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He exchanged a smile with Sir Phineas, and Anne’s hands clenched.
He had everything.
And now he was coming for everything ofhers.
She would have the unwelcome task of trying to shield the staff from their affair, though the servants must have heard all about their master’s exploits over the years. All of London seemed well versed in the scandal. But she also couldn’t bear to have the staff thinking that she didn’t support the duke’s return. Her thoughts and feelings on the dukedom were private.
“This isn’t fair,” Anne said. He had promised to bediscreet.
“None of this has ever been fair,” he said. He strode away with his hand on Sir Phineas’s back.
The dog barked once, then ran after them.
He had left her again to pick up the pieces of the life he insisted on tattering. No more, she thought with a burst of anger. For the second time that day, she took her skirts in hand and ran, the clack of her shoes pounding in the same rhythm of her heart. It felt good to run, to feel the blood coursing through her.
She found them in the library, standing together. Too close, of course.
The dog whined and wagged its tail.
Anne snapped the door shut behind her. “You cannot stay here.”
Hawthorne shook a pinch of snuff onto Sir Phineas’s wrist, lifted it to his nose, and inhaled. He pressed a kiss to his skin. “And yet I feel remarkably comfortable.”
Sir Phineas shot a look at Hawthorne. “I thought this was settled between you both? Perhaps I amde trop.”
“You most certainly are,” Anne snapped.
Hawthorne put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay,” he said, his voice soft and warm and inviting. Anne remembered the hypnotic appeal of his persuasion and wasn’t surprised when Sir Phineas sighed and dropped himself into the armchair by the fire.
“There isn’t much you can do,” Hawthorne said, and there was a note of apology in his voice.
“Such is the lot of women. I suppose I have no choice but to bow my head when the lord and master appears.” The anger drained from her and a headache pulsed in its wake. She spared one last look at her husband and his lover and flung the library door open to leave.
“Shall we see you at dinner?” Hawthorne called after her.
If she had known any obscene gestures, she would have flung one at him, but instead she stalked off to lick her wounds alone in the single untouched bedroom of the second floor.
Chapter Fifteen
The pounding on the front door was so loud that Letty could hear it clear into her workroom. She looked up from her sketches, smearing a dab of paint in the process. Was Fraser not in his showroom to handle his clients? It was early evening, so she supposed he had already locked up for the night.
She pushed her book aside and took off her painting smock. Fraser’s workroom was dark, and so was the furniture showroom at the front of the building. She knew the layout so well that she didn’t need a candle to find her way to the front door.
Letty unlatched the door and poked her head outside. Shock raced through her as she saw Anne standing at the other door beside the showroom, the one that led to her own apartment upstairs. Her hood was down and her hair was mussed, blond strands dancing in the wind and catching against her eyelashes and lips. Her ears were red. More concerningly, so were her eyes.
“Anne! What’s wrong?” When Letty raised her head to look for the ducal carriage and the habitual footmen that accompanied it, she was surprised that they were nowhere to be seen.
Anne threw herself at her. Her arms snaked around Letty’s waist, and she wedged her head under her chin. Letty’s hands were ungloved and icy, but she didn’t care. She clasped Anne tightly to her.
Anne couldn’t possibly be so upset at the way Letty had left her last night, could she? Guilt panged through her. She hadn’t beenable to bear another minute in the magic of that bedchamber, the world that she and Anne had created for the two of them, filled with cake and firelight and laughter.
The problem was that it was a night encased in a bubble, an illusion of what Letty yearned for. They were of two different worlds, and once the lust had been slaked, the stark reality of it had torn at her heart. She couldn’t imagine staying the night in a duchess’s bedchamber, in a mansion where she didn’t belong.
She also hadn’t been able to convince herself to go to Hawthorne House today, deciding to stay home and work on plans from her workroom. Perhaps it was cowardice, but last night’s lovemaking had surprised her. Not the fiery passion that burned between them, but the deep well of emotion that she had felt afterward when she fled into the night.
That emotion pressed up against her heart again as soon as she saw Anne.
“I’m here,” she murmured, rubbing a hand up and down Anne’s back. She glanced around again. It was a quiet street, and no one was around. But she knew there were plenty of people who liked to peer from windows and gossip about the goings-on of their neighbors. “Come, let’s go inside. I shall make you a cup of tea and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”
