“She said to put it in writing, my lord.”
Hugh gaped at his butler. “Writing?”
“Yes, my lord. I am sure you are familiar with it. It requires pen and ink and paper. There is some in your dressing room. Shall I fetch it?” Payne deposited the glass of brandy on his nightstand. “I did tell you to tell her about her father.”
“Thank you, Payne. What I really need at this moment is another sanctimonious ‘I told you so.’”
“You are most welcome, my lord. I do try my best. Will there be anything else?”
“Go back to the blasted woman’s bedchamber and tell her I demand an audience!”
“Of course, my lord. I am sure my knocking for the third time at this late hour will garner more a favorable result than the previous two.” The outspoken servant bowed with little enthusiasm and disappeared again out of the door.
A blasted letter! Outrageous. When he had tried repeatedly to apologize to her and explain his reasoning. He had tried last night, when a stony-faced Minerva had finally emerged from the ladies’ retiring room, where he had been waiting, but she had glided past him into the ballroom as if he were invisible. Then she proceeded to attach herself to his mother’s side for the rest of the evening. Back home, she used her sisters as her bodyguards.
He had said “Good night, my love” at the top of the stairs.
“Sleep well, my love.”
He ensured that the “my loves” were enunciated with particular emphasis in case she had forgotten their code, yet she left him to pace the length of the portrait gallery for two painful hours before he accepted she wasn’t coming.
Nor did she appear the following morning either. He could say that with absolute certainty because after a night of torturous insomnia he had returned to the gallery promptly at five, watched the sun rise, and heard the house wake, only to be greeted by the deadpan face of Payne, who had been sent by his mother to tell him if he didn’t eat breakfast in the next fifteen minutes, he could go to church on an empty stomach.
Church had been another delight. She had ignored him in the carriage. Ignored his attempt to trail behind the others as they arrived, and then sat next to him stiffly. Exactly like an iceberg. Staring resolutely at Reverend Cranham as the banns were read again before bolting out the door on Jeremiah’s arm.
Hugh had tried again in the afternoon, only to be shooed away by his mother because Minerva was in the midst of being measured by Madame Devy for a blasted wedding gown and trousseau. A task that apparently took several hours and one that caused him to watch the sun go down as he paced his study, and any plans he had had to intercept her before or after dinner were thwarted because she never bothered to arrive. Minerva had been struck down by a sudden headache, and thanks to her hawk-eyed, hovering sentry Diana, he’d had to abort his forlorn attempt to lay siege to her bedchamber.
Clearly she was determined to make him suffer. And it was working. He’d never felt more wretched in his life.
Listlessly, he stared out the window, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. Maybe he should write her a blasted letter. As much as she didn’t want to hear him, he had much to say. Most of it groveling. He was sorry for practically everything. For dragging her into his mess, shamelessly using her obvious need for money for his own gain. He was sorry for upending her life and dragging her across the country, making all his problems her problems, foisting Lucretia and his mother on her, causing friction between her and her sisters, hiding her father’s return, hiding his unpalatable truths from her and …
And most important of all, he was sorry for not being good enough.
Because he absolutely understood all the reasons she was furious at him and why she wanted to be permanently shot of him.
The sad truth was, he could probably write all that much better than he could say it. He did have a way with the written word. It was his innate talent at letter writing that had got him into this predicament in the first place. But a letter was so impersonal, and he needed the personal now more than he ever had before. He needed to look into her eyes. Needed to see if she felt as wretched as he did. To see if she cared enough to gift him with just a kernel of hope.
Payne came back in without knocking. His bland face said it all.
“I am to tell you that you are a brute. A beast…” He ticked the insults off on his fingers. “A big fat liar. A child who needs to grow up. A vile, sweet-talking seducer.” The butler scowled at that. “If you will excuse the interruption in the message, my lord—shame on you!” He skewered Hugh with a glare, his lip curled in distaste. “Have you no morals?”
“I didn’t seduce her … not completely. We kissed … twice.” Not that it was any of Payne’s bloody business! “And, for the record, on both occasions she kissed me back.”
“Did you give her a choice?”
“Do you want me to kick your insubordinate arse down the stairs? Of course I gave her a blasted choice! What do you take me for? Get back to reciting your bloody message. I could see you were enjoying it.”
“A vile, sweet-talking seducer…”
“We have established that.”
“A coward.”
“That’s a bit harsh.”
“Who is not very nice.” That one hurt. “And a snob.”
“‘A snob’? Are you sure?”
“I queried it myself, sir, as there is no denying you are many, many dreadful things … but I have never once known you to resort to condescending aristocratic airs and graces with anyone.”
“I do believe that is the most gushing praise I have ever received from you, Payne.”
The butler acknowledged this with a curt nod. “But she was adamant. She said you were—and I am directly quoting here rather than paraphrasing—‘a cowardly snob who shamelessly uses his dead ancestors to untangle yourself from unsavory entanglements.’”
The familiarity of the unusual phrase sparked something in his memory. She’d said exactly the same thing last night—but he had been too stunned she thought he had romantic feelings for Sarah, of all people, to pick up on it.
“What does that even mean, Payne?” Because clearly for Minerva it mattered enough to warrant repeating.
“I couldn’t hazard a guess, my lord, but she had tears in her eyes as she said it and she choked the words out.”
“Choked?”
“She was most upset, my lord. Most upset.”
“Most upset? Or crying upset?”
“It certainly sounded as if she was crying after she slammed the door in my face. Which, of course, was really your face as I was there in your stead.” The butler frowned, troubled. “She had that drawn, pinched, and puffy look about her features which women get when they are in utter despair. I thought she had been crying prior to the door slamming, too.” He pointed to his eye. “She was very bloodshot.”
