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“Even though she has your hair and your daughter’s face? Let me know when you’re at death’s door and I’ll bring Daisy to say goodbye,” Miles said. “You owe her that.”
Then he left, closing the door quietly behind him.
EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
YES, SHE’S GONE
When Hobbs opened the door to the house, Miles read his face before he said a word. “My wife left, didn’t she?” He stripped off his outer garments as the butler babbled about the baby, nappies, and rusks. At least Daisy remembered to take some food. “Where did she go?”
“I do not know, your lordship,” Hobbs said, wringing his hands. “Her ladyship insisted on taking a hackney carriage.”
“Next time, tell a groom to jump on the back,” Miles said. “Or summon two hackneys and order the second to follow her.”
“Next time?” Hobbs repeated. “My lord, you don’t understand! Lady Devin has left you. She talked—” He stopped and wiped his brow. “The truth of the matter is that she talked of annulling the marriage.”
“I’ll bring her back,” Miles said.
And consummate that marriage, so annulment isn’t an option, he added silently.
“She left you a letter in her bedchamber.”
“Right. Keep the carriage at the curb. I’ll go after her.”
“I have interviews with nannies, my lord. Should I—”
“Of course!” Miles interrupted. “Find us a good one, Hobbs.”
He bounded up the steps, feeling oddly light. His wife—his beloved wife—was rightly furious at him. Not for the last time. He had called her a liar, which was cruel but perhaps fair. Yet his own sins were far greater.
She loved him. She would forgive him.
Though when he was staring down at her letter, his certainty wavered. Daisy had obviously been deeply unhappy when she wrote the note; there were blurred spots on the sheet, as if tears had fallen there. Miles rubbed them with his thumb, as if he could wipe away her sorrow.
The sorrow he had stupidly caused.
In truth, he didn’t give a damn why they got married. He would never give away Belle. In fact, he felt a distinct pang of alarm at the fact that Daisy was running around the city with their daughter in a basket once again. At least this time a maid was in attendance.
“I don’t want to remain married to you. I can’t live with a husband who despises me.”
That was pretty straightforward. He’d been a sanctimonious ass. His reaction had sprung from base rage instead of heartfelt truth. Now that he’d calmed down, it was inconceivable to him that he had stormed out of the room like a child in a tantrum.
Leaving her there, vulnerable and rejected.
Of course she’d left him.
He couldn’t read the next line because tears had blurred the ink—something about a laundry basket—but the gist was clear enough: she didn’t feel worthwhile enough to marry him. A sour taste rose up his throat.
Worthwhile? She was innocent and good, interested only in saving her sister from an orphanage, whereas in contrast he had nothing to be righteous about. Nothing.
Lord Wharton’s scorn wasn’t misplaced: even given that he stayed within the bounds of acceptable gentlemanly behavior, that didn’t change the unethical nature of his actions.
“Belle wouldn’t have been mine any longer.”
Also true. Had Daisy immediately disclosed Belle’s fatherhood after arriving at his house, he would have found Wharton and forced him to accept his responsibilities. Not that Belle would have been dispatched to an orphanage, but likely to a good woman in the country. That was the fate of most infants born on the wrong side of the blanket, at least if they were fathered by men with a conscience. Daisy would have been unlikely to see Belle again.
Yet Miles had flown Belle into the air the way he had his sisters. He had walked the floor all night long, the wailing child clinging to him. Around six in the morning, Belle had looked at him with drenched blue eyes and then, with a shuddering sigh, tucked her head into the curve of his shoulder.
He claimed not to believe in love at first sight, but he was already in love with his daughter.
