Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [123]
“I only took it for a month.”
“Then I will speak to the estate agent and extend the lease.”
“I will not be living in town. A whole house is a waste.”
He looked down at her. “But when you do come, I do not want you staying on Park Lane or with other friends. Since you will not stay with me, you need a house.”
She swallowed an uprising of emotion and caught her breath. “I do not think I can be happy as your sometimes mistress, Castleford. There are women who can do that, I know, but I am not one of them.”
He did not move. He did not speak. She waited for the objections, the arguments. They did not come.
Nor did any talk of marriage. The absence of those words hung there between them.
He was so outrageous that scandal did not bother with him anymore. But there was scandal that titillates, and then there was scandal that truly shocks. Today she had caused the latter kind, as she had known she would for weeks now.
The man in this bed did not care about that. He was prepared to kill an old friend because of today’s events if he must. He found the notion of people gossiping about her boring at worst, no doubt. He did not blame her for the past, she was sure.
But the whole world knew now what Latham had done with her, no matter how they judged it. The taint was public, and she would never escape that. The Duke of Castleford was obligated to care about such things regarding his duchess in ways Castleford the man never would.
If they could make a life out of Saturdays and Mondays, it might not matter. Unfortunately, every week had a Tuesday in it.
He did not demand that she announce that this night was the last one. He did not say it either. But he kissed her in a way that made her heart break, and his warm breath penetrated to her blood when he moved his mouth to her neck.
She gave herself over to him as she never had before. She embraced the emotions in all their sweetness and pain, and they affected every pleasure. She would not forget any of it, she promised herself. Not ever. Not the excitement and not the sadness, and especially not the love.
Chapter Twenty-six
“You are not feeling chilled, are you, Audrianna?” Verity asked.
“I am fine. Stop making me an invalid. It has been three weeks since I gave birth, and I am quite myself again.”
Verity tucked a blanket around Audrianna’s legs anyway.
“I am so glad that you thought of this, Daphne,” Celia said. “I promise not to cry.”
“In a few weeks, you can all come to the new property, once the greenhouse is completed and the plants are moved,” Daphne said. “The house is larger than the one used by The Rarest Blooms now, and the soil better, I think. The roads to London are excellent, so we can still bring the plants and flowers in one day if the wagon leaves in early morning.”
“It sounds like a fine property,” Verity said. “It will not be the same, of course, but in a year’s time it will seem as much like home to all of us as the other one does now.”
Daphne trusted so. Denouncing Latham had not stopped the sale of The Rarest Blooms’ land. Those papers had already been signed, and there was no ending it. Nor had she been as sorry as she might have been. It would perhaps be a good idea to have some distance from London for a while. And, she had to admit, eighty thousand pounds in trust put a different light on things too.
“He went to France, you must have heard,” Verity said. “Latham. Hawkeswell told me last night that it was all through the clubs yesterday.”
Everyone knew. Daphne did, because she had received a letter at Park Lane, where she had just spent a few days helping Audrianna adjust to both a new son and a new sister-in-law. The letter had a familiar scrawl, and seeing that hand had made her heart ache. He has fled to France was all it said.
No one had spoken to her about Castleford the days she stayed at Park Lane. As if by agreement, his name never was mentioned. She was too proud to ask if he fared well, lest her friends think she pined for him.
She did, of course. Privately. She