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If only she hadn’t succumbed to Sebastian and betrayed her husband. If only she’d walked out of the sitting room when he started disrobing. If she hadn’t given in to the longing—

She sat in her bed and let sobs wrench her body as if she could physically expel her sense of responsibility. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been punished. Widowed. Pregnant. Not certain whose child she carried. Alone.

She always kept a pile of handkerchiefs beside her bed, so her tears were appropriately mopped up. Dispatched and accounted for, understood. She had loved Miles, in the same mild way that he loved her, with full awareness of each other’s foibles. They hadn’t lived together for ten years, but they were fond of each other. So missing him was part of the tears.

Guilt at being party to his death—ah, that was a greater part. She just kept wishing that she’d told Sebastian that the reconciliation with Miles was imminent. Of course he assumed it was happening at an unknown point in the future. It only made sense: every person at Lady Troubridge’s house party knew that Miles and Lady Randolph Childe had adjoining rooms. Who would ever think that Miles and she would reconcile for the sole purpose of making a child? That Miles would wish to do so immediately? Sebastian probably thought she meant that they would reconcile when they were back in London.

88 Eloisa

James

If only, if only, if only, if only. It beat in her head with every breath of air she took.

More tears, so hard-won that her chest hurt with every gasp. And all those tears couldn’t mask a feeling that she was ashamed to be having.

She missed Sebastian.

Not due to their one night, either. She missed him for his sturdy, commonsensical, aristocratic self. For all the annoying things that drove her friend Gina to distraction when she was engaged to him: his honor, his rigidity, his strength of character and mind. The way he saw straight to the heart of a problem. The way he was always controlled and practical, except—Esme thought with mingled pleasure and guilt—

except when it came to herself. Only in her presence was he consumed with passion, and only for her did he discard society’s strictures. Because Sebastian was gone. He had left for Europe in the wake of a howling scandal. He had told everyone he had mistaken the room when he entered Esme’s chamber, that he thought he was entering the room of his supposed wife: Gina. Except he wasn’t even truly married to Gina, that he had tried to hoodwink the Duchess of Girton with a false marriage certificate because he wanted to bed her and not wed her. It was just like her darling, honorable Sebastian: in one blow, he saved her reputation and allowed Gina to return to the husband she really wanted. Gina sailed to Greece with her beloved Cam, and Esme retired to the country to mourn. And Sebastian, rigid, proper, honorable Sebastian, sailed to Europe, his reputation in shreds. All England believed him unmasked as an arch villain, so desperate to bed the duchess that he tricked her into believing he had a special license. The ton dined out for months on the duchess’s lucky escape: why, if Sebastian Bonnington hadn’t mistook the Duchess of Girton’s bedchamber and ended up in the bedchamber of Lord and Lady Rawlings, why . . . he would Fool for Love

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have succeeded in bedding the duchess without the benefit of marriage.

That was the irony of it. Esme was the loose one, the one whose reputation deserved to be ruined, who should be living on the Continent, exiled and alone. But Sebastian had sacrificed himself and his reputation, and made himself a pariah in the eyes of his countrymen. So now Sebastian was somewhere in the world, alone. Or perhaps not alone. Now that he knew desire, and he knew pleasure, surely he would find a beautiful woman to marry. A woman who would understand immediately that he was honorable, and understand why he created the story about the wedding license, the one that sent him into exile. That woman would probably rejoice, in fact, because the scandal brought him to her.

And if Sebastian had a thought for the infamous Esme Rawlings, it would only be with a moue of distaste at his own stupidity, for by seducing her, he had ruined his life. These tears were bitter, and they tasted of heartbreak.

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The Next Morning

Tears and Secrets Are the Best of Friends Lady Rawlings’s morning parlor was utterly charming, and by all rights occupants should feel frolicsome, if not joyous. Henrietta paused for a moment and savored the way the sun danced through rose gauze curtains and sent rosy streaks of light across the floor.

That was before she took a look at Lady Rawlings herself. The elegant leader of the ton had a pallid complexion and shadows under her eyes, neither of which were complemented by lemony yellow wallpaper.

“I have chosen the wrong moment to pay you a visit,”

Henrietta said. “I had offered to help Mr. Darby choose a nursemaid, but I could easily—”

“Absolutely not!” Her hostess tried to smile and failed.

“Please do sit down, Lady Henrietta. I’m certain Simon will be down directly. May I offer you some tea?”

Henrietta sat down beside her hostess and watched as a tear rolled off Lady Rawlings’s beautifully shaped nose.

“When Mrs. Raddle in the village was enceinte,” she said in a conversational sort of way, “her husband swore that he Fool for Love

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would never allow her to have another child. She screamed at him like a fishwife the entire time.”

“Truly?” Lady Rawlings handed her a cup of tea and mopped up the fugitive tear with a soggy handkerchief.

“I heard her myself,” Henrietta said. “Poor Mr. Raddle was a bit stout, and first his wife called him a gammonfaced glutton, and then she accused him of being hogbuttocked. It was some six years ago, but I’ve never forgotten the magnificent phrase hog-buttocked.” She put down her tea. Tears were falling faster and faster down Lady Rawlings’s face.

“Oh dear.” Her hostess smiled in a miserable sort of way.