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The flat blackness of her bedroom blanketed her. He would leave tomorrow. She felt the wet tickle of a tear inching slowly down her skin and thanked God that he was going.
Chapter 8
Aidan tossed the remainder of his cigar onto the rocks beneath the train platform and strode down the steps. He headed for the crowded street where Penrose had already hailed the carriage. By the time he threw open the door of his modest Mayfair townhome, any sense of calm that the train had rocked into him had vanished.
“Shall I bring your personal letters immediately?” Penrose asked.
Aidan wanted to snap at the man, but he could not decide how he should answer. Instead of shouting, he bit his tongue and brushed past his secretary to retreat to his study. With a sneer, he took a seat behind his massive mahogany desk. The piece was a monstrosity that had come with the house, likely because it wouldn’t fit out the doorway.
Penrose said not a word as he retrieved a glass of whisky for Aidan, then disappeared through the door that led to his own smaller office beyond. The fluttering sounds of paper being sorted filtered through the door. Aidan stared absentmindedly out the large window next to his desk and thought of nothing.
He finished the tumbler of whisky, and Penrose brought him the decanter and a few pieces of correspondence before retreating again.
Aidan ignored the papers before him and resumed his study of the window.
“A note from Mrs. Renier,” Penrose murmured when he reappeared to add another letter to the pile. Aidan snapped that one up and looked it over. She was in London for a brief stay while her husband was on the Continent. She had instructed the butler not to place the knocker on the door, but a private dinner in her salon would not be an imposition.
At their last private dinner he’d fucked her on the table before the soup course had ended. The footman had dropped the fish course in the doorway, but they hadn’t bothered to stop what they were doing. She had simply bared her teeth and growled at Aidan to pound her harder. Perhaps that kind of mercenary focus was exactly what he needed.
Aidan folded the letter and considered her offer. He’d already ended the affair, and he was usually unforgiving in that regard. The invitation should have irritated him, at the least. On a bad day, he might’ve been enraged by it. What the hell kind of day was he having that he was actually tempted to take Mrs. Renier up on her offer?
Aidan frowned at the window. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea. If he resumed his normal activities, that would be proof that Katie’s resurrection meant nothing. “Penrose.”
His secretary materialized in the doorway. “Sir?”
“Please inform Mrs. Renier that I will join her for dinner tonight at nine.”
“Yes, sir. And Mr. Scarborough’s invitation to tomorrow’s lecture?”
“Pardon?”
Penrose’s gaze slid to the desk, and Aidan saw that there was now a tall stack of correspondence there. He’d only made it through one piece in—he glanced at the clock—an hour.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll look over the other business later.”
“Later, sir? All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. Leave me be.”
Penrose nodded and shut the door to his little room with a wary look. Normally Aidan let nothing come between him and work. Today he simply swung back to the window.
Katie had turned away from him . . . and he’d let her. Her claim of being disconcerted had wounded his pride and pushed him on his way—exactly the outcome she’d been looking for, he realized now. The lie that he’d only wanted to say good-bye had come easily to his lips. He’d been trying to wound her as she had wounded him. Instead, he’d seen relief in her eyes.
But why was she so disturbed by him? When he’d boarded the train, he’d told himself that she was married now and cared nothing for him, but that made no sense now that he’d shed his anger. If she were indifferent to him, completely absorbed in feelings for another man, his presence would be less than disturbing; it would be inconsequential. But he’d affected her, and that meant she still felt something.
“Hmm.” The progress of a slowly strolling couple occupied his eyes as they passed on the walk in front of his window, but his mind was still far north of London.
Perhaps he had exited the field prematurely. That story about her husband was poppycock. No man would let his wife live halfway around the world if he loved her. And no decent husband would let his wife toil in a shop when he had funds enough to run a plantation.
She’d left her husband. She must have.
Still, it had nothing to do with Aidan. He’d pass an evening with Mrs. Renier just to prove it.
He told himself to leave off staring out the window and be productive. An hour of work and he could bathe and dress and set off for Mrs. Renier’s house and a few hours of oblivion. But he was so damn tired.
Weariness pulled at him as if weights hung from his wrists and ankles. The feeling should’ve been familiar. He never slept well. But usually his tiredness was a restless ache. This felt more like a shroud of lead.
He glanced at the clock. Seven P.M.