Hugh hadn’t thought his suffering could get any worse. Once again, he was proved horribly wrong. Minerva was crying—brave, tenacious, resourceful, selfless, all-round wonderful Minerva was crying—and it was all his fault.
“Oh yes … and she told me you weren’t worth the money nor the time nor the effort she’s put into you and she hopes, with every fiber of her being, you rot in hell.”
“Well, you can inform her that her wish has come true. I am in the deepest bowels of hell already.”
And he hated it. He’d never felt so ill without actually being ill. His vocal cords felt strangled, his head was all over the place, he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, and something hard, heavy, and bony was jumping mercilessly on his heart. “I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the rot sets in.” Hugh let out a long, self-pitying sigh. “What am I going to do, Payne? I am utterly miserable.”
“If I might be so bold, my lord, you have been utterly miserable for at least a week. Ever since the day the pair of you escaped, when I assume you kissed her—and she foolishly kissed you back.”
“You are very astute, Payne. I have been. I cannot seem to shake it.”
“Perhaps it is time to face facts.”
“That she hates me and wants nothing more to do with me?”
“That you have fallen in love with your fiancée and you need to tell her.”
The queasiness was immediate, and he wanted to deny it, but the feelings he had for Minerva were just too strong to deny what they truly were any longer.
“I do love her.” All the air escaped from his lungs in a whoosh. The unthinkable had happened. “I love Minerva.…”
“Then tell her.”
“I have.” That was the root cause of his misery. The thing that ate away at him mercilessly. “She didn’t want to know.”
“I must say that surprises me, as I thought her quite smitten with you, although heaven only knows why.”
“She said she had affection for me, too. Then turned me down flat.”
“You proposed?”
“I proposed we conduct an experiment to see if I should propose one day. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, not in those exact words.”
“Might I ask which words you used?”
“It wasn’t so much a proposal, really, as a declaration of sorts that I might well be amenable to pursuing a serious attachment if she was. Although obviously, given my history I was not in a position to ask outright…” Payne watched his gesticulating left hand with interest. “Because I am well aware I am not a sound bet. I certainly recall telling her I felt attraction, passion, and a deep affection for her. And I definitely suggested in the strongest possible terms, whilst I couldn’t make cast-iron promises I wouldn’t return to my old ways—because let’s face it, the Standish male makes a notoriously bad husband and all that … but I would certainly endeavor to do my damndest to be worthy of her affections and eventually…” Payne held up his hand and shook his head.
“That is a lot of words.”
“I was thorough.”
“Not necessarily clear words.”
“They were as clear as crystal, Payne. I laid all my cards on the table. Bared my soul. Warts and all.”
“But did you say the word, my lord? The actual word? The one which would have made all those other words quite superfluous?”
“If you mean the dreaded ‘L’ word, then not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“I used the words ‘deep affection’ rather than the dreaded ‘L’ word. It had all come on so suddenly, you see. I suspected it but I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for it at the time.” Was he ready for it now? Love was a huge commitment. A much bigger commitment than deep affection. He took a big slug of his brandy and plopped heavily on the mattress, because the solid oak floor felt oddly unsteady. “But it was certainly implied.”
“I see.” Payne shook his head again and walked to the door. “It’s a miracle you haven’t driven me to drink.”
“Is that it?”
“It’s midnight. I am going to bed.”
“Is that all the counsel I am to receive in my hour of need? I am a broken man, Payne!”
“You are an idiot, my lord.” His more-annoying-than-usual servant turned the handle and smiled. “But I am sure you will work it all out in the end.”
Hugh nursed the brandy for a few minutes, trying to work it all out, and then decided he couldn’t. What was there to work out? Because once you scraped back all the other complications, it all boiled down to one depressing thing.
He wanted her and she didn’t want him.
It was that simple and that tragic and he couldn’t change a damn thing about it.
But she was miserable, too, for entirely different reasons, and he could at least apologize for everything he had done to cause it. And if she wouldn’t talk to him, he might as well write it down because, if nothing else, a heartfelt and genuine apology would go some way toward letting her know he wasn’t entirely the selfish and callous brute she accused him of being. If she didn’t accept it, so be it, but she would read it, and that would have to do.
He strode to his dressing room and grabbed the stationery, then sat at his dressing table only to stare mournfully at the blank sheet. He needed a good opening sentence. Something strong.
My Dearest Minerva,
I am in torment. I wish you would speak to me, but in the absence of conversation I am forced to justify my actions concerning your father …
He scribbled out the words, then screwed up the sheet into a tight ball, which he threw.
My Dearest Minerva,
I am an arse.
I suspect I have always been an arse, but since I met you, I keep seeing myself in the mirror and wishing I wasn’t an arse. I realize to you my behavior seems bizarre at times, probably childish and definitely selfish. You called all those things correctly, my love.
My love.
Not a code word or a call to arms. But a fact. An irrefutable, undeniable, and irrepressible fact. Some things just were.
But the truth is, I love you and it terrifies me.
And for some inexplicable reason, he didn’t feel queasy anymore. Why was that? Had he finally accepted it? Was he finally prepared to take the risk?
As a test, Hugh closed his eyes and pictured Minerva in a wedding gown, coming toward him down the aisle. He smiled at the image, as it wasn’t anywhere near as abhorrent as he had always assumed such a thing would be. He mentally took her hand and listened to the ghostly voice of the fantasy Reverend Cranham recite the vows … “Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others…” The queasiness returned with a vengeance. “Keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live.”
The biliousness was accompanied by palpitations so erratic he had to take several deep breaths to bring them under control. He knew exactly what had caused this extreme reaction. It was his tainted Standish blood rebelling.
It was just too damn strong.