Chapter Thirteen

Her husband’s attempts in the following days to resume his former activities had not escaped Jocelyn’s notice, even if at night he sought her bed. She could not ask for a more passionate lover. But come the morning, she was well aware that he had withheld his heart. Apparently, his indifference had not eluded the attention of his sister Chloe, either. Recovering from her recent miscarriage, the vibrant young viscountess had taken it upon herself to support Jocelyn in light of her husband’s neglect. Jocelyn had few true friends in London and consoled herself by spending Devon’s money on new furnishings and guarding the door against the trollops. Mrs. Hadley, the housekeeper, proved helpful in both regards.

In between these endeavors, however, Chloe had escorted Jocelyn on several shopping excursions, a visit to the museum and a Parisian perfumery, as well as to a breakfast party that went on into the evening.

Today Chloe insisted they go to the park. Jocelyn had at first refused, suddenly realizing that all these efforts to fill her empty hours only made her more aware of her emptiness—and the fact that Devon’s inattention was obvious to even his family.

“I really do not feel like walking in the park today, Chloe, but it is kind of you to ask.”

Chloe, being a Boscastle through and through, had insisted. “You will go, Jocelyn, and you will flirt and show everyone that—”

“That I do not care if my husband neglects me?” she asked with a rueful smile. “But I do care. I care too much about him, and I don’t care who knows it.”

“Then you will come?”

She sighed. “Yes, but only because you will pester me incessantly until I do.”

         

Devon arrived at the park at the fashionable hour with his boisterous friends, a little surprised to find his wife and Chloe walking together with several young men who had admired his sister before her marriage and, apparently, still did.

He leaned up against a tree and watched his wife in silence, waiting for her to notice him. It was Chloe, however, who spotted him first and detached herself from her faithful flock to approach him.

“Well, he honors us with his presence.”

He smiled faintly. “How do you feel?”

“Well enough.” But she glanced away after she answered him, and he knew better than to pursue the subject of the child she had lost.

“Was it your idea to bring Jocelyn here?” he asked after a long pause.

“Yes,” she said brightly. “And I am happy to see how well she fits into Society. In fact, she’s become quite the flirt, hasn’t she?”

“Jocelyn?”

“Haven’t you noticed, Devon? She is not the little wallflower everyone used to ignore. I lose one of my followers every time I take her out.”

Devon looked up and feigned a casual glance in Jocelyn’s direction; the truth was, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her since he had arrived. He knew damn well Chloe was given to exaggeration and was trying to make him feel guilty for his inattention to Jocelyn, but…

Who the devil was she talking to? He had seen her walking to the edge of the water a moment ago by herself, and now there was a man at her side.

This broad-shouldered gallant fellow who was gazing down at her so enraptly was no one he knew, was he? He watched her tilt her head back and laugh. Her companion leaned into her as if he were enamored of the very air she breathed.

He glanced away, his mouth tightening in displeasure. He bloody well knew seduction when he saw it, but he had not expected to see it practiced on…his wife. Not with him standing here watching, although he didn’t think he’d be any happier if the two of them were carrying on behind closed doors.

“Are you going to ignore her forever?” his sister asked softly from her position on the other side of the tree.

“She appears to be attracting enough attention,” he replied in a deceptively uninvolved voice.

“But not yours.”

“Let’s leave the lectures to Grayson and Emma,” he said with a beguiling grin. “You and I are on the same side, remember?”

She hesitated, her concern obvious in her eyes. She and Devon had been each other’s champions against their overwhelming siblings all throughout childhood. And Devon knew, despite her insistence otherwise, that losing her child had rendered her emotions more tender than ever.

She sighed. “I am not going to lecture you. If you don’t mind her taking a lover, why should I?”

He frowned and watched her saunter away to rejoin her friends. Did he mind Jocelyn taking a lover? Hadn’t she just met this fool who was pursuing her? Hadn’t she spent every night in Devon’s bed? He hadn’t given her any cause to seek another man’s affections, had he?

He’d just lost sight of Jocelyn; he knew she couldn’t have vanished into the air, and that she wouldn’t let herself be led astray by a stranger…even if she had been lured to a midnight tryst with him.

He shook his head, realizing how ridiculous this had become. A man secretly observing his wife in a scenario that he had played too often in the past and working himself into a stew over it, too. He wondered how she would react.

He waited for her to walk away from her admirer. There. She’d taken a step aside. The blasted fool followed her. He frowned. Did she just give the Lothario an elbow, or a whispered encouragement?

Did she realize that her husband was standing only a few steps away? Her admirer seemed to have no inkling.

And surely she had not worn such clinging gowns before he’d married her. Where was her pelisse, anyway? Had she, or someone else, that jackanapes, slipped it off her white shoulders? He knew from practice how effective, how easy it was to unfasten a woman’s cloak. How delectable it was to feather shivering kisses down her throat to her breasts.

He straightened his shoulders. He also knew how Jocelyn had moaned in delight when he’d taken tender bites of her plump breasts the night before. He couldn’t imagine another man touching her. He wouldn’t stand for it.

She glanced up, and he knew then she was perfectly aware that he could see her. In fact, if she had been any other woman of his acquaintance, he would have suspected she wanted to provoke his jealousy.

Was he jealous? No. Yes. Dammit, yes. He was burning up from head to toe. But it was, he reassured himself, an understandable sense of possessiveness that did not carry any deep implications. Just because he disliked other men playing up to the woman he’d been forced to marry didn’t mean…it didn’t mean anything.

He wouldn’t let it mean anything. No one could make him feel what he refused to feel. And he felt nothing of any enduring nature. Nothing at least that was going to change him from a heartless rakehell into a devoted husband. Then he looked up again at Jocelyn and that man, and the unexpected twist of emotion that tightened his heart made a mockery of his self-deception.

Fight it as he would, he’d already begun to change.