her face. “She was pretty enough, I suppose. But not beautiful.”

“Then why? I don’t care about her reasons. Only yours. Didn’t it matter to you that she had a husband?”

He shook his head. “Obviously, it did not.” Seeing her frown of reproach, he said, “I don’t want to spout excuses. They mean nothing now. But I hope you’ll believe I’ve never made a habit of sleeping with other men’s wives.”

“You didn’t like her. You didn’t find her beautiful. You didn’t ‘make a habit’ of seducing married women. So why?”

They’d reached the park. Rather than answer, he feigned concentration on steering through the entrance gate and choosing a narrow, shaded path, scented with spring wildflowers. The romance of the setting mocked him.

They rode in silence for several minutes, minutes that seemed more like hours as the horses clip-clopped along, and he searched for the right words. The truth was embarrassing, crass, and inappropriate to tell a lady. Still, she was waiting. Well, then—the truth. He cleared his throat. “This is no excuse, but it was a decade ago. I was twenty years old. She offered me sex. That is it. That is the entirety of my explanation.”

Her brow puckered again. “I don’t understand.”